Brexit – a Slap or an Opportunity?

United Kingdom’s reasons for leaving the EU were manifold. However, analyses show that only some of them had anything to do with the EU itself. So are those saying that Brexit is a slap in the face of the European Union right?

Older generation’s nostalgia for good old England was one of the reasons for Brexit that had nothing to do with the EU. However, what was more important was the fact that European cooperation was of no benefit to large agglomerations with people unemployed in second generation now. The information whether and how they could benefit from European cooperation definitely did not reach them.

Here I am getting to the most important lesson I learnt from Brexit – poor communication. How come that attempts to explain what the EU is and what its benefits are failed in more than 50 % of Britons? I see this as a key fact because in the Czech Republic, too, surveys show that the stronger euro-scepticism, the less informed respondent.

I believe that better communication about the EU can begin with local politicians facing up to the European process, and really going along with it again, otherwise all European reforms will be to no avail. The EU is a project of all member states – all are responsible for it and communication is a part of this responsibility. First of all, we should abandon the “us vs. them” rhetoric. “Us, the good Czechs, Germans, Italians” against the bad “them in Brussels”. Union offices are not held by Martians! They are held by common Czechs, Germans, Italians, i.e. member-state inhabitants.

We must also think about communicating about the EU in a proactive way. Why there is no multi-lingual European television offering program normal people would be interested in? Why not interspersing football and a romantic movie starring Julia Roberts with quick European News?

So-called nationalization of achievements and Europeanization of failures are another example of practices that need to go. Local politicians love to take credit for European cooperation achievements and love to use “Brussels” as the culprit for their own failures and incompetence. So-called gold-plating is a wide-spread practice for pushing through political interests or unpopular local measures. When being transposed into the national laws of member states, local politicians give the EU directive additional powers, asserting that the regulation cannot be discussed as it was ordered by Brussels. Do you remember the ban on unpacked bakery products? Or sensor water taps at school canteens? No, these measures were not ordered from Brussels!

Brexit also presents an opportunity to review activities of EU institutions – the European Council, the Commission and the Parliament – and to assess if their interactions are balanced. We can also look into the powers of the European institutions – e.g. discuss them with national parliaments and ask local MPs whether they would be interested in picking up some of the European agenda and deal with it back at home. I bet that such an exercise would only produce even more homework for the EU. There are continental, security and migration challenges that we need to address together, as one European Union; tackling them individually will never work.

While some reasons for Brexit resulted from Britons’ belief that the EU does not work, other resulted from entirely opposite sentiments. What was the key point of the Brexit campaign? Migration. British people believe that Central and East European workers take British jobs and are a drain on the British benefits system. They also objected to UK contributions to EU budget being used to repair roads and build wastewater treatment plants somewhere in Poland or Hungary instead of being used to support British health care. In both cases British people complained about EU working, not about EU not working. Certain EU policies are simply no acceptable for them, despite of all advantage of the EU membership. Fair enough. Iceland or Greenland also decided to stay outside the EU because the Common Fisheries Policy was unacceptable for them.

Seeing Brexit as a slap in European Union face would therefore be an overstatement. However, we should definitely see it as an opportunity to restart the EU project and we should not waste it.