Thread: Obama Warns UK To Stay In EUSSR "European Union"

Britain should stay in European Union, says Obama administration

Intervention from senior US official comes as UK position on EU membership is criticised in Brussels and Dublin

Julian Borger, Ian Traynor and Nicholas Watt
The Guardian, Wednesday 9 January 2013
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David Cameron’s stated strategy on securing a looser UK-EU relationship to be laid out in a major speech within weeks. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA

The Obama administration issued a direct challenge to David Cameron over Europe, on Wednesday when it warned of the dangers of holding a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

A senior US official questioned the merits of holding a referendum as the prime minister's campaign to reset the terms of Britain's EU membership also came under assault from Brussels and Dublin.

With just weeks to go until Cameron delivers a landmark speech in which he is expected to promise to hold a referendum on a "new settlement" for Britain in the EU, the US assistant secretary for European affairs warned that "referendums have often turned countries inwards".

"We welcome an outward-looking European Union with Britain in it. We benefit when the EU is unified, speaking with a single voice, and focused on our shared interests around the world and in Europe," Philip Gordon said during a visit to London, adding: "We want to see a strong British voice in that European Union. That is in the American interest."

Gordon stressed that it was it was up to Britain to determine its European role but, in what appeared to be a clear reference to attempts to renegotiate UK membership with the EU, he said: "It would be fair to say that every hour at an EU summit spent debating the institutional makeup of the European Union is one less hour spent talking about how we can solve our common challenges of jobs, growth, and international peace around the world."

The intervention by Gordon, who was in London to meet the Europe minister, David Lidington, highlights the alarm in Washington as opinion polls show a rise in support for British withdrawal from the EU and the prime minister prepares to set out how he will repatriate powers from the EU.

Cameron is expected to say in his speech that, if elected with a majority in 2015, he will use an EU treaty revision to underpin new eurozone governance arrangements to repatriate some powers.

The new terms of British membership would be put to the UK public in a referendum.

It has been the US position for several years that close British engagement in Europe was in American interests.

But Gordon's remarks appeared to be a clear message to the government that the "special relationship" would be devalued in the eyes of the Obama administration if Britain left the EU, or got bogged down in drawn-out negotiations on the details of its membership.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "The US wants an outward looking EU with Britain in it, and so do we."

The forthright American intervention came as Cameron's plans also came under concerted attack from Brussels and the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, whose country holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU.

At an event in Dublin marking Ireland's assumption of the presidency, Kenny described the prospect of Britain quitting the EU as a "disaster", while Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, called on the UK to remain an "active, full, and leading" EU member.

Van Rompuy also cast doubt on whether a major revision of the treaty – essential to Cameron's strategy – would actually take place. He said EU states could not agree on what they wanted to change in the treaty, so the prospect of a renegotiation was remote.

"At this stage of the debate we don't need as much treaty change as people think," said Van Rompuy. "For those ideas for where treaty change is needed there is simply no consensus. So the possibility of having treaty changes in the near future or present are not very high."

He said he would wait to hear what Cameron said about Britain in Europe, although there is much confusion in EU capitals about when and where the prime minister will deliver a speech that has been given high billing for some months.

Cameron's stated strategy of securing a looser UK-EU relationship hinges on 27 governments re-opening the Lisbon Treaty, enabling Britain to push changes "repatriating" powers from Brussels.

In fact, the other EU leaders want to avoid treaty change as it could result in years of gruelling negotiations and open a pandora's box of competing claims.

Senior Irish politicians said other European governments were privately urging Cameron to desist. Kenny warned that the EU's "floodgates" would be opened if the Lisbon Treaty was revisited to suit an individual country.

"We would see it as being disastrous were a country like Britain to leave the union. Clearly the British government will form their own view," he said.
Van Rompuy said: "Britain is a highly appreciated, highly valued and very important member of the EU. I believe it is in British interests to stay, not only a member of the EU but a very active and full member, a leading nation in the EU. Of course it is for the British people to decide on their future."

Britain should stay in European Union, says Obama administration | World news | The Guardian

Barack Obama treats Britain with sneering contempt. No wonder he worships the EU

January 10th, 2013 16:53
172 Comments


Britain’s relationship with the EU is none of Barack Obama’s business

January 9th, 2013 19:19
396 Comments

Orwellian EUSSR Demands Details Of All UK Drivers

EU demands access to details of all UK drivers: 'Orwellian' move to hand out personal information to foreign police forces

• Foreign police also want open access to the UK’s national DNA database
• But MPs and civil liberties groups fear identity mistakes will lead to Britons being wrongly accused of crimes

By James Slack
PUBLISHED:19:28 EST, 8 January 2013
UPDATED:03:14 EST, 9 January 2013
Comments (524)
Brussels is demanding that 26 police forces across the EU should have access to the personal details of every motorist in Britain. So far Home Secretary Theresa May is yet to implement the diktat

Brussels is demanding that 26 police forces across the EU should have access to the personal details of every motorist in Britain.
The Government is being threatened with fines totalling millions of pounds unless it obeys the ‘Orwellian’ edict.

Foreign police also want open access to the UK’s national DNA database and fingerprint records so they can check them against crime scenes and camera footage.

MPs and civil liberties groups fear identity mistakes will lead to Britons being accused of crimes they have not committed.

But there is particular alarm at the idea of overseas police having access to information about every registered driver in the UK.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database contains details of 38million drivers.

If foreign police give the British authorities a single wrong digit from a number plate – or if criminals have cloned a UK registration – then the officers would be given names, addresses, purchase details and a wealth of other personal information on the wrong suspect.

Motorists could then face a lengthy ordeal to prove their innocence. There are fears that, once a foreign force has the DVLA data, it could fall into the wrong hands or be ‘lost’.

Concerns have also been raised about checks against Britain’s DNA database, which is the largest in the world. Some EU countries have worryingly high error rates when it comes to checking DNA samples.

European rules allow police to conduct tests of a lower quality than are permitted in Britain.

Academics in the Netherlands, which has been running the scheme for four years, found that two-thirds of ‘matches’ at the lowest level wrongly identified an innocent person as a genetic match.

The nightmare scenario could see a Briton placed under a European Arrest Warrant and bundled off to another country before they can prove mistaken identity.

Labour quietly signed Britain up to the regime, known as the Prum Treaty, in 2008, and it was supposed to come into force at least two years ago.

Foreign police also want open access to the UK's national DNA database and fingerprint records so they can check them against crime scenes and camera footage

But Home Secretary Theresa May – concerned about civil liberties and handing too much power to Brussels – is yet to implement the diktat.

According to European Commission papers seen by the Mail, this has angered the Eurocrats, who are now threatening to issue Britain with ‘infringement proceedings’ if it does not obey by the end of 2014.

The ultimate sanction is a fine issued by the European Court of Justice. The minimum is £7.5million for each ruling against the UK.

The Commission report admits: ‘A considerable number of member states consider that the matching rules, in particular for DNA data, are not fully satisfactory and should be designed in a better way so as to avoid matches that are identified as false upon subsequent verification.’

But it then goes on to say there should be no excuse for Britain and a small number of other member states who are resisting implementing the regime. Last night Tory MP Dominic Raab, who unearthed the Commission’s report, called the scheme ‘Orwellian’.

He said: ‘It beggars belief that in the same report that acknowledges the vulnerability of the regime to mistakes and serious risks of overloading national systems, the Commission is threatening to fine Britain and other member states for not doing its bidding. This reckless scheme is a disaster waiting to happen.

‘The risks of data-sharing on such a massive scale have not been addressed, especially given the potential for innocent people to be caught up in the investigations of foreign authorities, and the risk of criminals gaining fraudulent access to such information.’

Supporters of the treaty argue that it will help to fight cross-border crime. They say British police will get access to information on foreign suspects living in the UK.



Innocent Britons may suffer because of errors by foreign police

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EU demands access to details of all UK drivers: 'Orwellian' move to hand out personal information to foreign police forces | Mail Online