David Cameron kicked off the latest leg of his “schmooze offensive” on European leaders yesterday with a meeting of the G7 group of nations in Bavaria, hosted by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The festivities involved beer and bratwurst (Obama was in fact pictured swigging a lager at 11 in the morning on a work day, but we’ll let him off), and some of the high-level tactical discussions that will always take place when you put several powerful and dimetrically opposed politicians in a room.
They decided, thankfully, that they were going to end humanity’s contribution to climate change by 2100 (so we can all rest easy in our beds), by switching to completely sustainable sources of energy and ending reliance on fossil fuels as a priority. They apparently did not discuss Greece to any serious extent, but that is hardly surprising as the Germans seem to be moving nowhere on the issue of their finances and the reforms that must be implemented before it can lend Greece more money, to pay back the money it already owes.
A thankfully staunchly held position by Merkel was the absence of Russian President Putin at the talks. When asked if Russia will ever rejoin the group, she responded that she thought not. “There are channels available for the G7 to easily communicate and negotiate with Russia”, she said, agreeing with President Obama that Russia have isolated themselves, despite the pleas of the European Union for a cessation of Putin’s empirical aspirations.
The hot topic at the event, and one which will remain on the agenda for some weeks yet, was the package of reforms being sought by the Conservatives before the Referendum in 2017. The PM is looking to end the payments of in-work benefits to EU migrants from poorer countries in the union, and an end to the right to claim out of work benefits, child tax credits etc. upon arrival. The problem with these reforms is that they would be severely discriminatory to immigrants from certain, particularly former Eastern Bloc EU countries like Romania and Poland. The PM requires the agreement of all 28 member states of the EU to pass these reforms, and since the last time Cameron put his foot down in the EU (over the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker) he lost his vote 26 nations to 2, that will be a very hard sell indeed.
Regardless of whether he gets what he wants or not, you can be sure that Mr Cameron will step down from an aircraft in a few weeks time, returning from Europe waving a list of his achievements like Chamberlain, and claiming “peace in our time”; he wants to back the In campaign, and although half his party would happily leave Europe today I cannot see him changing his position.
The current polls suggest that the UK is around 2:1 in favour of staying in the EU in the referendum, with 70% of people saying that they could still be persuaded either way. This battle will be long and hard, but make no mistake, it can be won if the campaign is fought positively. Let us fervently hope that whoever is running the Yes campaign will be thorough, charismatic and engaging, rather than dry, uninteresting and Conservative.
The Politics Problem 