WHAT THE UK WANTS FROM THE EU

Extract from PM David Cameron’s Speech at Chatham House (10/11/2015)

Economic governance: “First, it is in all our interests for the Eurozone to have the right governance and structures to secure a successful currency for the long-term. Britain understands that, and we will not stand in the way of those developments, as long as we can be sure that there are mechanisms in place to ensure that our own interests are fully protected. Today there are 2 sorts of members of the European Union. There are Euro members and there are non-Euro members. The changes which the Eurozone will need to implement will have profound implications for both types of members. So non-Euro members like Britain which are outside the Eurozone need certain safeguards in order to protect the single market and our ability to decide its rules and to ensure that we face neither discrimination nor additional costs from the integration of the Eurozone. Because the European Union and the Eurozone are not the same thing. And those of us who are in the EU but outside the Eurozone need that accepted. We need a British model of membership that works for Britain and for any other non-Euro members. And this should be perfectly possible. The European Union is a family of democratic nations whose original foundation was  and remains a common market. There is no reason why the single currency and the single market should share the same boundary, any more than the single market and Schengen. So the EU needs flexibility to accommodate both those inside and outside the Eurozone both those who are contemplating much closer economic and political integration and those countries like Britain which will never embrace that goal. This is a matter of cardinal importance for the United Kingdom.

Because if the European Union were to evolve into a single currency club, where those outside the single currency are pushed aside and over-ruled, then it would no longer be a club for us. We need this issue fixed  so that the UK is not obliged to fight a series of running battles which would only corrode trust among Member States. And we have to make sure that there is a point to being in the EU but not in the Eurozone, and that that position does not turn a country into a rule-taker instead of a rule-maker. Now is the time to do that.

So as part of our renegotiation I am asking European leaders to agree clear and binding principles that protect Britain and other non-Euro countries and a safeguard mechanism to ensure these principles are respected and enforced. These principles should include the following. Recognition that the EU is a Union with more than one currency. There should be no discrimination and no disadvantage for any business on the basis of the currency of their country. The integrity of the single market must be protected. As the Eurozone moves ahead, any changes it decides to make  like the creation of a banking union must be voluntary for non-Euro countries, never compulsory. Taxpayers in non-euro countries should never bear the cost for operations to support the Euro as a currency. Just as financial stability and supervision has become a key area of competence for Eurozone institutions like the ECB so financial stability and supervision is a key area of competence for national institutions like the Bank of England for non-Euro members. And any issues that affect all Member States must be discussed and decided by all Member States.”

Competitiveness: “We want a European Union that adds to our competitiveness, not detracts from it. We’ve already made progress. Legislative proposals under the new Commission have fallen by 80 percent with more regulations set to be repealed this year than in the whole of the previous Commission. We have proposals for a Capital Markets Union which will help get finance into the hands of entrepreneurs and growing businesses. The new plans to deepen the single market in services and digital will mean new opportunities for millions of British businesses to operate more easily anywhere in Europe. Changes we secured just last month will mean that British tourists will no longer incur roaming charges when they use mobile phones or have to pay extortionate credit card fees. And just last month the European Commission published a new trade strategy that reflects the agenda that Britain has been championing for years including pursuing massive trade deals with America, China, Japan and ASEAN. We know the benefits free trade can bring. Recent deals including one with Korea are already saving UK consumers £5 billion every year and have helped UK car exports to Korea to increase five-fold. But there is much more we can do. For all we have achieved in stemming the flow of new regulations the burden from existing regulation is still too high. Two years ago we secured the first ever real terms cut in the EU budget. It’s now time to do the same with EU regulation. So we need a target to cut the total burden on business. And at the same time, we need to bring together all the different proposals, promises and agreements on the single market, on trade, and on cutting regulation into one clear commitment that writes competitiveness into the DNA of the whole European Union.”

Sovereignty and subsidiarity: “We need to deal with the disillusionment that many of Europe’s citizens feel towards the European Union as an institution. These concerns are not just in Britain. But they are perhaps greater here than anywhere else in the European Union today. We have already passed a law to guarantee that no powers can transfer from Britain to Brussels ever again without the explicit consent of the British people in a referendum. But if Britain is to remain in the EU, we need to do more. And really it boils down to this. We are a proud, independent nation. We intend to stay that way. So we need to be honest about this. The commitment in the Treaty to an ever closer union is not a commitment that should apply any longer to Britain. We do not believe in it. We do not subscribe to it. We have a different vision for Europe. We believe in a flexible union of free member states who share treaties and institutions, working together in a spirit of co-operation to advance our shared prosperity and to protect our people from threats to our security whether they come from at home or abroad. And continuing, in time and only with unanimous agreement, to welcome new countries into the EU. This vision of flexibility and co-operation is not the same as those who want to build an ever closer political union but it is just as valid. And if we can’t persuade our European partners to share this vision for all we certainly need to find a way to allow this vision to shape Britain’s membership. So I can tell you today, that as part of our renegotiation I am asking European leaders for a clear, legally binding and irreversible agreement to end Britain’s obligation to work towards an ever closer union. That will mean that Britain can never be entangled in a political union against our will or be drawn into any kind of United States of Europe. We also need to ensure that while the European Parliament plays an important role there is a more significant role for national parliaments, including our own Parliament right here at Westminster. It is national parliaments, which are, and will remain, the main source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU. It is to the British Parliament that I must account on the EU budget negotiations, or on the safeguarding of our place in the single market. Those are the parliaments which instil respect even fear – into national leaders. So it is time to give these national parliaments a greater say over EU law-making. We are not suggesting a veto for every single national parliament. We acknowledge that in a European Union of 28, that would mean gridlock. But we want to see a new arrangement where groups of national parliaments can come together and reject European laws which are not in their national interest. We also need to address the issue of subsidiarity the question of what is best decided in Brussels and what is best dealt with in European capitals. We believe that if powers don’t need to reside in Brussels, they should be returned to Westminster. So we want to see the EU’s commitments to subsidiarity fully implemented, with clear proposals to achieve that. In addition, the UK will need confirmation that the EU institutions will fully respect the purpose behind the justice and home affairs protocols in any future proposals dealing with justice and home affairs matters in particular to preserve the UK’s ability to choose to participate. In addition national security is  and must remain the sole responsibility of Member States while recognising the benefits of working together on issues that affect the security of us all. Finally, in this area, people are also frustrated by some legal judgments made in Europe that impact on life in Britain. Of course, this relates as much to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as the European Union. Which is why we need to act on both fronts. So we will reform our relationship with the ECHR by scrapping Labour’s Human Rights Act and introducing a new British Bill of Rights. We will of course consult on how to make this big constitutional change. The consultation we will publish will set out our plan to remain consistent with the founding principles of the Convention, whilst restoring the proper role of UK courts and our Parliament. And as we reform the relationship between our courts and Strasbourg, it is right that we also consider the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. So as was agreed at the time of the Lisbon Treaty we will enshrine in our domestic law that the EU Charter of Fundamental rights does not create any new rights. We will make it explicit to our courts that they cannot use the EU Charter as the basis for any new legal challenge citing spurious new human rights grounds. We will also examine whether we can go one step further. We need to examine the way that Germany and other EU nations uphold their constitution and sovereignty. For example, the Constitutional Court in Germany retains the right to review whether essential constitutional freedoms are respected when powers are transferred to Europe. And it also reserves the right to review legal acts by European institutions and courts to check that they remain within the scope of the EU’s powers, or whether they have overstepped the mark. We will consider how this could be done in the UK.”

Immigration: “We believe in an open economy. But we’ve got to be able to cope with all the pressures that free movement can bring on our schools, our hospitals and our public services. Right now the pressures are too great. I appreciate that at a time when other European countries are facing huge pressure from migration from outside the EU, this may be hard for some other EU countries to understand. But in a way these pressures are an example of exactly the point the UK has been making in recent years. For us, it is not a question of race or background or ethnicity. Britain is one of the most open and cosmopolitan countries on the face of the earth. People from all over the world can find a community of their own right here in Britain. The issue is one of scale and speed, and the pressures on communities that brings, at a time when public finances are already under severe strain as a consequence of the financial crisis. This was a matter of enormous concern in our recent General Election campaign and it remains so today. Unlike some other Member States, Britain’s population is already expanding. Our population is set to reach over 70 million in the next decades and we are forecast to become the most populous country in the EU by 2050. At the same time, our net migration is running at over 300,000 a year. That is not sustainable. We have taken lots of steps to control immigration from outside the EU. But we need to be able to exert greater control on arrivals from inside the EU too. The principle of the free movement of labour is a basic treaty right and it is a key part of the single market. Over a million Brits benefit from their right to live and work anywhere in the EU. We do not want to destroy that principle, which indeed many Brits take for granted. But freedom of movement has never been an unqualified right, and we now need to allow it to operate on a more sustainable basis in the light of the experience of recent years. Britain has always been an open, trading nation, and we do not want to change that. But we do want to find arrangements to allow a Member State like the UK to restore a sense of fairness to our immigration system and to reduce the current very high level of migration from within the EU into the UK. That means first of all correcting the mistakes of the past by ensuring that when new countries are admitted to the EU in the future free movement will not apply to those new members until their economies have converged much more closely with existing Member States. Next, we need to create the toughest possible system for dealing with abuse of free movement. That includes tougher and longer re-entry bans for fraudsters and people who collude in sham marriages. It means addressing the fact that it is easier for an EU citizen to bring a non-EU spouse to Britain than it is for a British citizen to do the same. It means stronger powers to deport criminals and stop them coming back, as well as preventing entry in the first place. And it means addressing ECJ judgments that have widened the scope of free movement in a way that has made it more difficult to tackle this kind of abuse. But ultimately, if we are going to reduce the numbers coming here we need action that gives greater control of migration from the EU. As I have said previously, we can do this by reducing the draw that our welfare system can exert across Europe. To those who say that this won’t make a difference. I say look at the figures. We now know that, at any one time, around 40 percent of all recent European Economic Area migrants are supported by the UK benefits system with each family claiming on average around £6,000 a year of in work benefits alone and over 10,000 recently-arrived families claiming over £10,000 a year. We need to restore a sense of fairness, and reduce this pull factor subsidised by the taxpayer. So I promised 4 actions at the election. Two have already been achieved. EU migrants will not be able to claim Universal Credit while looking for work. And if those coming from the EU haven’t found work within 6 months, they can be required to leave. But we need to go further to reduce the numbers coming here. So we have proposed that people coming to Britain from the EU must live here and contribute for 4 years before they qualify for in work benefits or social housing. And that we should end the practice of sending child benefit overseas. Now, I understand how difficult some of these welfare issues are for other Member States. And I am open to different ways of dealing with this issue. But we do need to secure arrangements that deliver on the objective set out in the Conservative Party manifesto to control migration from the European Union.”