Sitting at one end of the huge, lozenge-shaped Council table, he strained his eyes to see who was present and who was not. Back in the good old days, there had been just the six founding fathers of what was then the European Economic Community. Now there were twenty-eight members of the Community’s successor in title: the European Union. The Council table had had to be continually expanded to accommodate the arrival of the new Member States. In its latest configuration, it seemed to be almost as long as a football pitch.
Arne Jacobsen noted that the president of the Commission, Michael O’Rourke, was already in his seat down the far end of the room. Other delegations were making their way to their allotted places at the table. The room was filling up.
Jacobsen turned to Eloise Pomade, the senior official in the Council’s secretariat, who sat on his immediate right. She had held the job almost a decade, weathering crisis after crisis. Somehow the EU survived them all. But this Brexit business, she reflected, was in a category of its own.
‘Is the German delegation here yet?’ Jacobsen asked.
‘The German delegation is certainly here. I’ve seen the German ambassador a moment ago. But I don’t think Mrs Brun has arrived yet.’
She picked up a pair of opera glasses and scanned the room. ‘No, she’s not here.’
Jacobsen waited another ten minutes but the chancellor still didn’t arrive. In the end, even in the absence of Chancellor Brun, he decided to open the meeting.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. I would like to thank you all for coming here at short notice. Some of you may indeed wonder why you are here at all. You may believe that when, earlier this year, we concluded our renegotiation package with the UK, the European Council had, as it were, said the last word. That was our final offer.
‘And of course I completely understand if that is the view you take. Nevertheless, I too, as Chairman of the Council, must take my responsibilities seriously. It has not escaped my notice, and it will certainly not have escaped yours, that Europe today is in the midst of great turmoil. I would venture to state that even the continued existence of the European Union is under threat from the rise of anti-EU populist movements. We cannot discount the possibility of what I may call the “domino effect”. What happens in Britain next month may affect what happens in France, in the Netherlands, in Germany, and even – if this is not too fanciful – in the United States of America, where as we all know the presidential campaign has already begun.
‘That is why I have asked the president of the Commission to make one last effort to find a solution to the British problem, a solution which should ensure that the outcome of the Referendum can be seen as a confirmation, not a rejection, of our common European destiny.’
‘Hear, hear!’
Jeremy Hartley banged the table to indicate his approval. The other heads of state or government joined in the applause.
Arne Jacobsen smiled. He was not on the whole an eloquent man. But he had put a bit of effort into that speech and he was pleased by the reaction.
After that, as was usual, the European Commission led off the discussion.
Michael O’Rourke began by acknowledging the efforts of all those present in the room to avert the looming train wreck.
‘Frankly,’ he confessed, ‘if we had known a few months ago what we know today, we would have made this one last effort, as Mr Jacobsen called it, a good deal sooner. And I would say to the British delegation through you, Mr Chairman, that we should have realized right from the start that the way to deal with this problem of excessive migration was not through some special arrangements with the United Kingdom, but on the contrary through a strong and durable European solution. I would like to say now how grateful the Commission is to all the Member States, and of course to the Council secretariat, for the efforts made to move this matter forward to a successful conclusion.’
Michael O’Rourke looked up from his notes to address the chairman at the far end of the table. ‘Would it help, Mr Chairman, if I read out the text of our proposal slowly? I am not sure the document under discussion is yet available in all the official languages, so it may be helpful also to be able to listen to the interpreters.’
‘Go ahead, Mr President,’ Arne Jacobsen instructed.
Michael O’ Rourke was a large man with a booming voice. Like so many of his countrymen, he had a way with words.
He could even make the dull, procedural prose which he had in front of him that morning sound more than halfway interesting.
‘This is the text the Commission is proposing,’ he began:
‘The Council hereby agrees that:
Where any country has experienced an inflow of workers or other migrants of exceptional magnitude over an extended period of time; and where:
the size of the inflow affects essential aspects of its social security system; or
leads to serious difficulties in its employment market; or
is putting ‘excessive pressure’ on public services or the environment,
that country may unilaterally derogate from the provisions of Chapter Four, Title I, of the Treaty on the Functioning of the Common Market, by imposing restrictions on the inflow of workers and other migrants, with a view to mitigating or eliminating the economic, social and environmental problems thereby caused…’
Michael O’Rourke paused, looked up from his papers and gazed about the room.
‘That’s it, Mr Chairman,’ he said.
Jeremy Hartley had, of course, heard the text the previous day. He’d had a chance to study it in detail. He admired its simplicity and the economy of words, so unlike most EU documents. He could live with it. More than that, he was ready to welcome it with open arms.
Best say so straightaway, he thought. That was always the best tactic. Set the tone of the debate. Make his view clear.
‘I am very grateful to you, Mr President, as Chair of the Council,’ he said to Arne Jacobsen: ‘And of course to the Commission,’ here he gestured to Michael O’Rourke, ‘for all the hard work the community institutions and the Member States have put in, so that we can today find a solution to what up till now has been an intractable problem.
‘What is interesting to me,’ he continued, ‘is that what seemed in the first instance to be a purely British problem turns out in the end to be a European problem and therefore one that is capable of a European solution.
‘I can confirm today that the United Kingdom government welcomes the text that the Commission has put forward, and sincerely hopes that it may be adopted unanimously by the Council this morning.’
The applause which followed Hartley’s brief intervention was more than polite. It was heartfelt.
It really was a different ball game now, they all thought, compared to what it had been just a few months ago. Even countries like Poland and Romania, whose workers travelled in tens of thousands each year in search of jobs in the more affluent parts of the European Union, could see the value of agreed language, which in the end permitted them to take their own decisions about what was right for their country. And if this text really did help to stop the imminent disintegration of the EU, it was surely worth swallowing any objections they might have.
One by one, the heads of State and government took the floor to express their views. Some of them made long speeches; some of them made short speeches, but none of them, not one, took exception to the text the Commission had circulated.
The prime minister of Hungary, Lazlo Ferenczy, was positively ecstatic, which was not surprising given that his country was busy erecting huge fences, topped with razor-sharp wire, along the length of its Eastern border.
‘It is high time we took this step,’ he urged. ‘My country supports the Commission’s proposal whole-heartedly.’