David Cameron vetoes EU-wide treaty change

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

David Cameron has vetoed EU-wide treaty changes to tackle with the eurozone crisis, saying they were not in the UK's interests.

A new "accord" setting out tougher budget rules will now be drawn up by eurozone countries. As well as the UK, Hungary looks set to stay outside it.

Sweden and the Czech Republic will consult on the deal.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the move was "very sensible" and would not leave the UK isolated.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16104275

---

David Cameron has blocked a crucial EU treaty deal and now faces virtual isolation as 23 of the 27 nations forge ahead to thrash out plans for tougher central control of eurozone tax and spending.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/debt-crisis-live/8944990/EU-treaty-and-debt-crisis-live.html

Eurozone countries go it alone with new treaty that excludes Britain.

Britain is facing isolation in Europe after David Cameron vetoed a revision of the Lisbon treaty, prompting a majority of EU members to agree to draw up their own deal outside the architecture of the union.

In one of the most significant developments in Britain's 38-year membership of the EU, the British prime minister said early on Friday morning he could not allow a "treaty within a treaty" that would undermine the UK's position in the single market.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/09/eurozone-countries-treaty-exclude-britain

PM finally gets tough with Europe: David Cameron vetoes new treaty to save the euro and hand more power to Brussels.

Only UK and Hungary certain to stay out of new grouping - and Sweden and Czech Republic may join them in two-tier EU

After 10 hours of talks 17 Eurozone members and six other countries decide to go ahead with a 'fiscal pact'

PM defiant as he declares: 'I had to pursue Britain's interests... I effectively wielded the veto'

French President Sarkozy says Cameron's demands were 'unacceptable'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071952/This-going-treaty-Britain-signs-Cameron-blocks-EU-deal-hand-economic-power-Brussels.html#ixzz1g1scugnb

[Ghost Dog]

1. Britain was left isolated this morning...

Britain was left isolated this morning with just three other countries, Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic, as an exultant Nicolas Sarkozy hailed a “historic” breakaway “euro plus” bloc that would pursue fiscal and economic union via a new treaty outside the EU.

The Prime Minister insisted that he had been prepared to support treaty change among all 27 of the EU’s members to allow the 17-strong eurozone to take measures to tackle its debt crisis and to enforce tough new fiscal rules for the single currency. But after 11 hours of bad-tempered talks, Mr Cameron said that he had blocked the changes because France and Germany and refused to agree to a “protocol” giving the City of London protection from a wave of EU financial service regulations related to the eurozone crisis...

... President Sarkozy said that British demands had been “unacceptable”.

“We would have preferred a deal at the level of the 27,” he said. “That wasn't possible taking into account the position of our British friends. In order to accept treaty revision among the 27 EU states, David Cameron asked us - something we all judged unacceptable - for a protocol to be inserted into the treaty granting the United Kingdom a certain number of exonerations on financial services regulations.

"We could not accept this, since we consider, quite on the contrary, that a part of the world's woes stem from the deregulation of the financial sector.”

/... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8945155/EU-suffers-worst-split-in-history-as-David-Cameron-blocks-treaty-change.html


(See also: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5084982 )

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Laelth]

2. UK refuses to re-regulate its financial sector. Great. k&r n/t

:sarcasm:

-Laelth

[Stella_Artois]

29. Did the lack of regularisation cause the sovereign debt crisis ?

Because that seems to me to be the problem in the Eurozone. I'm not clear how London financial markets convinced the Greeks to spend more money than they had.

[dipsydoodle]

32. It wasn't London

as far I'm aware it was Goldman Sachs. Thats from comments here in the past.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

3. I was just in America recently

And a lot of my liberal friends in the US (some of them are foreigners from the UK and Australia) have said to me, "Thank goodness the UK never went Euro."

I initially wondered why the UK did not have a Euro currency and am relieved that it's not Euro. I think Cameron did the right thing here, despite some of the anti-Cameron views here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. I think Sarkozy is right that deregulation of the financial sector was responsible

for a lot of the trouble; and it's a shame that the only major 'industry' Britain has left is finance. Cameron is painted into a bit of a corner; he can defend the one sector in the country that still stands a chance of making money, however immorally, or do the right thing and preside over another recession in the UK. Unsurprisingly, he chose the 'patriotic but money-grabbing' route - the natural one for a Conservative.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Well to be perfectly fair...

Labour's position on a financial transactions tax is "only if it's global" (which means "if the US and Hong Kong sign on"). So I can't see a PM Miliband behaving in a significantly different manner over this (although without a significant contingent of hardline Eurosceptic backbenchers to deal with Labour would have more room for manoeuvre in hammering out a deal that was agreed to by the EU-27 instead of just the Eurozone plus a few others as well).

[dipsydoodle]

6. It wasn't just our deregulation

it was the US's too. Not much point in attaching blame to the Cons : New Labour had plenty of time to put in corrections but chose not to do so. We're at a point where blame serves no useful purpose.

Aside from that our financial sector contributes about 15% to our GDP. I've no clue as to what could replace that 15% if necessary.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

8. The Euro currency is a potential sinking ship

So countries, such as Croatia, may have made a mistake with joining the agreement. I was in Amsterdam last weekend and my husband wanted to spend all the euros we had because of this. If the UK is better off without the Euro (and it is) it makes sense to have the financial sector.

What I don't understand is why should the UK (who has refused all along to join the Euro currency) help prop up countries who were not careful with their spending habits and potentially put their own economy at risk?

[dipsydoodle]

10. Croatia joins the European Union 2013

It doesn't follow that they also join the Euro then. They would however commit to joining that at a later date.

"Help prop up" is for the overall good.

[Stella_Artois]

30. I not sure it did.

Its a convenient scapegoat, but the Greek debt crisis seemed to be caused by the Greeks spending more than they should have. Did London make them do that ?

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. The Greek problem could have been contained, if it was just them

In 2007, the year before the shit hit the fan:
Ireland had a government surplus of 0.1% of GDP
Spain had a surplus of 1.9%
Italy a deficit of 1.5%
Portugal a deficit of 2.6%
and the UK a deficit of 2.8%. Greece's deficit was 5.1% .

Source: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-22042010-BP/EN/2-22042010-BP-EN.PDF

The Greeks were spending more than they should have; but the UK was spending more than any of the other Eurozone countries that are now worries. The problem is the worldwide recession, which was caused by the lax banking regulations - and London was the worst of the major financial centres (the AIG disaster was centred on London, because of the British lack of regulation). There was a worldwide bubble, set up by reckless banks - and countries have scrambled (too much in my opinion) to keep the irresponsible banks afloat, and that has increased the debts of the governments.

[T_i_B]

12. Why did we never join the Euro?

The issue of whether or not to join the Euro tore the Tories part in the 1990's when John Major was PM. In the end the UK government would have had to hold a referendum on such a desision and such a referendum would not have been winnable.

The EU is not exactly popular with the British public, and the Eurozone crisis has left a lot of people over here very thankful that we still have Sterling as our currency.

[Bosonic]

7. Fog in Channel - Continent Cut Off

Update is that Sweden, Czech Republic and Hungary have now decided to join in with the EuroZone V2.0, so now the UK really is the control in the Euro experiment.

[Berlin Expat]

11. Interesting.

Do you have a link for that? I just checked BBC, and they mentioned Hungary, but saw nothing about Czech Republic and Sweden.

[Bosonic]

13. 9 EU countries ready to draft new treaty on fiscal union

Nine countries are ready to join the 17 members of the euro zone to draft a new intergovernmental treaty for deeper fiscal union aimed at tackling the sovereign debt crisis, a new set of draft summit conclusions said today.

The decision appears to isolate Britain even more markedly as the only one of the 10 non-euro-zone countries in the EU not to agree to join the treaty change.

"The Heads of State or Government of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden indicated the possibility to take part in this process after consulting their Parliaments where appropriate," said the draft conclusions.

Twenty-three of the 27 leaders agreed to pursue tighter integration with stricter budget rules for the single currency area, but Britain said it could not accept proposed amendments to the EU treaty after failing to secure concessions for itself.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/1209/breaking1.html

[dipsydoodle]

14. Sweden and Czech Republic have not decided

They have referred the matter to their own parliaments.

The Danes are mulling it over.

[JCMach1]

9. Right decision, but for the wrong reason...

[dipsydoodle]

16. Allow for the fact

that if he'd agreed we may as a result have had a referendum on whether the the UK should stay in the European Union.

[fedsron2us]

27. My view precisely

Cameron barely mentioned any concern for British or other European voters as a reason for wielding his veto so busy was he trying to defend the financial interests of his mates in the City of London

As a member of the British left and a life long critic of the current European project my beef with the EU is its huge democratic deficit which has become nakedly obvious in the curent crisis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/economics-blog/2011/nov/08/euro-papandreou-berlusconi-bailout-debt

BTW any US readers interested in the history of Britains relationship with Europe need to be aware that 30 years ago it was members of the Labour Party that led the opposition to the UKs membership of the EEC and its successors. Most of the Conservative Party including the supposedly Eurosceptic Mrs Margaret Hilda Thatcher lobbied for the Yes vote in the European Referendum of 1975 as part of a campaign bankrolled by big business

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975

It was only when that toad Blair got hold of the Labour Party that it lost its sense of history

The old Labour view point is best set out on Peter Shore's magisterial book 'Seperate Ways' which is probably the best critique of the EU and its predecessors ever written

http://www.junepress.com/reviewpic.asp?BID=635

Needless to say Conservatives only started to get cold feet about the whole thing when they thought it might hit them in the wallet.

[T_i_B]

15. One other thing to remember here....

...is that if the UK signed up to a treaty, Cameron would have to get it through parliament, which would not be easy given how Euro-sceptic his own MP's are. Could have split his own party and brought down the coalition.

Plus there would have been the possibility of a new treay being put to a referendum, and that one may well have been unwinnable.

[FarCenter]

17. It is a necessary to eject the UK in order to cure Europe of the Thatcher/Reagan disease

Isn't Scotland rather more keen on European integration than England?

I wonder whether this will increase the motivation for Scotland to seek independence from England?

[jaybeat]

18. Uh, I'm thinking you have that backwards?

The Thatcher/Reagan disease has already infected Europe, with the drive by France and Germany to sacrifice the public sector at the altar of the now-sacred "markets." Ronnie and Maggie would have certainly dry-humped each other in delight over the prospect that the pillars of the modern social-welfare contract would insist on full-steam ahead in their race to the bottom.

The Tories, of course, are completely on board with THAT part of the deal--no doubt they'd rather it go farther. It's just they won't swallow ANY regulation of the banksters in the City. Not that they could, politically--crossing their own 1% would surely bring down the coalition. Not that THAT would be a bad thing, from my point of view, but ritual suicide is NOT the English way!

[FarCenter]

19. The UK opposed the re-regulation of financial services by the EU

Once the UK is out, the EU can rein in the financial services sector and abandon the radical free market theories of the Thatcher/Reagan era. This is impossible with the UK inside the group, since the City of London would repeatedly re-infect the financial sector on the continent.

Of course there is going to be harsh austerity on the continent. This will be necessary to get their economies back into shape. However, Germany did this after re-unification and survived. Other former Warsaw Pact countries have gone through wrenching readjustments and are coming around. Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain will survive the austerity programs as well.

[jaybeat]

21. RIght, I get that part...

I understand that the UK is opposing re-regulations of the Banksters at all costs, and that the EU is on the right side of that issue.

It just seems to me that the drive to "Austerity" is really a fundamental dismantling of democracy--the whims of bondholders trumps the will democratically elected governments, ALWAYS. What France and Germany seem to want is to take this even further--technocrats in Brussels (many/most of them former Banksters themselves) get to tell member states what to cut and how much--will of the voters of those states be damned. As an American, that is something that makes me truly ill. I'm used to the private sector owning the government, lock, stock and politician, over here. Now it seems THAT contagion has infected Europe as well. When the private sector gets to define what "in shape" means for an economy, and governments do nothing but passively accept those definitions, democracy is merely window-dressing on an otherwise completely feudal system.

[FarCenter]

22. I don't think technocrats in Brussels will be telling member states what to cut

They will tell member states to submit their budgets, determine whether they are fiscally sound, and then monitor tax reciepts and government expenditures to ensure that the member states are adhereing to their budgets. If the member states do not keep to their commitments, it then goes to a judicial process for the assements of penalties.

[ShockediSay]

33. The City, Britain's Wall Street, was where Cameron's family

made its money, One Percenters leeching off the 99 IMHO. Cameron seems to want to keep the rip off going.

[Ghost Dog]

20. It would appear that the 'EU Technocrats' are aware of the disease

and aim to do something about preventing and curing it, at least in the core EU, with or without the UK.

[jaybeat]

24. I'm just afraid of their diagnosis

"Too much government spending" is the Plutocracy's mantra for what is the cause for every economic problem. In reality, since the 1980s, it's been (IMO) too *little* government spending on things that actually help people (infrastructure, green energy, environmental restoration, carbon mitigation, domestic food and manufacturing capacity, healthcare and raising living standards), too much on things that don't (defense), and unwillingness to collect taxes from the few that have the money pay for the things that vast majorities of voters actually want.

While for a long time Europe seemed immune to this particularly American mindset, I worry that their current elevation of appeasing "the markets" above ALL else (including the will of their own people) is taking them down the same path.

And in the process, we say "Buh-bye" to the last vestiges of democracy. Starting with Greece. How ironic.

[fedsron2us]

28. Scotland used to be the most anti-European part of the UK

If you look at the results of the 1975 UK Referendum on Britain's membership of the EEC the forerunner to the EU it was the part of Britain along with Northern Ireland that returned the biggest No vote. At that time the Scottish Nationalists campaigned for people to reject the European Treaty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975

Of course that might have all changed in the past 35 years but I would not bet the house on it. Worth noting that the SNP leader, the wily Alec Salmond, has gone all quiet on the idea of an independent Scotland in the Eurozone and has gone back to the old SNP stance of Scotland being part of a Scandinavian zone of 'influence'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bye-bye-england-snp-plans-closer-scandinavian-ties-after-independence-6272337.html

BTW one of the many ironies of history is that the British Government and Sinn Fein may soon have identical policies on the subject of the EU. Funny old world.

[Dover]

23. Europe moves ahead with fiscal union, UK isolated

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe secured an historic agreement to draft a new treaty for deeper economic integration in the euro zone on Friday, but Britain, the region's third largest economy, refused to join the other 26 countries in a fiscal union and was isolated.

The outcome of a two-day European Union summit left financial markets uncertain whether and when more decisive action would be taken to stem a debt crisis that began in Greece in 2009, spread to Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain and now threatens France and even economic powerhouse Germany.

A new treaty could take three months to negotiate and may require risky referendums in countries such as Ireland.

Two ECB sources told Reuters the European Central Bank would keep purchases of euro zone government bonds capped for now and take no extra firefighting action. Debt markets were wary. Interbank lending rates eased but Italian 10-year bond yields rose to around 6.5 percent.

..cont'd

http://news.yahoo.com/eu-leaders-agree-fiscal-pact-treaty-change-035239179.html

[Ghost Dog]

25. UK shot in foot.

... Angela Merkel, the central driver of the new regime, appeared sanguine and unbothered by the British veto.

"The breakthrough to a stability union, a fiscal union has been achieved," she said. "Only one country, Great Britain, distanced itself." She added: "I really don't believe David Cameron was ever with us at the table. We're very pleased with the result. (The deal) was no weak compromise for the euro."

But Cameron was scornful of what the summit accomplished. "I don't actually think the world is waiting with bated breath about what was the exact nature of the institutional relationship. I don't believe they're sitting in the trading rooms wondering whether there's going to be a new reverse QMV (qualified majority voting) article on integrated budget setting of blah, blah, blah."

/... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/09/david-cameron-blocks-eu-treaty

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8947625/EU-treaty-David-Cameron-stands-as-the-lone-man-of-Europe.html