Conservatives Will Inherit EU Merde-Sturm

Conservatives may by forced to call early EU referendum - Telegraph

I wonder if Dave and his mates have decided they'd rather not be running this country after the next general election.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has raised the prospect of new EU treaty only months after the Lisbon Treaty took force.

Mrs Merkel said that a new EU accord would be required to create a new European Monetary Fund able to bail out crisis-hit members of the euro like Greece. “We would need a treaty change,” she said.

Talk of a new EMF has led to warnings that power of tax and spending could be centralised in European institutions.

When the Lisbon accord was proposed, European leaders said that it would be the last attempt to change the EU’s basic rules for many years.

But some European politicians have taken the recent financial crisis as an opportunity to suggest more changes. The European Commission has said the crisis is a chance to improve Europe’s “economic governance”.

Britain is not a euro member, but it is a signatory to the Maastricht treaty that created the single European currency. Maastricht bans one euro member giving direct financial aid to another.

EU rules mean that any change in the union’s fundamental rules must be approved by all EU members in a new treaty.

Any new treaty that creates a “gouvernement économique” based in Brussels and Frankfurt would face stiff opposition from Eurosceptics across the British political spectrum.

Both Labour and the Conservatives signalled they would oppose any new EU treaty, and the issue has the potential to be a political embarrassment to both.

When David Cameron dropped his commitment to hold a referendum on Lisbon last year, he reassured voters and Eurosceptic Tories that a Conservative government would put any future treaty to a referendum.

Conservative officials confirmed that the referendum “lock” would be applied to any new EMF treaty.

Mark Francois, the Conservative shadow Europe minister, said: “A European Monetary Fund must create no financial or legal obligations on Britain.”

However, the Conservatives are wary of letting Europe become a major issue at the general election, fearing that Labour could use the subject to portray them as an unreformed right-wing party.

Labour promised a referendum on the European Constitution, the forerunner of Lisbon, but then dropped the commitment.

Mr Brown told the Commons in 2007 that he would not accept any change in Europe’s rules for another decade.

Downing Street confirmed on Tuesday that the UK would oppose any new treaty brought forward to set up an EMF.

Downing Street said: “The Government opposes further institutional change in the relationship between the EU and member states for this parliament and the next.”

Asked about Mrs Merkel’s remarks, No 10 said: “We don’t actually expect further institutional change.”

Mats Persson, director of Open Europe, a think-tank, said that any new treaty could be a move to centralise power over tax and spending policies.

He said. “This will be seen, rightly, as a step towards fiscal federalism. That would be a step in the wrong direction for the UK.”

Even though Britain is outside the euro, Mr Persson said it was “not inconceivable

that the UK could take part in some way” in a new European bail-out fund.

As an example, he said, the UK pays to help fund the running costs of the European Central Bank, despite not being a member of the European single currency.

Nigel Farage, a UK Independence Party MEP, said: “British participation in a European IMF will prove to be a bottomless pit down which taxpayers’ money can be poured in an attempt to save a lost cause.”