Chapter 874 Isolation

As for Merkel's mention of Barron's mediation at the EU summit at the end of last year, she was referring to the EU summit held in December last year. At that time, Britain vetoed the signing of a new treaty and injected capital into the International Monetary Fund to save the country. demands from some European countries in crisis.

According to the plan of the EU summit at that time, Britain needed to inject about 30 billion euros into the International Monetary Fund, second only to Germany and basically the same as France...

And at this EU summit, plans are to adopt a revised EU fiscal new treaty, requiring EU member states to strengthen fiscal discipline.

Its contents include stipulating that the annual structural deficit of the contracting parties shall not exceed 0.5% of GDP, and writing this into the laws of each country; initiating an automatic sanctions mechanism for countries whose deficit exceeds 3% of GDP; and the debt-to-GDP ratio shall not exceed 60%.

British Prime Minister Cameron, who attended the summit, said that the EU's new treaty harmed Britain's interests. In the end, he used the British veto power to veto the signing of the new treaty with one vote.

And in response to the request for Britain to inject capital into the International Monetary Fund, Cameron also refused, claiming:

"Britain will not pay that much money for the Eurozone. This is not in Britain's interests!"

In fact, at this EU summit, the EU's plan is a capital increase plan of 200 billion euros. However, because the UK did not participate in the statement, the EU including Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden and other non-euro area countries also followed the trend. Avoided participating in the Eurozone capital increase proposal.

This resulted in only the euro zone countries reaching an agreement to increase capital by 150 billion euros.

In fact, the governments of other EU non-euro area countries also had doubts about this capital increase plan.

For example, the possibility of additional capital injection into the International Monetary Fund has triggered a fierce debate in the Czech Republic. Opponents believe that the Eurozone proposes that the Czech Republic inject 3.5 billion euros into the IMF, which is more than 10% of the country's foreign exchange reserves.

It should also be pointed out that at the EU summit at the end of last year, the biggest supporters of the plan to increase capital of 200 billion euros to the International Monetary Fund were France and Germany. The French president was Sarkozy at the time. Merkel worked hard to achieve this plan to save the euro.

It can be said that the two men did a lot of work against Britain at that time, but Cameron ultimately insisted on vetoing these proposals - the consequence was that when France and Germany were doing their best to save the European debt crisis and save the euro, Cameron alone " "Singing the opposite tune" has aroused the resentment of many countries in the EU, making Britain somewhat isolated in the EU.

After all, before, Cameron had always asked the EU to solve the debt problem of the euro zone, but always refused to provide any help...

After Cameron rejected these demands at the EU summit, he not only dissatisfied other EU countries, but also received widespread domestic criticism after he returned to the UK.

Not only did the opposition Labor Party object to Cameron's "unprecedented use of veto power to block the new agreement on the euro zone's response to the debt crisis" at the EU summit, saying that this would isolate Britain from the entire Europe and cause great economic losses.

Even Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who has always been a supporter of Cameron, publicly admitted that he was very disappointed with the move.

Clegg said: Britain has distanced itself from the EU. "Britain leaving the EU will be regarded as irrelevant by Washington and will be regarded as the most insignificant country in the world!"

It is no wonder that Clegg has an attitude, because this British government is governed by a coalition of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, and Nick Clegg belongs to the Liberal Democratic Party.

The Liberal Democratic Party has always been a pro-European faction in Britain, a party that is proud of its pro-European tradition.

Many people believe that Cameron's behavior may lead to the split of the current ruling coalition.

This time, Barron also had a rare dispute with Cameron, although he understood that Cameron's statement at the EU summit was to put forward a number of requirements related to financial services rules to the EU to provide support for Britain. returns to ensure London’s status as a financial center.

But in the end, using the veto power is something that cannot be achieved in the EU's new treaty, but it is very unwise.

According to EU law, European-level institutions can only play a role in the affairs of a small range of member states with the approval of all 27 EU countries.

Cameron's rejection of the new treaty means that the European Commission will not have jurisdiction over the EU's new fiscal union, and euro zone member states can only sue each other when a country defaults, rather than turning to the European Court of Justice.

As a result, the Eurozone may not even be able to pass the first hurdle if it wants to establish a reliable fiscal union.

What's worse is that Cameron refuses to agree to even this small request to amend the treaty, so it may be difficult to further amend the treaty in the future to expand the role of the European Central Bank or issue common euro zone bonds - although the British He has said that the two routes of expanding the role of the central bank and common euro zone bonds are crucial to ending the euro zone crisis.

In fact, none of the treaty amendment proposals poses a major threat to British national interests, but Cameron used this as a blackmail and asked the EU to agree to his demands related to financial services rules, otherwise it would veto the proposal. This behavior is also Very out of character.

After all, if the eurozone collapses, it will have disastrous consequences for London's finance.

And this time, because of the 1:26, the policy that is actually related to saving the economies of the eurozone countries was vetoed. In terms of new financial services regulations, once the UK encounters a situation where it needs the support of its allies, it may find itself isolated and helpless, which is far from good for maintaining London's status as a financial center.

Previously, the UK has been very successful in maintaining the interests of its own financial industry within the EU. Although it has been opposed by some countries, it has never been vetoed by other countries in terms of financial services-related regulations.

Now this situation is likely to change.

In addition, the UK may find itself increasingly neglected in the larger EU discussions, which may lead to the UK's eventual withdrawal - Barron certainly knows that this result is foreseeable, and this is not what he wants to see, nor what Cameron wants to see.

In fact, in the previous life, the UK would eventually come to the point of voting for Brexit and voting successfully. This time, many wrong choices in the European debt crisis have laid the groundwork.

Of course, not contributing money to save the eurozone countries can help Britain avoid "meaningless" efforts - but at the same time, if you don't take such responsibility, why should other countries open up to you more in terms of finance and markets?

It can be said that at this point, France and Germany, which have put more energy into saving the euro, have a longer vision than Britain, and their behavior is not just because they are in the eurozone.