Eu: 26 Versus One Really?
by “You would be forgiven for thinking that Britain is on the fast track to becoming the North Korea of Europe — eccentric and completely isolated from the rest of the world.”
After reading an interesting article today, written by Mats Persson on The Spectator’s blog; i thought it would be in my interest to upload this overview of the situation. Since David Cameron’s veto decision on Friday the media have been in a craze, portraying the outcome as being set solid in concrete and as Mats Persson wonderfully described it: “You would be forgiven for thinking that Britain is on the fast track to becoming the North Korea of Europe — eccentric and completely isolated from the rest of the world.” With all 26 EU countries apart from the UK signing up to the agreement we must be truly isolated and on our own?
Mats Persson director of Open Europe (Open Europe produces a round-up of all the news in Europe) points out that the reality of Britain’s ”so-called” isolation is quite different from what we have been led to believe - showing us the level of support in cabinets and parliaments around Europe – He writes:
France. For all the Sarkozy rhetoric, his main rival, the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, leading him by 18 per cent in a hypothetical second round clash, has said that: ‘If I’m elected president, I’ll renegotiate this deal…to add to it what it lacks today’, being particularly critical of constitutional limits on budget deficits.
Germany. Scratch the surface and the Germans aren’t overwhelmed either. In addition to the deal being seen as an insufficient to solve the crisis, the Bundesbank has warned that the proposed new IMF contributions could take Germany above the ‘bailout’ ceiling established by the Bundestag.
Denmark. The Merkozy deal appears to have split the newly elected Danish centre-left coalition. Danish Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal (of junior coalition partners the Socialist People’s Party), and PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt ( Social Democrats) have been accused of contradicting each other over whether the pact could restrict the government from pushing through its economic programme. The agreement is now pending analysis and approval in Folketinget, which will also consider whether a referendum is required (it’ll most certainly be avoided). A poll this week found that 54 per cent of Danes want the pact to go to a public vote.
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