Title: The future of the European Union
Description: Our inquiry into Government policy on the future of the European Union was triggered by the Prime Minister's veto of EU Treaty change at the December 2011 meeting of the European Council. We felt that the episode might mark a defining moment in the UK's EU policy and place in the EU. Our Report examines the key overarching principles of Government policy for the UK's place in the EU, for as long as the UK may remain a Member State. It also starts to explore some of the implications of the Prime Minister's major EU speech of January 2013, in which he committed any Conservative Government elected in the 2015 General Election to holding an in/out referendum on the UK's continued EU membership by the end of 2017... There is support for some of Mr Cameron's reform ideas around the EU, and there is significant scope for further progress on some of them. Beyond this, given that the Prime Minister has not spelled out in any detail the content of the new settlement that a Conservative Government elected in the 2015 General Election might seek for the UK in the EU, and given that it is over a year, at least, before any major EU Treaty reform process seems likely to get underway, it is impossible to assess the likelihood of him securing the kind of new settlement for the UK in the EU that he might seek. However, we are clear that UK proposals for pan-EU reforms are likely to find a more favourable reception than requests for further special treatment for the UK. We are sceptical that other Member States would renegotiate existing EU law so as to allow the UK alone to reduce its degree of integration, particularly where this could be seen as undermining the integrity of the Single Market. The Government must reckon with the fact that the body of existing EU law is a collective product in which 27 countries have invested. Our sense is that other Member States want the UK to remain an EU Member. However, we do not think that a UK Government could successfully demand any price from other Member States for promising to try to keep the UK in the Union.
Subjects: Politics and government, Relations, European Union
Places: Great Britain, European Union countries