Cameron to Van Rompuy: No Negotiation on E.U. Budget
Just days before the House of
Commons debated whether Britain should secede from the E.U., Prime Minister
David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, met with Herman Van Rompuy, President
(or chair) of the European Council, to discuss Cameron’s threat to veto any
proposed seven-year E.U. budget that is higher than the previous budget
(allowing for inflation). The European Commission had proposed a 5% increase
over the current budget, setting the stage for a clash of the titans across the
federal and state levels. The British refusal even to negotiate on the federal
budget exposed a major vulnerability in the E.U. itself just as it was being
relied on internationally to protect the euro from succumbing to the systemic
risk of Greece or Spain defaulting.
The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.