“Armenia shouldn’t Wrongly Assess the Situation, Regarding Brexit as the EU Failure”
Interview with Lilit Gevorgyan, Russia and CIS, Europe senior analyst at IHS Global Insight.
Mrs. Gevorgyan, actually, the materialized stay-leave dilemma in Great Britain became a crucial event both for the contemporary history of Great Britain and the EU, which according to international relations specialists reflected crisis and exhaustiveness of Western social order, annunciating new history of European integration project and putting liberal society before a new choice. In your opinion, what has happened and what after-effect will it have?
Let me explain the occurrence politically. The referendum was initiated by already resigned PM David Cameron, merely to settle interparty issues: holding a referendum, where upon calculations of Cameron and his advisors, greater part of people would vote in favor of staying in the EU. This would provide Cameron the opportunity to silence the radical team of his political party, weaken small right-wing political parties, which quickly gather supporters and “close” the EU issue.However, the PM made an incorrect calculation and the situation went out of control.
Firstly, the PM underestimated the existent splitting inside the party. He also underestimated the degree of mistrust towards the opposition. However, the most important factor was dual attitude of the opposition Labor Party. Although it was officially against leaving the EU, the opposition led a weak campaign against that process. This was the outcome of the influence of current leader of Labor Party Jeremy Corbyn.
He was elected as head of his political party in 2015 for his strong socialist provisions, and wasn’t a big fan of the EU. According to him the EU doesn’t properly protect rights of laborers. Upon recent data Labor Party is also facing a crisis, and a campaign was initiated to remove him from the position of the leader. And, finally, rather successful information, or, to be more exact, misinformation campaign was initiated by supporters of leaving the EU, based on anti-immigration and anti-capitalist feelings. It’s interesting that leaders of this campaign were simply ignoring opinions of experts, in particular, of economists, alerting about serious economic damage. Most part of voters was refusing to listen to unbiased analysis, if it didn’t coincide with their opinion. Any alarming on economic and other threats was being discredited as “project fear.”
As a result, in particular, socially vulnerable traditional laborist remote region of England voted for leaving the EU, although vulnerable regions will suffer first from this resolution, as economic growth of the country will considerably weaken in near future, and assistance from the EU to these poor regions will be suspended. Thus, extreme-right nationalist leaders united the socially vulnerable and those with anti-immigration moods. And those leaders helped them, especially raising the socially vulnerable by the propaganda of bankers of London and other big cities. This was the outcome of “marriage” of nationalist and extreme socialist powers, which succeeded to slap current Government and traditional political circles by its successful PR campaign.
This was the voice of internal protest against the Government and main political parties, rather than against the EU. This was a remonstrance against polarization of wealth in the country, which mainly centralized in London and big cities. This was also a protest against elitist, all politicians cut-off from the people, as well as against the press. It was also a protest against immigration and economic globalization, in particular, when in industrial regions plants were being sold or closed. Simply as a result of manifestation of remonstrance Great Britain made a decision, which may become fatal for the country.
However, is it possible that decision-makers don’t process this referendum legally? Should referendum results be considered final?
It should be stated, that Great Britain didn’t make reference to Article 50 of the EU Constitution, pursuant which any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. The referendum in itself doesn’t have a legal force, it’s not obliging, however, Great Britain is a democratic country, any parliament and government should take into account the opinion of the majority. Opinions are strictly polarized in the country, as supporters of withdrawal from the EU didn’t have a considerable majority and won the opposing side by the advantage of 1 million 2 hundred thousand votes (51.9% of population voted for Brexit and 48.1%—against it).
Reflection of economic markets was rather sobering for the many, as you saw, British pound sterling suffered from it, prices for shares dropped, currently the situation has somehow stabilized, however, as I mentioned, politically opinions are rather polarized. That polarization, in particular of big cities, is especially between London and the regions, thus political leaders and new leaders should strive to settle the issue of internal split. Let me mention another fact as well, which speaks of itself: 60% of elder people voted for leaving the EU, and more than 60% of young people in all regions and cities voted for staying within the EU, i.e. here the age factor is existent.
Until Article 50 is applied and official application is available, changes are possible as David Cameron didn’t directly make reference to that Article, instead, he left that hard decision to the country’s new leaders. One of possible scenarios is when a new PM is appointed, in fact, he/she won’t be elected by the people, and it’s not excluded that a campaign may generate to oblige new elections, and in that case it’s possible that these results were reviewed by the Parliament.
In your opinion, under this new reality for the EU, when new issues are emerging, how should Armenia be positioned in its relations with the EU when it negotiates towards concluding a new agreement? What’s the role of Armenia after all this?
Firstly, Armenia and any post-Soviet country should correctly assess what is going on and why. And, particularly, they need to be cautious and not fall under influence of such media outlets, which belong to European extremist conservative political parties or controlled by Russia. According to them, the EU is a weak, incomprehensible organization, and by Great Britain’s withdrawal dissolution of the EU will be launched. They need to realize that exit of Britain wasn’t quite accidental.
Great Britain-EU relations have always been problematic. Britain is not the EU founding member. Moreover, it has some independence considering itself not totally a European country, but a state with its special role between the USA and continental Europe. Moreover, throughout years, within some EU circles an opinion has been developed that maybe the EU will be more powerful without Great Britain.
If such a referendum was held in France and it decided to withdraw, this would have been a serious issue. By withdrawal of Great Britain influence of Germany and France in the Union will be intensified. This will also provide the opportunity to Poland to assume a more decisive role. Moreover, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Dublin will benefit from possible flow of business from London. By the way, if politically it’s a short-term benefit for the very Russia, then economically it’s bad news. Economic growth of the EU, to all probabilities, will slow down, impacting on Russia’s economy. The EU is Russia’s most important export market, in particular, regarding energy.
Finally, Great Britain will negotiate a close trade deal with the EU, like, for instance, Norway. This means, close ties with the EU will continue. Great Britain will suffer the most from this, as it will continue making huge payments to be a member of the trade market with the EU and accept the condition of free movement of manpower. Thus, the issue of migrants won’t be settled, payments to the EU won’t reduce, however, Great Britain won’t have the right to impact on laws adopted by the EU.
Moreover, current structure of Great Britain may change. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have stated that they want to stay within the EU. Referendum on Scottish independence is quite realistic. Armenia shouldn’t incorrectly assess the situation and consider current recession as failure of the EU. The EU isn’t a static union, which is obliged to the citizens behind closed doors. No matter how painful the results may be, finally, British referendum was the proof that people’s vote may be decisive. The EU is a union based on unity, and sometimes to maintain these values, there will be countries, which will withdraw. Armenia should choose what kind of a member of the union it intends to be.
By the way, it’s also important to state that not only in Great Britain, but in EU member countries as well, absolute majority of young people considers himself/herself a European. British referendum is currently introduced as victory of elderly people towards the young people. Ignoring the fact that future generation in the EU, as well as in Great Britain, remains loyal to the European treaty, will be incorrect for critics of the EU.
By Araks Martisoryan
