Brexit can help EU survive

Next year the EU will celebrate it´s 60th anniversary. But the jubilee is not in a good shape. Some - like Mr Nigel Farage - believe it is terminally ill. Others say that a collaps is possible.

Last week Nobel economic prize winner Oliver Hart told spanish news agency EFE that he believes the keyword in EU politics is now “decentralisation” and that Brussels has “gone too far in centralising power”. The British-born economist said that “if it abandons this trend, the EU could survive and flourish, otherwise, it could fail”.

The Harvard University professor insisted that the EU member states are not “sufficiently homogeneous” to be considered one single entity, adding that trying to make the EU-28 into one was an “error”.

Hart said that the concerns felt by the member states about decision making and centralisation of power in Brussels should be addressed by returning competences to the EU capitals. The Nobel winner conceded that the EU should retain control of “some important areas”, like free trade and free movement of workers, the latter of which he admitted is “ultimately, an idea that I personally like, although I understand that there are political worries”.

Hart´s Nobel economic prize-winning colleague, Bengt Holmström, also told EFE that the EU needs to “redefine its priorities, limiting its activities and its regulatory arm, in order to focus on what can be done on the essential things”.

While Hart´s and Holmstrøm´s critisism seems to hitting the target - and the EU admits that it is necessary to be clear about what the Union can do and what is for the Member States to do, the EU is still dominated by a strong tendency to always call for more Europe. It seems like it is impossible for the EU to follow the principle of subsidiarity. Brexit forces, however, the EU to think differently. 

A Member State leaving the union is a completely new situation for the EU. Article 50 was never intended to be used. Now, both the UK and EU must prepare their divorce thoroughly. Both parties will benefit from finding mutually satisfactory solutions. Depending on what kind of future relationship UK and EU will negotiate, the agreement might serve as a model also for other Member States which to day are not comfortable within the Union. If the UK (and the EU) should choose to go for an EEA like solution, transitional or permanent, such an arrangement might later represent an option for e.g. Greece, with their economic Euro burdens.