Yet history keeps producing accidents. Any tighter integration of the eurozone core is likely to produce an outer tier of EU members who may simply want to stick with the single market and a loose form of political co-operation. This might be a very small tier. It might just include the two countries – Britain and the Czech Republic – which did not join the 25 others in signing the 2012 fiscal pact – plus Greece (whose euro currency membership will remain in doubt for some time to come) as well as poorer east European states which might, for a prolonged period, find new fiscal and economic integration too demanding. If the obligations for this outer tier of EU countries were clearly limited and delineated (to remove any obligation on members to advance towards greater political or fiscal integration), it might just become attractive for Norway
and Switzerland to formally join. For this to happen, life outside the EU would also have to become seriously unattractive for them. It could become so for the Swiss if the EU presses its demands on the acquis and outside supervision. For the time being, the EEA suits Norway, but the EEA would be at risk if Iceland were to join the EU. Thus, a combination of events inside and outside of the EU could create a single market club with the UK, Norway and Switzerland in it.
David Buchan
Former Brussels bureau chief for the Financial Times September 2012
For more information on this topic, and others, visit our website: www.cer.org.uk
Published September 2012
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