Courting the British Accent

Allegedly during the 1930s, The Times cover properly synthesized Britons’ idea of themselves in relation to Europe: “Dense fog over English Channel. Continent isolated.” Britannia did not love the Continent much. With the European Union (EU) turning 50 years old last week, times seem to have changed. But how much?

If you care to read the signatures in the historic Treaties of Rome of 1957, the baby steps toward the EU, you won’t find a British signature. That is because Britain only first applied unsuccessfully in 1967 before finally joining in the seventies, ultimately seduced by the common market dynamism and growth of its members, which were rapidly materializing the “European economic miracle.” Call it opportunism.

Since then, Britons have remained skeptical about the possibilities of expanded political integration, and have consistently showed little enthusiasm for the organization. In 1988, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher congratulated the College of Europe on their courage to invite her to speak about the Union. In truthful representation of the British feeling, she herself said inviting her to speak about integration was like inviting “Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence.” Even today, the EU is as popular in Britain as President George W. Bush is in America. Yes, it is that bad.

But now, the EU has a historic chance in the Royal Marine hostage crisis in Iran to court the skeptical country par excellence, and prove to the world that European power matters. As a rule, seduction is best when one’s target is disillusioned with the status quo.

Although the current crisis with the increasingly radical Iranian government began less than two weeks ago and seems to have been resolved yesterday, it has become a media event that is monopolizing media coverage in Britain and in the rest of Europe at large. Understandably so. On March 23, Iranian Revolutionary Guards captured 15 Royal Marine sailors. Though at first, the Iranian government claimed they were held at gunpoint in the Iraqi waters that the Brits were supposed to be patrolling, it swiftly changed its mind.

Claiming the sailors were actually in Iranian waters, Teheran attempted to justify their imprisonment and shamelessly paraded them on TV for the world to see. While they were filmed apologizing for crossing into Iranian waters, they wrote letters rhetorically asking why British invasion forces were still in Iraq. And yesterday, in an act of true magnanimity, President Ahmadinejad announced he would free them: “I want to give them as a present to the British people.” Quite touching.

He dared utter this line because the British government itself does not look very good in its constituents’ eyes. The Blair administrations seemed rightly outraged by the event, but for a country that was central to the Iraqi invasion, they did not take hard enough measures. In a place where memories of empire evoke melancholy, commentators quickly forced the comparison between the current Prime Minister and Iron Lady Thatcher, who exactly 25 years ago imposed the British will by force, defeating an Argentine military invasion of the Malvinas islands. Remembering Teddy Roosevelt’s famous quote of diplomacy by sticks and carrots, the sensationalist Sun grudged that Britain “appears to have lost the stick.”

Today, Britain lacks the muscle, economic and military, to intervene by herself. And this is where the EU comes in. Initially conceived partly as a vehicle to stop European decline in international influence, the organization was right to stress publicly that an affront to Britain is an affront to all Europeans. All foreign ministers and the German EU presidency used strong language to condemn the Iranians, to the point that Iran warned them against using “unguarded statements.”

Not only should the EU leadership continue using strong language, but also they should meet them with tangible and forceful economic and diplomatic consequences. After helping topple the Iranian government repeatedly for oil interests in the age of empire, Britain understandably has a rocky relationship with Tehran. But Europe is the main negotiator with the regime on its nuclear ambitions because of its perceived status as a counterbalance to American dogmatism. Furthermore, it is the largest trading partner of an increasingly isolated but affluent government. Using Professor Timothy Garton Ash’s terminology in a recent Los Angeles Times piece, the EU must use its “economic muscle.”

Europe is ready for peacekeeping, but hardly for peacemaking in instruments other than North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which the United States is the master and commander. Therefore, it should speed up measures to allow to compliment the above soft power measures with harder power.

Although the former is key to diplomacy, the very promise of harder power at a European level would do wonders for its foreign policy, especially when individual actors like the British government seem paralyzed. Realistic stick threats work as well as real sticks. After all, this crisis challenges the ideological foundations of European unity. Taking hostages goes against democracy, respect for human rights, and the international rule of law–all core values of the European project.

Europe has a chance to teach Iran’s magnanimous president that actions like this will have consequences, both in terms of trade and nuclear ambitions. Although it is hard to argue for less economic profits and tougher diplomacy, decisive action now is not just about seducing a specific, key constituency for the EU future, but also about proving the organization’s ideological relevance for the future. That is a crucial step toward realizing the last line of the EU 50th birthday declaration: Britons included, and despite the English Channel, “Europe is our common future.”



Pierpaolo Barbieri ’09, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is a history concentrator in Eliot House.