The economic bedrock has always been vital, not just a verbal sideshow. Sceptics will find some reason to challenge the economics for the next several decades, but for anyone else the time is getting as ripe as it will ever be. The notion, incidentally, that the economic assessment will be made exclusively by the Treasury is self-serving poppycock. The prime minister will be closely engaged. The politics also are ripening.
Urgency begins to press.
The debate about the future of Europe, to which the German SPD paper is an early contribution, reaches climax in 2004. The next EU presidency, held by Belgium, will coincide with the likely launch of Britain's euro debate, and is a matter of some alarm to the Brits. They see the Belgians accelerating the 2004 process along integrationist lines. When Blair met the Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, last week it was in the hope of deflecting the kind of centralising and harmonising proposals canvassed also by the Germans. However divided the EU may be about that trend, it's certain to keep on intruding into the 2004 debate.