The other battle for Europe

Sir Jon Cunliffe’s appointment in late 2011 to run UKREP marked a break in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) lock on the position of the top man (and yes, they have all been men so far) negotiating for the UK in the European Union (EU). Sir Jon had been European and Global Issues (EGIS) adviser to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown then David Cameron, but previously spent almost all his career in the Treasury. A career diplomat he was not. Almost as soon as he arrived the briefing started – with the Treasury blamed (£) when David Cameron looked isolated at the now infamous December 2011 EU summit. Since then, though, the conclusion of a relatively successful budget deal has made the arguments for a Treasury person in Brussels look stronger. That is reinforced by the fact that the consequences for the EU of the new arrangements needed to sort out the lingering eurozone crisis will dominate Brussels attention in the coming weeks, months and probably years. The Financial Times has today (£) suggested that Sir Jon’s likely successor will be Ivan Rogers, Sir Jon’s successor in the Cabinet Office, who also started his career in the Treasury before turning to Europe and banking. Confirmation is expected in September. If that is the case, it would look as though the Foreign Office hold on the head of UKREP had been definitively broken – and this post is another which has become a job where only Treasury candidates need apply. This happened a couple of decades ago to the role of Principal Private Secretary at No.10, which once was carved up between Treasury and the Home Office, and to that of the Cabinet Secretary. It would also mark a decisive shift to recognising that the UK’s policy on the EU is a crucial part of domestic economic policy – rather than “foreign” policy requiring a lifetime of honing diplomatic skills – and more speculatively that the Treasury’s institutional euroscepticism is a better fit with the current UK approach to European matters. A Rogers move to Brussels would create a vacancy at the top of the EGIS secretariat in the Cabinet Office. That post seems to have become a feeder into the UKREP top job, a place where the occupant can become a close euro-confidante of the Prime Minister, thus giving them a clear advantage in the race to be the our man in Brussels. If the FCO is to increase its chances of getting UKREP back under its control, it would help to get one of its own into this job.  It could argue that “renegotiation” is just the sort of task that requires an FCO rather than Treasury training ground. But if the Treasury manages to get its third candidate in a row into the EGIS post, the shift from “foreign” to “domestic” will be near complete. Battle between Whitehall’s two elite departments to be joined in the autumn?