David Rennie (aka The Economist’s Bagehot) has an excellent column in this week’s issue about
the difficulties that Britain will face if she tries to repatriate powers from the EU. His main argument, having spoken to a number of senior German politicians and officials, is that if Britain
holds up any treaty revisions in the hope of extracting concessions in return, then the other EU states will organise themselves without the UK.
The Economist’s former Brussels correspondent also makes the key point that the 10 countries that are outside of the euro are not natural allies for the UK – some, like Denmark, do not want to join the euro, but others such as Poland are keen.
The bottom-line: Britain cannot run a “core” strategy – as the eurozone members are not likely to take UK advice – but nor can it run a “periphery” strategy either, as there is no confluence of interests with the most important non-euro members.
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