On 9 December 2011, British Prime Minister, David Cameron emerged from 10 hours of negotiations with European Union leaders, announcing his decision to reject new European Rules on behalf of Britain.

The new rules, tabled by EU heavyweights, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, consolidate the power of the EU’s executive office in Brussels over the budgetary planning and taxation of EU member states.

The voracity with which Merkel and Sarkozy have pushed the “new fiscal compact” and “economic policy coordination” on EU member states is no doubt in reaction to the now chronic Eurozone debt crisis, which has exposed poor financial management by the likes of Greece, Ireland, and Italy to name a few, and has spread like plague from one diseased state to the next. Oh, the woes of sharing the same bed.

Nevertheless, some, like David Cameron and a slew of independent commentators, see the new rules as a drastic step toward the erosion of the sovereignty of member states.

Under the new rules, Britain would have no choice but to adopt the financial transaction tax (FTT), a scenario that analysts suggest would paralyse Britain’s finance industry. With that in mind, Cameron demanded veto authority on issues of financial regulation like the FTT, which compelled Sarkozy to point out the following:

You cannot have an opt-out and then ask to participate in all the discussion about the euro that you did not want to have, and which you also criticised,

A fair point indeed. And it may have been this apparent widening of the gulf in Anglo-French relations that compelled LibDem Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne to quip that, “Playing ‘Billy No Mates’ is no fun and is not effective in defending British interests.”

And it looks like it might be a label that sticks. Hungary, the only other nation to outright reject the new economic rules, is smoking the peace pipe in the Brussels negotiation teepee.

And this, in swoops David Cameron’s deputy and twister-of-knives-in-chief, Nick Clegg, who has proclaimed that he will “pick up the pieces” following Cameron’s bold move to wash Anglo hands of EU regulations.

Only time can reveal if Cameron was vindicated in his decision to get out of Dodge.

[Source: Management Today]