Jumping from headline to headline isn't a Europe strategy

Our #EUwargames exercise has already received extensive coverage, but today we'll publish our own, widely anticipated, analysis of the simulation (within the next hour or so).

In the Times, Open Europe's Director Mats Persson trails the analysis. Bringing the simulation back to reality, he argues:

David Cameron heads to another EU summit today. The focus will be on the eurozone’s stuttering “banking union” but the PM will be stalking the corridors seeking support for EU reform. The good news is the appetite for change across Europe is growing. The bad news: Mr Cameron risks wasting the opportunity.  

In a unique exercise, Open Europe has just “war-gamed” UK-EU negotiations and the results were instructive. Once the posturing is over, there’s scope for a range of reforms, including cutting the cost of Brussels and veto rights for national parliaments. Mr Cameron has achieved an EU budget cut and financial services safeguards but the exceptional statesmanship required forsweeping reform is lacking.  

First, he’s fallen behind the curve. In January, he gave a good Europe speech but there was no follow-up plan. Mr Cameron had years to change the rules on benefit entitlements prior to Romanians and Bulgarians gaining full free movement rights but only now are changes being rushed through. Last-minute panic action will never deliver substantial reform.  

Second, there are government malfunctions. On EU migration the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and No10 have pulled in different directions. All governments suffer from internal tensions, but multi-party coalitions such as the Dutch or Finnish are far more joined up on Europe.  

Finally, there’s a failure to understand EU partners’ interests. In our simulation, presented with evidence that France has the most to gain from limiting EU regional spending, Paris was open to budget reform. The UK must identify the reforms that could allow others to buy anygrand bargain. The deals are there to be done.  

Mr Cameron should appoint a lead negotiator or an EU reform task force to co-ordinate work across all departments and tour national capitals testing ideas. France has successfully defended agricultural subsidies for decades using this technique. Jumping from headline to headline may work for domestic issues but on Europe, it’s a sure way to end up pleasing no one.

Italy: A new (and unexpected) ally on EU reform for David Cameron?

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has probably made a lot more friends than he expected on his first official visit to the UK. This is largely due to a couple of quite sensible remarks he has made about the future of Europe and Britain's role in it.

Asked by the BBC's Gavin Hewitt about the UK returning significant powers from Brussels, Mr Letta said, 

"It can be possible and it could be useful for us too...We need a more flexible Europe...We can have a new [EU] treaty negotiation for the UK to have a different link, but remaining on board, and for Italy or other countries in the euro to have a more integrated eurozone."

He was even more specific during the joint press conference with David Cameron earlier today,

"I think it will be possible to have a common very near future in which we can have [EU] treaty changes for having a more flexible Europe in the interests of the UK, but also in the interests of Italy and the euro area countries."

This certainly challenges the assumption that there's no appetite for major treaty changes across Europe.

Meanwhile, in a piece for the Guardian's Comment is Free, Mr Letta also argued,

"Greater integration in the eurozone should not challenge the integrity of the single market or leave countries outside the eurozone less comfortable with their membership of the [European] Union...We need to reshape the Union, so that it can accommodate the interests of countries which want to move forward towards greater political and economic integration, and countries which prefer a co-operation around the single market."

Furthermore, during the joint presser, Mr Letta repeated several times that the single market is "the main pillar" of the EU because, unlike the single currency, it is shared by all 28 member states.

This is music to David Cameron's ears. Italy is traditionally one of the most pro-integration EU member states, and while Mr Letta believes in the 'United States of Europe', the fact that he also acknowledges the need to make the EU "more flexible" is potentially significant. It means that more integration in the eurozone, if that is what happens, is not incompatible with a more flexible, looser relationship for other countries outside the single currency.

As UK Foreign Secretary William Hague put it in his speech at Open Europe's summer reception last night,

"Change in the EU is worth fighting for and that change would not just benefit Britain but every country in the EU."

Well, the UK may just have found a new, and somewhat unexpected, ally in this fight.