Britain’s European dilemma: “isolation or treason”, says Blair

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that the current situation in Europe offers Britain a “historic opportunity” to “cure the sickness that has afflicted Britian’s relationship with the project of European integration”.

Speaking in Oxford on 2 February 2006, Mr Blair chose to use his speech commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day to give a frank portrait of Britain’s historically tortured relationship with Europe and to come out firmly as a Europhile. “There’s never been a better time to be optimistic in Europe or enthusiastic about Britain’s part in it,” he said.

The Prime Minister described his frustration, during his steerage of the recent budget negotiations, in walking the thin line of Britian’s ambivalence on Europe. Trying to please all, he could please none. He described his dilemma: “co-operate in Europe and you betray Britain; be unreasonable in Europe, be praised back home, and be utterly without influence in Europe.”

But, in Blair’s view, Europe has to change to face the challenges of economic reform, security and the pressing alterations in energy policy necessitated by the world’s changing climate. Europe must face up to the impact of globalisation. As he put it, “Europe in short, must be global or fail. And, increasingly it knows it.” 

To do this, intimated Blair, there needs to be a change in political attitudes. It was the isolationism prevalent in the collective political leadership of Europe which, in his view, had led to the demise of the European Constitution. “As the problems of the citizen grew ever more pressing, instead of bold policy reform and decisive change, we locked ourselves in a room at the top of the tower and debated things no ordinary citizen could understand,” he said. 

Blair accepted the need to return to the issues around the Constitution: “a European Union of 25 cannot function properly with today’s rules of governance”, he said. But he stressed the need for a practical approach, saying: “today’s generation want to know that the challenges Europe faces are being met by a cooperation that is practical and effective.” 

In what was overall a highly optimistic call for strong European leadership, with Britain firmly to the fore and a radical new agenda, Mr Blair also praised what he saw to be the forward-looking attitudes of his fellow political leaders Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominique de Villepin of France and the new Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.

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