Saving Europe-ASAP (Ally State Access Privileges)

 In 1939, 85 years ago at the time of writing, the UK government declared war on the Nazi régime in order to defend the sovereignty of Poland, but ultimately to rescue Europe from fascism.

It was unsuccessful in the first aim, but successful in the second with the help of allies across the globe, in particular, the United States under President Roosevelt, and the set of countries that became the Commonwealth (which at the time were part of the British Empire).

Today Europe is at a similar crisis point following the insurgence of far-right political groups in Europe and the recent re-election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States.

It is already the case that his administration is demanding vassalage from European countries. Vassalage is an appropriate term, since Trump is acting like a medieval king. In this context, a number of far-right European leaders are already pledging support at a time when the most dominant EU countries, Germany and France are facing a democratic crisis.

Meanwhile, Britain, as in 1939 has never been more alone: cut-off from the EU since the 2016 Brexit referendum and now deeply at odds with a United States that considers the new Labour government to be a socialist enemy. Falling into line with Trump's demands would certainly destabilise the UK, given that high-profile Trump supporters such as Elon Musk regularly portray the country as a Police State or close to civil war.

What we need to do at this time is demonstrate solidarity with the EU, but this too is not easily possible, because the Labour government is determined to honour Brexit by not rejoining the EU. Perhaps though, given the ugency, there is another way: Ally State Access Privileges (ASAP), a temporary mechanism for supporting Europe in a new time of need.

This blog post is a rough (and very ignorant) draft proposal of the ASAP, how it operates, who is involved and its underlying purpose.

Purpose

ASAP exists specifically to prevent the EU and Europe in general from falling into the hands of the far-right. European countries have been making increasingly desperate attempts to exclude far-right parties from government as they grow in power, following the 2008 crash and subsequent economic austerity policies. These attempts could fail within the early part of 2025, a few months from the time of writing.

ASAP dissolves immediately when the threat from the far-right is over.

The ASAP serves to stabilise the economy and political composition of the EU; accelerate its environmental programme; maintain rights while radically reforming economic competitiveness.

Operation

1. ASAP is a temporary political alliance between member states of the EU and nations willing to support European stability. It applies to an ASAP alliance member for a 1 year duration and must be renewed every 12 months.
2. It confers the temporary elimination of trade barriers on conditions of EU regulation compliance, as per EU membership and includes temporary access to the single market and customs union.
3. It confers Freedom of movement to individuals who are part of ASAP member states.
4. It provides a subset of access to European Institutions:
1. Voting privileges to ASAP alliance members in the European Parliament. The representative block is exactly the same size as would be the case if the ASAP member was an actual EU member, but the composition of an ASAP contingent is in proportion to the composition of the legislative in the respective member state. ASAP MEPs are chosen by decree from its member state by any mechanism they see fit.
2. The head of state from an ASAP member is allowed on the European Council, as per EU membership.
3. One ASAP member per ASAP state is allowed on the Council of the European Union and European Commission. However, no ASAP member can be a European President.
4. One ASAP member per ASAP state is allowed as part of the Eurogroup specifically in order to temporarily influence and help align economic policy between ASAP members and the EU.
5. Others?

In order to combat the threat of the far-right, which is the primary purpose of EU-ASAP, media regulation is placed on a war-footing:

• Access to social media dominated by the far-right is prohibited by law, where dominated means both that the content must be less than 3/5 represented by right-wing posts or reposts or contain more than 2% of far-right posts. (Is this reasonable - what's the criteria on Bluesky?).
• Editorial guidelines for Printed media (and their online counterparts) are to be placed in the hands of a trust, analogous to the Guardian Scott Trust, in order to eliminate editorial influence from their owners; while retaining the same rough remit for their political flavour. The intent is to ensure freedom of expression while restricting extremism.
• Extended powers for media regulators (such as OfCom in the UK) will ensure that factual errors in articles must be corrected with the same prominence given to the original article. Multiple regulatory breaches will lead to a process of mentoring by journalists from randomly chosen media outlets meeting higher regulatory standards. The purpose of this is to slow down the publication of objectively misleading articles while avoiding political bias.

Finally, the EU-ASAP commits to stripping the purpose of World War 2 from Nationalistic interpretations. Specifically, as described in the first paragraph, the allies purpose was to not to wage war on Europe and Indo-China (since they are not the enemy), but to free Europe from fascist control.

Members

In the first instance, ASAP membership should be open to non-EU European states. This includes the UK; EEA members and EFTA members. Because of the already close alignment with EU regulations this should be a rapid process. If these states fall to the far-right, their ASAP membership is automatically cancelled.

In the second instance, ASAP membership should be extended to stable states that share close democratic values as the EU, namely Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada. If these states fall to the far-right, their ASAP membership is automatically cancelled.

In the third instance a more limited ASAP membership should be extended to states that share common environmental goals, if their membership strategically serves the purpose of the EU and the country itself. This may include India, South Africa (and any other stable African country) and controversially, China. In the case of China, it shall include delegates from both the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Hong Kong Legislative council to provide a wider range of representation. Why China? Because the US under Trump is also determined to wage an economic war with China, so a closer association between the EU and China; with a corresponding weakening of links between China and Russia would benefit the goal of weakening the far-right.

Conclusion

The re-election of Donald Trump and encroachment of the far-right across Europe has brought us to the point of an emergency comparable with the lead up to World War 2. Therefore, radical, emergency actions must be taken in order to stabilise the continent while there is still time. EU-ASAP provides a draft of a suitable programme for a set of suitable alliance members of whom are not able to be full EU members for a number of practical and political reasons.

Note: Further edits will include suitable links.