For the past year I’ve been taking part in a project on the future of the EU, concentrating on the “social model”—Europe’s systems of social protection and welfare. The experience has brought home to me how different Britain is from most other EU countries. If you are working on “Europe” in Britain, you are outside the mainstream of policymaking.
During his ten years of power, Blair has not managed to change this very much. He wasn’t prepared to risk pushing for Britain’s entry to the euro early on, when his standing was high. He has unhesitatingly leaned to the US, even when a right-wing administration took over; and the gamble he took in going along with that administration in the invasion of Iraq helped to split the EU.
Partly for these reasons, Blair has found it hard to work with EU leaders. Lionel Jospin was cold towards him. An initially good relationship with Gerhard Schröder soured. Romano Prodi and Blair were never close, while the less said of his relationship with Jacques Chirac the better. One can understand why Blair’s closest connections were with José María Aznar and Silvio Berlusconi—yet this was an odd, and in the end dysfunctional, choice of allies.
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