Veto
While a real storim with 100 mile-an-hour winds was lashing Britain, a political storm was raging in Brussels which will have far-reaching consequences.
I am not delighted that David Cameron had to veto the proposed EU treaty but he had no choice whatsoever and he would have been wrong to sign up to what was on offer.
The Eurozone needs to take effective measures to support their currency and deal with the solvency crisis, and it would have been wrong to try to stop them taking such measures, provided it were done in a way which does not harm Britain.
Unfortunately it appears that signing up to the proposals could have harmed the City of London. I know the bankers are not popular right now (understatement of the decade) and I think there is a case for tougher regulation imposed within Britain in ways which make the city stronger rather than weaker. But on their past form I have zero confidence in the ability of the EU institutions to get that balance right, and in the present economic difficulties we need to impose extra difficulties on one of our major sources of income as a country like we need a whole set of bullet holes in the head.
If Britain had signed the proposed treaty it would have also required a referendum, which I don't believe would have been likely to produce a yes.
So we now have a "17 plus" treaty with the Euro-zone countries plus most of the rest of the EU, but not including Britain and apparently at least one other EU member outside it. (Not heard which one on the radio yet, but I suspect it may be Denmark.)
These are uncharted waters. I hope that the Eurozone countries are successful in solving their problems, not least because it is in our interests that they succeed, and I hope we can rebuild a constructive relationship with them. But, to continue with the uncharted waters metaphor, we need to move forward carefully and watch out for hidden rocks.
I am not delighted that David Cameron had to veto the proposed EU treaty but he had no choice whatsoever and he would have been wrong to sign up to what was on offer.
The Eurozone needs to take effective measures to support their currency and deal with the solvency crisis, and it would have been wrong to try to stop them taking such measures, provided it were done in a way which does not harm Britain.
Unfortunately it appears that signing up to the proposals could have harmed the City of London. I know the bankers are not popular right now (understatement of the decade) and I think there is a case for tougher regulation imposed within Britain in ways which make the city stronger rather than weaker. But on their past form I have zero confidence in the ability of the EU institutions to get that balance right, and in the present economic difficulties we need to impose extra difficulties on one of our major sources of income as a country like we need a whole set of bullet holes in the head.
If Britain had signed the proposed treaty it would have also required a referendum, which I don't believe would have been likely to produce a yes.
So we now have a "17 plus" treaty with the Euro-zone countries plus most of the rest of the EU, but not including Britain and apparently at least one other EU member outside it. (Not heard which one on the radio yet, but I suspect it may be Denmark.)
These are uncharted waters. I hope that the Eurozone countries are successful in solving their problems, not least because it is in our interests that they succeed, and I hope we can rebuild a constructive relationship with them. But, to continue with the uncharted waters metaphor, we need to move forward carefully and watch out for hidden rocks.
Comments
I agree that a referendum on the treaty would have been an overwhelming NO. I would have thought that this would have naturally triggered an in/out referendum.
Now we are, as the europhiles like to say, "isolated" as we wont get any sort of say on Europe (nothing new there then) but we still have to foot the membership bill.
It will be interesting to see how this one pans out.
by the way i thought the world varification for this post was very fitting it was "reaper"
1) There were inadequate safeguards to prevent measures being introduced under it's fiscal harmonisation clauses which had the effect of undermining the single market (and the EU has form for that kind of thing) and
2) There were inadequate safeguards to prevent the proposed new financial regulations regulations and taxes being applied in ways which drove financial services business out of the EU to America or Japan. In which event Britain would have been the main victim.
However you may dislike the bankers and the City (and some, not all, financial institutions have given many people good reason to be furious with them) the fact remains that they earn nearly 10% of our national income as a country, nearly as much as manufacturing. This is not the time to be putting that income at risk.