David Cameron’s renegotiation has hit a bump after the Visegrád group of nations – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic – all rejected the Prime Minister’s “emergency brake” – a drawing down of benefits to European migrants.
If there was ever a moment that summed up Cameron’s uncertain approach to diplomacy in Europe, this is surely it. The policy is bad, and the diplomacy has been worse. Even if the Prime Minister had secured his original, full-fat emergency brake – a blanket four-year ban on benefit claims from migrants from the EU area – it wouldn’t have done a thing to stop immigration from the EU to the UK, which is driven by the promise of work, not the dubious delights of British Job Centres. But while the number of migrants claiming benefits is vanishingly small, the losers from Cameron’s plan are concentrated in post-Communist Europe; but it is these nations that Downing Street has done the least to win over.
The problem is longstanding. During the Prime Minister’s failed attempt to prevent Jean-Claude Juncker becoming President of the European Commission, I went to lunch with a member of the diplomatic staff from one of the Visegrad group nations. They were frustrated what they saw as his bungling of the Juncker affair – “It’s not good enough to say: ‘I don’t like Juncker’ over and over – who does he like?” and angry that they had no idea what it was that Downing Street wanted to acheive in the renegotiation.
Although Cameron’s approach to European diplomacy has improved since then, there is still a feeling among the Visegrad states that he regards Eastern Europe as a problem to be talked about, rather than to. The charm offensive towards Angela Merkel has no equivalent among the nations that will lose the most from Cameron’s plan. It may be that that lack of legwork and diligence now sends Britain out of Europe.
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