Will the EU exist in its current form in a million years’ time? No!

In 100,000 years’ time? No!

In 1000 years’ time? No, but there may be traces of its current form.

In 100 years’ time? Maybe, but much changed.

In a mere 10 years’ time? Probably, but perhaps rather differently organised.

So if the EU as currently configured sooner or later is going to come to an end, the question arises: what factors might bring about its early departure?

The deep issue is Trust.

The whole point of the European Union is that the different member state governments, and rather more reluctantly their voters, proclaim undying trust in each other. This allows shared institutions to be set up and creates a framework within which ‘integration’ can proceed, overcoming all those centuries-old hatreds and rivalries which have led to calamitous wars.

It is now clear that Trust is once again declining.

Take this disturbing interview (in Polish) with Jan Krzysztof Bielecki. Bielecki was briefly Polish Prime Minister in the early years of the creation of a market economy after communism. He is now a top banker and thinker, one of the smartest people in Poland and an avid football fan.

This interview purports to turn upside-down Poland’s dramatically successful open market policies pursued since 1990. Bielecki in particular argues that Poland should no longer welcome foreign capital in strategic privatisations and particularly in the banking sector. That openness to foreign money had been essential in the early transition period, when there was no Polish capital to speak of. But things are different now. 

Bielecki makes his concerns explicit. The fact that so much (some 70%) of Polish bank capital is in foreign hands leaves it open to those foreign interests to suck money out of those banks if they fall into difficulties, a policy said to be favoured by the EU. 

In other words, the sub-text (and not so sub-) is Poland’s fear that the fruits of all those years of diligent saving and prudent investment following the end of communism could be snatched by (say) French or German banks to help them deal with the consequences of their own imprudence in (say) Greece and Spain.

Which, in turn, means that Poland – whose population is one of the most ‘pro-Europe’ in the EU – now has serious doubts about trusting its major partners to look at any interests wider than their own. As Bielecki is one of most influential leaders in Citizens Platform circles, this means that the two candidates in the coming Polish Presidential elections run-off will be toying with openly Poland First ideas.

You might say that Poland has had the benefit of foreign (European) investment when times were good, and so it is fair that Poland shoulder its share of the pain when times are not so good. And you might be right.

The question Bielecki implicitly poses goes unerringly to that central point: what is fair in such circumstances? Who decides where the cost of playing fast and loose with investment decisions should fall?

Should that be done at the strategic level ‘above’ mere member states? Maybe.

But what if it looks as though in fact those decisions are being taken by a core of member states to defend their own national interests, in this case their rickety banks and/or their flawed political judgement in creating a flawed Eurozone? That they cannot be trusted to act only in the common interest – and to shoulder the costs of their own blunders?

In such ‘unfair’ circumstances the only way Poland and other member states can defend themselves (and their national wealth) is to start thinking about defining policy in more ‘national’ terms themselves.

And so the moral logic of the EU as founded on unfailing trust at the highest levels dissolves. As that goes, so too does the will to keep the institutional show on the road.

Which in turn forces to the fore the issue of ‘first-mover advantage’. 

Yes, there is Solidarity in staying with the team and furiously paddling as a group to help get the canoe to safety. But if one country suspects (a) that the Eurozone is doomed and (b) that other Eurozone members think the same, does it not pay to jump off the sinking canoe well before it hits the waterfall?

The more so if (c) that country sees other canoe paddlers looking shiftily around as if preparing themselves to jump?

Here’s one brilliant lurid scenario by James Bennett in which Germany Shrugs – and jumps:

Nicholas. This is Angela. I am very sorry to have to tell you this, under such circumstances. But you will understand why it must be like this. And I wanted to tell you first.

She relayed her news.

The aides could hear the scream of pure anger as Merkel held the phone away from her ear. The tirade continued for about half a minute. Then there was complete silence. She put the phone back to her ear.

My dear Nicholas, you can hardly complain. After all, you threatened me with the same thing back in May … If any one suspects that another is about to leave, the only thing to do is leave first. When you threatened to leave, we realized that was the position in which we had been put. So we had to make our preparations.

Sarkozy spoke in a calm, level voice. But I was not serious. It was a bargaining position.

Perhaps. But the Prisoner’s Dilemma requires certainly, not probability.

All of which goes to explain why the Cameron government, far from being ‘isolated’ in Europe as assorted Guardianistas led by Denis MacShane wailed would happen, is being wooed vigorously by Germany and Paris alike.

Why?

Because they want – and need – British money to help them out of their deep holes.

Raiding Polish banks is just not enough.