By @DdJong: it’s five to midnight for the European Union

The countdown to the UK’s Brexit-referendum has begun. It’s striking how contradictory are the reactions to this here in Brussels. Last week the Polish president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, told a meeting of European Christian Democrat and other centre-right parties that we shouldn’t move too fast on European integration. A few days later the Belgian Liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt asserted that without the UK on board it would be easier to move towards a really federal Europe. This shows how divided the European Union is and how fragile. When we advocate a looser form of cooperation between member states, we are often accused of provincialism, yet it is precisely such a cautious approach which could prevent the whole thing from falling to bits.

Most people in the Brussels bubble are trying to keep a low profile and not put forward any more wild plans, plans which tend to range from reinforcing European Economic Governance to establishing a European Public Prosecutors’ Office to further interference in energy policy and even in national security policies. These plans have been put on the back burner, but once June 23rd is behind us, they’ll be quickly brought back into view and the Brussels bubble will be back to its old ways.

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