Eu

Angela Merkel is getting the full red carpet treatment when she visits next week. In a 24 hour visit, she’ll address both Houses of Parliament and meet the Queen. These honours are being heaped on her because she is Cameron’s indispensable ally. Merkel is so vital to Cameron because as the most important person in the most important country in Europe she holds the key to his plan to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership. If she is prepared to offer encouragement to this, then Cameron’s plan is credible. If she’s not, then it isn’t. Several of the other big European players, notably the French, would be happy to

Those of us who want a referendum on the European Union need to be cautious in our approach to the Scottish one. What is sauce for Alex Salmond’s goose may prove sauce for the European gander. We should not assume, for example, that José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, is telling the truth. Or take the argument that business is opposed to Scottish independence. The CBI and suchlike always favour the current arrangements and fear uncertainty. They will oppose British independence even more surely than Scottish. They are not always wrong, but their view should not be credulously accepted. Mr Salmond is right that the threats made by the

Before the European Elections in May, don’t expect either David Cameron or Ed MIliband to engage with Nigel Farage. Both the Tory and Labour leaders think that the best strategy for dealing with Ukip and its leader is to deny them the oxygen of publicity. Nick Clegg, by contrast, is desperate for a scrap with the Ukip leader. Clegg’s rationale is that the more fights he can pick with Farage, the more he can turn the European Elections into a fight between In—led by Clegg and the Liberal Democrats—and Out, championed by Farage and his party. Clegg hopes that this polarised contest will prevent a total wipeout of Lib Dem

Jose Manuel Barroso has said before that Scotland would have to apply separately to join the EU if it became independent. But his remarks today on the Andrew Marr Show were far more pessimistic about the prospects of that application being successful. After the three main Westminster parties blew a hole in the reassuring argument that Alex Salmond has been making so far that Scotland could keep the pound, Barroso effectively reminded Scots this morning that a ‘Yes’ vote won’t just mean ‘Yes’ to independence, it will mean ‘Yes’ to leaving the EU too. He said: ‘First of all, I don’t want now to go into hypothetical questions. What I

I have my criticisms of the Obama administration, but it does seem to have the right idea about the European Union’s diplomatic efficacy. His top diplomat for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, has been taking a lot of stick after she was caught on tape (or hacked, as we Brits would call it)  discussing the Ukraine problem with the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt. She was rude about the EU, but the condemnation of her language seems to have overlooked her central point. The EU has been trying to muscle in on talks about Ukraine’s pro-democracy moves. It could have helped by offering membership to Ukraine, but it prevaricated

George Osborne’s speech to the Open Europe conference this morning was billed as the Chancellor taking a tough guy stance with European leaders, demanding that they reform or see their project crumble. It sounded, from the overnight briefings, as though Osborne was trying to cheer up his backbenchers during their current round of banging on about Europe as much as he was trying to make the case for European reform. But when he delivered the full address, it had as much pro-European thinking in it as it did threats. Osborne was focusing on making the case for the whole of Europe to reform, for Europe to create better conditions for