LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron is leading Britain into a minefield by seeking to renegotiate its terms of membership in the European Union. His gamble could easily end in a bust.
Mr. Cameron postponed a landmark speech on Europe while in Amsterdam last Friday because of the hostage crisis in Algeria, but he had already disclosed the thrust of his plan to try to change London’s relationship with the Union.
Extracts from the undelivered speech, released by his office, show he planned to say that Britain would “drift towards the exit” unless the European Union faced a need for change. That sounded reminiscent of a 1930 British newspaper headline: “Fog in Channel: Continent Cut Off.”
The excerpts did not mention a referendum, which Mr. Cameron has indicated he would schedule for some time this decade after negotiating a “new settlement” with Europe.
His strategy is bound to open a prolonged period of uncertainty in which events could put his preferred option — a looser version of full British membership — out of reach.
First, all of Britain’s 26 European partners must be willing to enter negotiations on Mr. Cameron’s agenda, which despite some expressions of good will is by no means a given.
The countries that use the euro may prefer to press ahead with closer integration without reopening the E.U. treaties, for instance, or they may refuse to unravel past agreements.
Second, to justify significant concessions, they would have to be confident in Mr. Cameron’s ability to win support in a national vote and make an agreement stick over the long term. But many E.U. officials are not convinced that Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives will win a general election in 2015. There is no incentive to give him more than polite sympathy until then.
Third, Britain’s E.U. partners would have to be able to win the consent of their own voters or lawmakers for any special deal with Britain that could involve watering down European social and employment rights and giving London a lock on financial services legislation.
Many are worried that an à la carte Europe would lead other countries to demand ways to opt out.
Finally, the whole process must proceed free from the kind of unpredictable clashes, political accidents or media scares that have dogged London’s ties with the Union for decades.
No rational gambler would bet on all those stars staying aligned.
Britain has renegotiated its terms twice since it joined the European Economic Community in 1973, yet it remains a reluctant, semidetached and often obstructive member.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson won some cosmetic trade concessions that were endorsed in a 1975 referendum on whether to stay in that community. Margaret Thatcher secured a large, permanent annual rebate on London’s budget contribution in 1984, which remains a source of resentment for many E.U. states to this day.
Despite Britain opting out of the single currency and the Schengen zone of passport-free travel, the British public and Conservative politicians have turned ever more hostile to the Union, which is often depicted in the British news media as a malevolent, meddling foreign bureaucracy.
With the exception of several short-lived honeymoons during the construction of the European single market in the mid-1980s and the beginning of a European security and defense policy in the late 1990s, relations have always been fraught.
We are far from Britain’s position 15 years ago, when Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly proclaimed his intention to lead Britain to join the euro zone as soon as economic conditions were right.
For the most part, successive British governments have fought tooth and nail to thwart or slow moves toward “ever closer union,” the goal enshrined in European unity treaties since 1957.
It is no wonder that, despite their leaders’ pledges of support for keeping Britain in the Union, many European officials and diplomats privately wonder if it would be more united and free to advance if Britain could be managed out.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/business/global/britains-plan-to-rework-its-ties-to-europe-is-risky.html?partner=rss&emc=rss