The worst conclusion to draw from Iceland’s EU referendum result last month would be that the country, apparently now on Donald Trump’s imperial map along with Canada and Greenland, wanted to distance itself from Europe. Rather, the decision to refuse the reopening of EU accession talks shows that asking voters to choose between membership of the 27-nation bloc and staying outside the club is too binary. Some countries want to be inside the European tent without necessarily becoming members. The EU needs a new status for them.
There are existing models of close cooperation. Iceland and Norway, for example, participate in much of the single market through the European Economic Area (EEA). A range of other partial, gradual or associated membership options for candidate countries is being debated.
What I am proposing is different from any of them. It is not about setting up a stepping stone to accession, nor is it primarily about access to the single market. Instead, it is about letting like-minded countries combine with the EU when geopolitical and geo-economic necessities demand it, without them having to sign up to a predetermined constitutional outcome.
The main criterion for the novel status I call “integrated partnership” would be geopolitical rather than geographical. A country would not have to aspire to EU membership to qualify. It would not even have to be situated in Europe. Iceland, the UK and Norway are obvious potential candidates, but so are Canada, Japan and South Korea.
These countries would be inside the tent wherever legally and politically possible, pooling sovereignty across specific policy areas. This relationship could ultimately amount to quasi-membership, with corresponding rights and obligations. Unlike membership of the EEA, however, it would extend beyond the economy. Defence, security, economic security and foreign policy would be as fundamental to the relationship as trade and the single market.
Countries already seeking full EU membership, of which there are nine at the moment, will continue to prioritise that end goal. But the EU will struggle to deliver on its promises to all of those in the queue within a reasonable timeframe. Political resistance to the union’s expansion beyond the 27 existing members could intensify if key national elections next year create a shift in the EU’s majority political outlook. Already, internal reforms, budgetary concerns and the complexities of accession could leave some countries waiting for years.
All sides would benefit from giving these queueing nations another option. Ukraine or the western Balkan countries should not remain stranded in a geopolitical waiting room simply because the EU lacks the political will or administrative bandwidth to admit them. Of course, safeguards are essential: this kind of advanced partnership must be a bridge to membership for those seeking it, not a car park that allows governments of existing EU nations to renege on promises if they become electorally unpopular.
The defining test for partners must be genuine like-mindedness around democratic values: a sustained commitment to liberal democracy, the rule of law, political sovereignty and an international order based on rules.
Canada should be among the first candidates. The EU-Canada summit in October should go beyond another list of worthy deliverables and start the process of establishing a special status so deep that the country could eventually become the equivalent of an EU member state in all but name. Ursula von der Leyen should announce as much in her annual state of the union address this week. With Canada’s relationship with the US on the ropes, Brussels has an eager partner in Mark Carney, who said on Sunday that he wants a “unique alliance” with the EU.
But that would require clear commitments from Ottawa as well as Brussels. Integrated partners should not get a free ticket to the benefits of EU policies without corresponding obligations and costs.
The case for this is becoming easier to make. Democracies face increasingly aggressive behaviour from authoritarian powers. Middle powers risk being isolated, divided and picked off individually. As Carney has argued, they must act together in response to the rupture of the old international order. Integrated partnership could help operationalise Carney’s argument.
There is also a more uncomfortable reason for new geopolitical architecture. It cannot be assumed that countries, even those supposedly joined at the hip through the EU, will always continue on a like-minded path. France or Germany could in the future be governed by illiberal anti-European forces unwilling to defend the principles on which European integration rests.
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A network encompassing democratic EU members and their close partners could then become a political counterweight, helping to preserve collective action when consensus inside the EU becomes impossible. This should not become an alternative EU. But Europe cannot base its geopolitical strategy on the assumption that every one of its governments will remain committed to European integration or even liberal democracy.
The European project emerged from the ruins of the second world war. Now, in a very different geopolitical context, we need ambitious mechanisms for bringing like-minded democracies together. But full EU membership cannot be the only route to deep integration. Maximum integration without a predetermined end point should now become the objective.
Iceland’s vote, driven by concerns over fisheries and other totemic national issues, shows why new thinking and geopolitical ambition are needed. Geography should no more determine who can be inside Europe’s tent than the time it takes to conduct painstaking enlargement negotiations. Increasingly, the decisive question is whether Europe can club together with all countries that are prepared to defend democratic principles together.
