Concentric circles

The French President, Emmanuel Macron, came up with his proposal for associate membership of the EU before Brexit was completed but reiterated it during yesterday's conversation with the British Leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer. This will doubtless be discussed again today when Macron hosts King Charles III on his state visit to France.

Macron's proposals envisage the UK potentially being in the 'fourth circle' of EU associate membership, ie "political cooperation without having to be bound to EU law” - the so-called 'EU-lite' option. 

The concept of concentric circles is not new, of course. The Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, popularised it in his Divine Comedy in the 14th century. Unfortunately, his vision was of nine descending circles of hell, the fourth of which was the circle of Greed, ruled by Pluto (or Plutus), the demonic deity who appears in the form of a huge golden statue. He it was who gave us the concept of plutocracy. How ironically appropriate that this should be the circle suggested by the EU for the UK going forward.

As Dante describes it:

Here, too, I saw a nation of lost souls,
far more than were above: they strained their chests
against enormous weights, and with mad howls
rolled them at one another. Then in haste
they rolled them back, one party shouting out:
"Why do you hoard?" and the other: "Why do you waste?"

Life imitating art? Comedy perhaps, but hardly divine.

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