Saturday, December 10, 2011
BRITAIN opened up the possibility of a two-speed EU with its decision to veto treaty change, isolating itself from the rest of the member states.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s actions forced the other member states to create their own separate grouping revolving around closer economic integration.
"This is the biggest setback for Britain since (Charles) De Gaulle vetoed their membership in the 1960s" said Brussels-based political integration expert Piotr Maciej Kaczynski, of the Centre for European Policy Studies.
Britain will pay a very high price for isolating themselves, he said: "There will be no British voice when this new treaty is being negotiated. The dynamics around the table will be completely different."
Negotiations on the EU’s multibillion-euro budget is coming up, and with it the fate of the British rebate, which is worth a considerable sum to them annually.
"Their position on the budget is weakened, and their rebate is at stake," Mr Kaczynski said.
At his 6am press conference yesterday, a clearly shell-shocked Mr Cameron warned that the euro treaty group could not use the 27-member EU institutions — the Commission and the Court — in their work.
That was since contradicted by the legal services of the Council, which point out that under the treaty any country can refer cases to the Court, while the eurozone issues are dealt with already by the Commission.
Mr Cameron, making a strong plea to his home audience, said he was not willing to give up sovereignty of the sort the treaty would require and said Britain should be relaxed about being on the outside on this one.
Britain was a key player at the centre of Nato but was not in Schengen or the euro, he pointed out.
"We are a key player and drive change in the single market," Mr Cameron said, and the single market was what the EU should be about he said, reiterating a decades old belief of his country.
Britain chooses the organisations they join and in this way Britain gets what they want, he added.
A Britain less engaged with Europe does not suit Irish interests, sources say, given the close ties and a similar emphasis on tax and free markets.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who was sitting beside Mr Cameron during the summit, said he regretted that everyone was not involved in the new treaty.
"Mr Cameron is a very strong proponent of the single market and our strongest neighbour," he said.
Diplomats, including from Britain, were busy trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.
Mr Cameron met French President Nicolas Sarkozy last Friday and told him he would not agree to treaty change without agreement on his safeguards for the City of London’s financial services industry.
Mr Sarkozy has made it clear all along that he would prefer to have just a few countries reaching agreement inter-governmentally on treaty change and minimise European Commission involvement.
After he met German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the European People’s Party group summit in Marseilles, she changed her mind on insisting the deal be done at 27 and said, if necessary, they would go ahead with whoever was willing.
Yesterday Ms Merkel said conceding to Mr Cameron’s demands would be "opening up a pandora’s box".
Mr Sarkozy said Mr Cameron had made "unacceptable" demands for exemptions from certain financial regulations in return for joining the "fiscal compact" enshrined in the treaty change.
"We were not able to accept because we consider... that a very large and substantial amount of the problems we are facing around the world are a result of lack of regulation of financial services and therefore can’t have a waiver for the United Kingdom," said Mr Sarkozy.
Unconfirmed reports suggested he told Mr Cameron: "You can’t have an offshore centre taking away Europe’s capital."
Ms Merkel said: "I didn’t think David Cameron sat with us at the table. We had to get some sort of agreement and we couldn’t make compromises, we had to meet tough rules."
Others agreed with Mr Cameron’s stance.
Conservative MEP Kay Swinburne said he had kept Britain’s vetoes over hugely important areas that those within the eurozone were seeking to change.
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