Britain Urged to Step Back in Feud With E.U.
José Manuel Barroso, the departing president of the European Commission, said Britain’s confrontational stance with European Union states is hurting its chances of winning the policy changes it wants.
The departing president of the European Commission warned Britain on Monday about the dangers of isolating itself within the European Union, saying that the nation’s confrontational stance was backfiring and hurting its chances of winning the policy changes it was seeking.
The commission president, José Manuel Barroso, who leaves office at the end of this month, delivered his message in the midst of an intensely political period in Britain, with Prime Minister David Cameron seeking to beat back a challenge from the anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party heading into a general election next spring.
In speeches and interviews on Sunday and Monday, Mr. Barroso tried to drive home the message that the European Union wanted Britain to remain a member, but not at any cost, and that Britain needed the support of other nations if it was to win changes to the bloc’s rules on fundamental issues like freedom of movement of people and labor.
He said that British politicians should make a “positive case” for remaining in the 28-member bloc. “It worries me that so few politicians on this side of the Channel are ready to tell the facts as they are,” Mr. Barroso said.
Mr. Cameron has promised an in-or-out referendum on British membership in 2017 — if he is re-elected.
In general, the British, who do not use the euro, want the bloc to concentrate on free trade across a single market and interfere less in domestic regulation and legislation. But freedom of movement among the citizens of member states is enshrined in the founding treaty of the European Union, which can be altered only by the unanimous agreement of the states.
Source: NYT- Britain Urged to Step Back in Feud With E.U.
