Charles Grant (London, Centre for European Reform): This week Gordon Brown has to make a choice that will define his prime ministership. Either he supports Tony Blair in trying to forge an agreement on a new amending treaty at the Brussels European Council. Or he curries favour with the Sun and the Daily Mail and forces Blair to block it.
It is becoming clear that Brown will choose the European option and support a new treaty so long as it does not transfer powers from Britain to the EU. The final deal is likely to guarantee this in the form of probable opt outs from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and two areas that will be subjected to majority voting: social security and justice, and home affairs. Poland is more likely than Britain to block a deal.
If so Brown's choice is itself is good for democracy in Britain. In recent days the eurosceptic press has tried to bully Brown into vetoing a new treaty by threatening an onslaught if he signs one, and by holding ad hoc polls. But if a couple of editors or proprietors can dictate government policy Britain could hardly be called a democracy.
Eurosceptics will say that Brown would be undemocratic to accept a new treaty without a referendum. I favour referendums on anything that would change significantly how we are governed. The new treaty will not. Its biggest reform will be to merge two existing jobs - the High Representative for foreign policy, currently Javier Solana, and the commissioner for external relations, currently Benita Ferrero-Waldner - into a ‘foreign minister'. But the person holding this job will have no new powers, it just gives the EU a single external spokesman instead of two. Why should British voters have to turn out in their millions to decide on that?
What matters is for the EU to get to work on the big agenda of issues that only continental-wide measures can address, which we spell out in the new CER pamphlet, ‘European choices for Gordon Brown'.
