Policy Focus

UK urged to drop its 'paralysing stand-off' with Europe

A new report says that Britain’s ability to deal with the challenges of the 21st century will depend on its “active participation” in the EU.

The report says that following the Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty it would be “wasteful” if the UK were to “fall back into its paralysing and perennial stand-off” between Eurosceptic and Europhobe opinion.

Sir Stephen Wall, chairman of the Chatham House commission, says: “In this report, we have tried to analyse how best the British interest can be safeguarded and promoted.

“If we conclude that we can best do it by working with those of our European neighbours who share our political values, that is a conclusion driven by hard logic, not soft love.”

The report, ‘A British agenda for Europe’, was presented at a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday.

It also concludes that British thinking on many of the international challenges of the next decade - from combating climate change to dealing with a rising China - will evolve closer to its EU partners’ views than to those of the United States.

It says no government, whether one of the world’s major powers, an intermediate power like Britain, or a smaller state, will be able to protect the interests of its citizens on its own.

Therefore, a “clear British vision that looks beyond the Lisbon treaty” at the range of risks emerging from beyond Europe’s borders is “essential”, it says.

The report says the EU should encourage Ukrainian integration into the EU, which, it says, would further stabilise a European country that has “great economic significance” for the EU in a number of areas, including food production and energy transportation.

It predicts that Britain’s energy picture will change “radically” over the next 20 years and, as supplies of British North Sea oil and gas decline, increased imports of gas will have to come from Russia.

“Britain should push for a more coordinated European energy strategy in order to be in a position to better handle Russia’s dominant position within European energy markets,” it says.

It says the “island mentality” that dominates British debate on domestic security “disregards the increasingly mobile” nature of 21st century threats.

“Confronting a terror plot aimed at London but coordinated in Frankfurt and Calais requires Europe-wide structures and procedures for judicial, police and counter-terrorism cooperation.

“Britain’s arrangement to be able to opt in or out of current formal EU procedures in this area allows it the flexibility to pick and choose its areas of cooperation.

“In the future, however, there is the real risk that Britain will be excluded from certain enhanced areas of EU cooperation, as it is currently from the Schengen system.”