Seen from continental Europe, one of the biggest questions of 2010 concerns David Cameron, leader of the UK’s opposition Conservative party. The Tories are widely expected to win the forthcoming British election, but few European Union politicians can claim with confidence to know where he truly stands on the all-important matter of Britain’s relationship with the EU.
The lack of clarity isn’t helped by the Tories’ distant relationship with their fellow EU centre-right parties. I am in Bonn at a congress of the European People’s Party, the leading centre-right party group. Everyone who matters is here: Germany’s Angela Merkel, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, Herman Van Rompuy (the newly appointed full-time EU president)… Countries from Malta to Latvia and Georgia to Croatia are represented. But there are no Conservative party politicians at all here – not Cameron, not William Hague, his shadow foreign secretary, not Kenneth Clarke, the only authentically pro-EU voice in the shadow cabinet.
What a magnificent example of “splendid isolation” – what childishness. And what makes the Tories’ absence all the more extraordinary is that a majority of the speakers at the EPP congress are speaking in English.
In the absence of direct contacts with the Tories, the EPP’s leaders and strategists could do worse than look at a new report on Cameron and the EU published today by the Centre for European Reform, the London-based think-tank. It paints Cameron as a force for moderation on European issues within his party, observing: “Though a eurosceptic of sorts, he is a pragmatist rather than an ideologue and he sees that the British national interest requires constructive engagement with EU partners. Cameron needs to be supported against those who wish to provoke a crisis in Britain’s relationship with the EU.”
I am sure this is true, but if I were a political leader in mainland Europe I would feel sorely tempted to ask myself: “But what is Cameron going to offer me? Where is he proposing to meet me halfway?” Accepting that the EU’s Lisbon treaty is here to stay, as he did last month, is nothing like enough.
Once in power, there is much that Cameron could contribute in a positive sense to shaping the EU’s future. He could put forward ideas for improving the EU’s long-term economic competitiveness, combining a strategy for economic growth with a dedication to fighting climate change. He could press forward on the important issue of European security and defence policy, recognising that this will do much to determine Europe’s relative weight in the world. He could hold aloft the banner of EU enlargement.
If other EU leaders are to support Cameron against the anti-EU elements in his party and country, it will be up to him to offer something in return.
Across the globe: Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on