Rebirth of England.

Chapter 874 Isolation
As for Barron's mediation at the EU summit at the end of last year mentioned by Merkel, she was referring to the EU summit held in December last year, when Britain vetoed the request to sign a new treaty and inject capital into the International Monetary Fund to save some European countries in crisis.

According to the plan of the EU summit at that time, Britain needed to inject about 300 billion euros into the International Monetary Fund, second only to Germany and basically the same as France...

And at this EU summit, it is planned to pass a revised new EU fiscal compact, 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 this shall be written into the laws of each country; an automatic sanctions mechanism shall be activated for countries whose deficit accounts for more than 3% of GDP; and the debt ratio shall not exceed 60% of GDP.

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

Cameron also rejected the request for Britain to inject capital into the International Monetary Fund, saying:

"Britain will not pay so much money for the Eurozone, it is not in Britain's interest!"

In fact, the EU plan for this EU summit was a 2000 billion euro capital increase plan, but because of Britain's statement of non-participation, non-eurozone countries in the EU including Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden and others also avoided participating in the proposal to increase the eurozone's capital.

This resulted in only the eurozone countries reaching an agreement to increase capital by 1500 billion euros.

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

For example, the possibility of additional capital injection into the International Monetary Fund has sparked heated debate in the Czech Republic. Opponents believe that the eurozone's proposal that the Czech Republic inject 35 billion euros into the IMF is more than 10% of the country's foreign exchange reserves.

It is also worth pointing out that at the EU summit at the end of last year, the biggest supporters of the plan to increase the capital of the International Monetary Fund by 2000 billion euros were France and Germany. The French president at the time was still Sarkozy, who worked closely with Merkel to achieve this plan to save the euro.

It can be said that the two did a lot of work targeting Britain at that time, but Cameron finally insisted on rejecting 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 was the only one "singing a different tune", which aroused the disgust of many EU countries and made Britain somewhat isolated in the EU.

After all, Cameron had been asking the EU to solve the eurozone's debt problem, but he always refused to provide any help...

When Cameron rejected these demands at the EU summit, not only did other EU countries become dissatisfied, but he was also widely criticized at home after he returned to the UK.

Not only did the opposition Labour Party criticize Cameron's "unprecedented use of the veto power to prevent the eurozone from adopting a new agreement to deal with the debt crisis" at the EU summit, it also said that this would isolate Britain from the whole of Europe and cause huge 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 is distancing itself from the EU. "Britain that leaves the EU will be considered insignificant by Washington and will be seen as the most insignificant country in the world!"

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

The Liberal Democrats have always been a pro-European party in Britain, proud of their pro-European tradition. Many people believe that Cameron's move could lead to the split of the current ruling coalition.

This time, Barron 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 to the EU related to financial services rules in return for Britain's support to ensure London's status as a financial center.

But ultimately using the veto, something that cannot be achieved under the new EU treaty, would be highly unwise.

Under EU law, European institutions can only take action on the affairs of smaller member states with the consent of all 27 EU countries.

Cameron's rejection of the new treaty means that the European Commission will not be able to govern the EU's new fiscal union, and eurozone 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 in establishing a reliable fiscal union.

What's worse is that Cameron is unwilling to agree to even this small request for treaty amendment. It will probably be difficult to make further amendments to the treaty in the future to expand the role of the European Central Bank or issue eurozone common bonds - although Britain has stated that expanding the role of the central bank and issuing eurozone common bonds are both crucial to ending the eurozone crisis.

In fact, none of the proposed amendments would pose a major threat to Britain's national interests, but Cameron used it as a threat, demanding that the EU agree to his requirements related to financial services rules, otherwise he would veto the proposal. This behavior is also very inappropriate.

After all, if the euro zone collapses, it will have catastrophic consequences for London's finance.

And this time, because of the 1:26, the policies that are actually related to saving the economies of eurozone countries were vetoed. Then, in matters concerning new financial services regulations, once Britain encounters a time when it needs the support of its allies, it may find itself isolated and helpless, which is far from beneficial for maintaining London's status as a financial center.

Previously, Britain has been very successful in safeguarding 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, that may be about to change.

In addition, Britain may find itself increasingly left out in the larger EU discussions, which could lead to its eventual withdrawal - Barron certainly knows that this outcome is foreseeable, and it is not what he wants to see, nor what Cameron wants to see.

In fact, in the past, Britain would eventually vote on Brexit and succeed. This time, many wrong choices during the European debt crisis had laid the groundwork.

Of course, not contributing money to save the eurozone countries can prevent Britain from making "unnecessary" efforts - but at the same time, if you do not assume such responsibility, why should other countries be more open to you in terms of finance and markets?

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

(End of this chapter)