Conflicts of interest between member states are inevitable. Britain has consistently been one of the outlier states even though it has been a member since 1974 and has many interests in common with the other old members of the EU. It has remained outside the Eurozone and the Schengen agreement and disagrees on policies such as a tax on financial transactions. New members in the Balkans for example are unlikely to be less cooperative than the UK. Moreover these conflicts of interest are most acute in foreign policy, such as the conflicts of interest over policy towards Russia, where so far the EU does not demand a common position from members so this should not be a concern.