By Ruth Marsden - 9th December 2011
For two and a half years Cameron's policy in the EU has led to Britain's isolation
Glenis Willmott
The UK is heading towards "second class membership of Europe", warns Liberal MEP Andrew Duff.
A senior EU constitutional expert, Duff condemned the UK’s decision not to back a tax and budget deal to tackle the eurozone's debt crisis.
Duff added that the UK government's decision to veto a new treaty change will be "hugely damaging to the British national interest".
Duff's were not the only concerns to be voiced following marathon discussions over the fate of the eurozone on Thursday evening.
Fellow ALDE MEP Chris Davies said UK prime minister David Cameron had "betrayed Britain's interests".
"In a world in which the influences of the old powers is diminishing by the day, Britain's prime minister has attacked his closest partners and left our country weaker and more isolated."
EU leaders meeting at the summit in Brussels were unable to reach an agreement that would see all 27 member states underpin tough new fiscal rules in order to tackle the eurozone crisis.
"The future is uncertain," Duff added, "It is not clear how a separate bloc of 17 states – or will it be 26 – can progress."
ELDR president and MEP Sir Graham Watson said he believed the agreement was "in all EU member states’ interests to be a part of the main axis of European advance”.
While, ALDE group leader Guy Verhofstadt said any new treaty would only be acceptable under strict conditions and if the community method and democratic control are full respected.
He added, "I regret the British decision to prevent an agreement of all 27 member states which has forced effectively the other countries to forge ahead on their own."
Greens/EFA co-presidents Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit said the proposed intergovernmental treaty raises "as many new questions as it answers".
"The new proposed treaty represents the ultimate failure of the flawed intergovernmental approach to the crisis over the past two years," they added.
Head of Labour MEPs, Glenis Willmott, said, "For two and a half years Cameron's policy in the EU has led to Britain's isolation. It was tragic to see the evidence of lost British influence at yesterday's summit."
"We are an international trading economy and Cameron's anti-Europeanism and kow-towing to his backbenchers has excluded Britain from the top table. We should not be vetoing at the sidelines, we should be there at the centre shaping the future of the interlinked European economies," she argued.
Meanwhile, Martin Callanan, leader of the UK Tory MEPs, praised Cameron's refusal to be "bullied or browbeaten" by France and Germany.
"I have no doubt they will try to portray him as the villain of the piece, but he was only doing what all member states do in protecting their own national interests," he said.
Callanan added, "A new treaty may help solve the next crisis, but it would come too late to solve this one. Now they need to get on with stabilising the euro however they can, if necessary by jettisoning some of the baggage dragging it down.
"They should start by telling Greece her time is up."
