Cameron goes Dutch as he misses emergency EU talks
BRITAIN will be represented at a summit of European leaders tonight by the Dutch prime minister, who this week poured scorn on the country’s economic prospects if it were to leave the EU.
David Cameron will be in London to host a visit by Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, meaning that he will miss an emergency meeting of the European Council to discuss Turkey and the migrant crisis.
The Prime Minister has chosen Mark Rutte, the Dutch leader whose country he calls “an old friend and like-minded ally”, to “represent as necessary” the United Kingdom at the talks in Malta.
It is the first gathering of EU leaders since Mr Cameron submitted his renegotiation demands to Donald Tusk, the council president, on Tuesday.
This week, Mr Rutte warned that if Britain voted to leave the EU, it would be a “killer” for the City and would turn the country into “a mid-sized economy in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in neither America nor Europe”.
The European Council meets over dinner behind closed doors, with leaders who cannot attend nominating an ally to speak for them.
Government sources stressed that the meeting would make no formal decisions, and that a so-called “Brexit” was not on the agenda.
None the less, it may be seen as a missed opportunity for Mr Cameron to press his case for reform, and the timing risks fuelling the impression in Brussels that Britain is detached from the refugee crisis. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, said: “This is the greatest surrender of British sovereignty yet.
DAVID CAMERON’S speech on renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the European Union offered “nothing new”, a Cabinet minister has said.
They said: “There was nothing new in it – it is what he has been signalling for months. It is what everyone was ex- pecting.” They said Eurosceptic ministers were likely to keep their powder dry at the moment as “nobody wants to undermine what David Cameron is doing” and added: “We can see what he comes up with.”
Mr Cameron’s speech put restricting benefits for migrants at the heart of his demands for European Union reform.
He also insisted the UK should be ex- empted from the commitment to “evercloser union”, receive protection from eurozone integration and see improvements in competitiveness.
But Steve Baker, chairman of Conservatives for Britain, said the “limited scope” of government ambitions would “cement” Eurosceptics’ feelings.
“There will be a renewed drive to encourage colleagues at all levels to sup- port the campaign for securing exit,” he said.
The news came as it emerged that the chief executives of some of Britain’s biggest companies linked to the CBI have become the target of letters by the Eurosceptic campaign group Vote Leave urging them to remain apolitical ahead of the EU referendum.
It emerged yesterday that Sir Eric Pickles, a former cabinet minister, had written to the Electoral Commission calling on Vote Leave to be denied the right to act as the lead campaign for the “Out” side in the referendum.
Sir Eric said the group had disqualified itself by helping students to disrupt the annual CBI conference on Monday and by threatening to agitate at meetings of Europhile corporations.