32 Europe The Economist May 28th 2022
Tieredandemotional
N
o sporting trophyis of as dubious value as the uefaCup,
handed to the club whose quest for European footballing glo
ry started with failure to qualify for the more prestigious Champi
ons League. Recalling who won this year’s lesser tournament is al
ready the stuff of pub quizzes (Eintracht Frankfurt this month beat
Glasgow Rangers on penalties: ten points). In contrast, hundreds
of millions across the world will watch Real Madrid and Liverpool
vie for one of football’s top prizes on May 28th. Triumph in the
Champions League is a career highlight for even the most adulated
player. Winning the uefa Cup is an invitation to do better in fu
ture: beyond an oversize trophy, Frankfurt’s greatest reward for its
success is the right to play in the Champions League next year.
Tiers are a brutal necessity to keep football tournaments man
ageable in Europe, home to over 1,000 professional clubs from
Reykjavik to Donetsk. Now something similar is being mulled to
help organise the continent’s politics. Depending on where you
draw the line, there are 4050 countries in Europe. Each is either
qualified for the main show in town—the eu, with 27 members
plodding towards evercloser union—or sits outside it. France’s
President Emmanuel Macron and Charles Michel, a Belgian who
chairs meetings of euleaders, are among those pushing for a loos
er continental grouping that could include all those currently out
side the bloc. Plenty fear this “European Political Community”
would be a uefaCupstyle consolation prize for countries still
pining for the top tier. Diplomats are mulling the question ahead
of a European summit in June, where Mr Macron will flesh out the
idea in France’s last few days in the bloc’s rotating presidency.
Proposals to split Europe into concentric circles have a long
pedigree. After the Berlin Wall collapsed, François Mitterrand, an
other French president, suggested eastern European countries
formerly under Soviet control might join a looser “European con
federation”—the subtext being that they would not soon be wel
come into the inner sanctum. (Most putative members demurred
and countries such as Poland and Romania held out for member
ship of the union proper.) Some organisations cover the whole
continent, but focus on specific things, like singing competitions
(Eurovision), football (uefa) or monitoring human rights (Coun
cil of Europe). Tiers within the union have also emerged over time.A majority, but not all, of eucountries use the euro or allow pass
portfree travel, for example. Take these different concentric rings
together and the continent’s arrangements start looking like a to
wering wedding cake, or something out of Dante.
The recently reelected Mr Macron is keen on adding levels
both within and outside today’s eu. On May 9th he spoke of inte
gration being forged by countries in “avantgarde circles”, a phrase
more often used by art historians describing groupings of louche
painters. Selective deeper integration is broadly fine with every
one, not least because such pioneering schemes usually struggle
to get off the ground. More contentious is the idea for an outer tier.
Many in eastern Europe see a diluted extended circle as a replay of
the ploy that aimed to keep them out a generation ago.
Part of the problem is the messenger. As Mr Macron floated the
idea of a wider community, he also suggested it would take de
cades for Ukraine to qualify for full eumembership. Its putative
accession is the source of tensions within the bloc. Eastern Europe
is pushing for Ukraine’s courage under fire to be recognised with
rapid membership, or at least formal candidate status. France has
long been dubious about enlargement, which in its eyes makes the
bloc unwieldy and incapable of further integration.
As in the 1980s, the problem with outer tiers is that nobody
wants to be in them. In theory this new community would be sep
arate from the eu, perhaps with its own headquarters far from
Brussels. In practice whatever was decided by those in the conti
nent’s inner core would have to be accepted by everyone else.
And who would agree to that? Three groups of countries would
be obvious candidates for Mr Macron’s uefa Cup tier. The first is
those who are outside the eubut don’t fancy joining, for example
Norway (a member of the eea, through which some small coun
tries attach themselves to eudecisions) or Switzerland. But their
arrangements for dealing with the euare tailormade and work
well. The second is Britain, the only member ever to have left the
union, and to which Mr Macron alluded specifically as a potential
outertier member. Its relationship with the continent is still a
movable feast, and it has said it is not interested. Third, and most
numerous, are countries that want to join the eu, from the Bal
kans to Georgia and Ukraine. They are being egged on by eastern
Europe to stick to their demands for full membership, some of
which have been in the works for years. Volodymyr Zelensky has
said Ukraine would not “compromise” on joining the euproper.Offside!
Making an outer tier attractive to outsiders will be tricky. One pos
sibility is to turn the wider grouping into an onramp to the eu in
stead. As things stand, membership of the bloc is binary. Coun
tries work for years to join but only enjoy the fruits of their suc
cess—free movement of their citizens, university exchanges and
so on—once the process is finished. Mr Michel has suggested that
countries within the outer tier that had, say, reformed their energy
markets, could then take part in summits of euenergy ministers.
Fail to keep up reforms and you would get booted out.
That will raise concerns among some member states, particu
larly those like Hungary that constantly clash with the club over
falling short of eustandards. For a rejigged European political
space with lots of different tiers is one where the possibility of be
ing booted from one tier to another will surely come up. Currently
being a member of the club is like a guaranteedberthin the Cham
pions League year after year. For existing eu members, the idea of
relegation is best left to sporting competitions.nCharlemagne
Reheated plans for a multilevel Europe revive familiar suspicions