On Wednesday evening, 26 April, our immediate past-president, Colin Chapman, addressed a somewhat weary post-ANZAC Day crowd at Glover Cottages on the future of Europe.

Not to be too dramatic about it, Colin thinks that the future of France – and its influence on the EU – hang on a knife edge. He likens EU cohesion to an airliner: an engine failure, careless pilot or bomb threat can destroy or ground a plane; a breach of faith by one of its nation components can destroy the Union. And since the EU is collectively the world’s largest economy, failure of one of its components can have a disastrous global effect.

In this context, the results of the French elections matter. People there are cosseted with a comprehensive health service, a 35-hour working week, half-pay for the unemployed. But the major political parties have been gutted, and the French can elect as their president either a right-wing candidate (Marine as she now calls herself), or a pro-EU optimist, Macron. If Marine gets up, France will leave the Union and like a plane with faulty engines, the EU could be destroyed or grounded. If Macron wins, the Union can limp to the nearest landing ground.

Meanwhile in the UK, Teresa May, head girl and right-wing Tory, is leading Britain’s EU exit. She may be made of tough stuff, but can she find her way through a most difficult and expensive departure? The problems she faces are first: Brussels is demanding €50 billion from Britain – its share of accrued staff salaries, pensions and other administrative and other expenses owing the bureaucracy in Brussels. Second: Brussels also claims Britain has cheated the Union out of tax revenues on duties, especially relating to the China trade. Third: migrants, lots of them, include those who have escaped from war zones, and those who want a better life – economic migrants. Altogether Europe is plagued by two million of them, all mixed up together. The EU simply does not know what to do about them and Britain is no longer helping.

Fourth, whether it is inside the EU or not, Britain faces along with other European countries difficult neighbours. Not least of these is Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He wants to control, if not necessarily occupy, many of the Soviets in the old USSR, an ambition regarded as a serious and destabilising threat in the West. But he can’t be  criticised too severely because Europe depends on Russian gas, which he could turn off.

Another problem faced by all EU members as well as Britain is youth unemployment. No easy solution there.

In conclusion, Colin believes that If Marine wins the French presidential election, the EU will have to re-make itself. If Macron does, the status quo might continue to exist. Either way, changes are coming, some even radical. One grim possibility is that the Union might simply dissipate, and the bonds that have so far prevented war in Europe will fray.  The world simply waits to see how France votes on the weekend of 6-7 May.

Richard Broinowski