08 January 2013

Telegraph: Britain leaving EU a bigger challenge than Greek exit from euro

The Irish government has admitted that the prospect of Britain leaving the European Union has replaced the threat of a Greek exit from the euro as a "big challenge" facing Europe this year.

Ireland takes over the role of the EU’s six month rotating presidency at a time when the eurozone crisis has subsided but the question over a “Brexit”, or British exit from membership, is now openly debated in European capitals. In a setback for the British government, Eamon Gilmore, the Irish deputy prime minister, made it clear that Ireland, traditionally a close European ally for Britain, would not support David Cameron’s call for powers to be repatriated from the EU to Westminster. "The principal terms of membership, I think have to be the same for all Member States. There are of course arrangements that Member States make from time to time in relation to specific issues... but in terms of the core conditions of membership I think it is important that they are the same for all", he said.

The question of Britain leaving the EU or entering into a looser economic relationship with it has moved to the top of the EU’s political agenda as the eurozone starts to look at treaty change that moves towards creating a European federal super-state.

Lucinda Creighton, Ireland’s Europe minister, acknowledged that after the “harmful speculation” that Greece would leave the euro early last year the debate had moved on to the prospect of Britain leaving the EU. “Now we’ve moved on to speculation about the UK”, she said. “The relationship between the EU and UK is a big challenge.”

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