David Cameron continues to marginalise the UK. By 2015, we may end up just a problematic associate member
Take a step back from the seven-day wonder of speculation about the new year, and what do we have? The long financial crisis continues to provoke deep change in Europe. And Britain has abandoned its classic policy stance of wanting a seat at the European table.
Unfortunately, the Liberal Democrats have left the country's European policy almost wholly in the hands of their deeply Eurosceptic coalition partners. The coalition's first and maybe greatest foolishness, in 2011, was to entrench a referendum![ext]()
in Britain's creaky constitution on all major EU treaty change. The second foolishness, at the end of that year, was for David Cameron to veto![ext]()
the extra fiscal discipline desired and needed by all actual and prospective eurozone members. That adventure backfired spectacularly when the rest of the European council decided simply to ignore the British prime minister and to forge ahead regardless with a new fiscal compact treaty outside the EU framework but reliant on it and ready to be incorporated properly at the next general revision of the EU treaties.
Come 2012, the UK embarked on its own unilateral review of EU competences![ext]()
, which is widely seen in Brussels as preparing a catalogue of demands for repatriation of powers at that same general revision. And then, for ideological reasons, the UK opted out of the banking union![ext]()
, leaving the City of London gloriously isolated from the single supervisory mechanism based on the European Central Bank.
During 2013 the EU laws needed to consolidate the banking union, including the setting up of a resolution mechanism and fund, and a common deposit guarantee scheme, will be put in place. The City's isolation is likely to look a lot less glorious a year from now, especially for those credit institutions with large euro operations. The government's recent claim to have secured UK interests as a member of the European Banking Authority is also of very limited duration: once there are fewer than four or five states outside the ECB supervision, that veto will disappear. Nobody relishes isolation quite like the Brits.
Meanwhile, back in Frankfurt, Mario Draghi's outright monetary transactions![ext]()
, which allow the ECB to buy the sovereign bonds of eurozone states in the secondary markets, prepare the ground for the progressive mutualisation of sovereign debt. The German electoral calendar implies some delay and great caution as Europe moves to complement fiscal discipline with fiscal solidarity – but the direction of travel is quite clear. In 2015 there will be a convention, of which the main task will be to install a federal economic government of a fiscal union. It would be clever for the UK to be part of this federal process, arguing if necessary that it needed more time to achieve the commonly agreed objectives but that its aspiration so eventually to achieve this was sincere. Yet at this point no British political party is saying this (though some think it). So the likelihood is that the UK is destined for even further marginalisation.
The UK government will be at the 2015 convention, and can use its legal veto to block the constitutional evolution of the EU into a federation. But do we British have the moral authority or the political clout to do so? Cameron, we are told, is shortly to make a speech on the EU. He should tell us on that occasion his answer to that question. He might also like to say how he intends to fight and win a referendum on the matter.
An early item on the agenda of the convention will be the creation of a new category of EU associate membership. Such a thing would suit four types: candidate states, such as Serbia, aiming at eventual full accession but needful of a long and stable phase of preparation; countries, including perhaps Turkey, which choose for reasons of their own not to seek full membership of the union but which desire a permanent, structured relationship with it; non-member states Norway and Switzerland, which need to improve on their present unsatisfactory arrangements with the EU; and, lastly, current EU states that choose not to follow the federal direction needed and desired by the majority. The danger is that the UK is putting itself right into the latter. To avoid that risk, British pro-Europeans have now got to make the case for federal union. Reported by guardian.co.uk 17 hours ago.
Take a step back from the seven-day wonder of speculation about the new year, and what do we have? The long financial crisis continues to provoke deep change in Europe. And Britain has abandoned its classic policy stance of wanting a seat at the European table.
Unfortunately, the Liberal Democrats have left the country's European policy almost wholly in the hands of their deeply Eurosceptic coalition partners. The coalition's first and maybe greatest foolishness, in 2011, was to entrench a referendum
in Britain's creaky constitution on all major EU treaty change. The second foolishness, at the end of that year, was for David Cameron to veto the extra fiscal discipline desired and needed by all actual and prospective eurozone members. That adventure backfired spectacularly when the rest of the European council decided simply to ignore the British prime minister and to forge ahead regardless with a new fiscal compact treaty outside the EU framework but reliant on it and ready to be incorporated properly at the next general revision of the EU treaties.Come 2012, the UK embarked on its own unilateral review of EU competences
, which is widely seen in Brussels as preparing a catalogue of demands for repatriation of powers at that same general revision. And then, for ideological reasons, the UK opted out of the banking union, leaving the City of London gloriously isolated from the single supervisory mechanism based on the European Central Bank.During 2013 the EU laws needed to consolidate the banking union, including the setting up of a resolution mechanism and fund, and a common deposit guarantee scheme, will be put in place. The City's isolation is likely to look a lot less glorious a year from now, especially for those credit institutions with large euro operations. The government's recent claim to have secured UK interests as a member of the European Banking Authority is also of very limited duration: once there are fewer than four or five states outside the ECB supervision, that veto will disappear. Nobody relishes isolation quite like the Brits.
Meanwhile, back in Frankfurt, Mario Draghi's outright monetary transactions
, which allow the ECB to buy the sovereign bonds of eurozone states in the secondary markets, prepare the ground for the progressive mutualisation of sovereign debt. The German electoral calendar implies some delay and great caution as Europe moves to complement fiscal discipline with fiscal solidarity – but the direction of travel is quite clear. In 2015 there will be a convention, of which the main task will be to install a federal economic government of a fiscal union. It would be clever for the UK to be part of this federal process, arguing if necessary that it needed more time to achieve the commonly agreed objectives but that its aspiration so eventually to achieve this was sincere. Yet at this point no British political party is saying this (though some think it). So the likelihood is that the UK is destined for even further marginalisation.The UK government will be at the 2015 convention, and can use its legal veto to block the constitutional evolution of the EU into a federation. But do we British have the moral authority or the political clout to do so? Cameron, we are told, is shortly to make a speech on the EU. He should tell us on that occasion his answer to that question. He might also like to say how he intends to fight and win a referendum on the matter.
An early item on the agenda of the convention will be the creation of a new category of EU associate membership. Such a thing would suit four types: candidate states, such as Serbia, aiming at eventual full accession but needful of a long and stable phase of preparation; countries, including perhaps Turkey, which choose for reasons of their own not to seek full membership of the union but which desire a permanent, structured relationship with it; non-member states Norway and Switzerland, which need to improve on their present unsatisfactory arrangements with the EU; and, lastly, current EU states that choose not to follow the federal direction needed and desired by the majority. The danger is that the UK is putting itself right into the latter. To avoid that risk, British pro-Europeans have now got to make the case for federal union. Reported by guardian.co.uk 17 hours ago.