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EU leadership needs strong UK position, involvement

Dan O'Gara

When the leaders of the European Union (EU) nations completed their summit in Lisbon, there was a collective sigh of relief that the European project was finally moving beyond the stagnation and negativity that have defined EU proceedings ever since the French and Dutch rejection of the proposed Constitutional Treaty.

Despite the fact that the newly coined Lisbon Treaty is essentially the failed Constitutional Treaty sans a couple of supranational references, the EU has left nothing to chance this time and has watered down the agreement just enough that almost all member states will forgo potentially disastrous national referendums in favor of simply pushing the document through their respective national parliaments (with the exception of Ireland, which requires a referendum on any amendments to its constitution).

This latest sleight of hand by the EU has raised surprisingly few eyebrows on the continent, but has not failed to catch the attention of the Euro-skeptics across the Channel.

The Conservatives smell blood in the water after the previously rock-solid Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suddenly started to look vulnerable for the first time.

Given the fact that he currently commands a 100-seat majority in Parliament, it seemed a bit gratuitous to call a snap election in an attempt to further seal his Labour Party's dominance (he is not required to call another election until 2009), but that is exactly what Brown was reportedly plotting.

When the Conservatives managed to rally some support and the polls began to show that Brown was not looking at the landslide he had envisaged, he quickly scrapped the plan. This proved to be a very unpopular move and confirmed the suspicion that Brown's plan was more vanity than substance.

This, combined with the fact that the British people had been promised a referendum on the original EU Constitutional Treaty by former PM Tony Blair, has lead many on the right to call for a national referendum this time around.

The problem is, of course, that Brown is under no legal obligation to grant a referendum and even if there was a referendum, a British no vote would be a disaster of untold proportions for the future of Great Britain in the EU.

The Conservative Euro-skeptics for their part want exactly that, which is disappointing in a number of ways.

First, the EU really needs this treaty to go down smoothly so that they can get back to doing what they do best, which is certainly not institutional reform, but rather lowering the economic barriers to free trade around the 27-member bloc.

Although the Lisbon Treaty may be unpalatable to many, it is time to move on to more important issues such as the further integration of the new Eastern European countries and Iranian nuclear negotiations.

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Secondly, the EU needs a strong and assertive Great Britain to add some momentum to further economic reform and the EU's gradual acceptance of the free-market principles that Great Britain has been pushing for so long.

This leads to the third point, that the EU has finally acknowledged British leadership on economic issues and is ready to hand them more of a leadership role-which has long been reserved for the Paris-Berlin axis. All of this potential is threatened by the overly emotional way that the British look at the EU.

The fact is that the economic benefits that accrue to the British because of EU membership ensure that there is very little chance they would ever leave the Union.

While there might be some benefit to allowing the British people a vote on important European decisions down the road, the timing is simply not right.