Catastrophic tactical error by Cameron

John O’Brennan and Mary C Murphy look at the dilemma that David Cameron’s pledge to hold an ‘in-out’ referendum on Britains membership of the EU has created for himself and for the union.   

The European Union has spent most of the last decade grappling with one crisis after another.

From the difficult birth of the Constitutional Treaty (later restyled the Lisbon Treaty) to the protracted challenge of steadying the eurozone ship, and more recently, dealing with Russian aggrandisement in Ukraine and the dramatic problems created by the implosion of Libya, the EU has struggled to assert the case for a supranational governance order which many EU citizens see as increasingly illegitimate.