We need more growth from the EU, Mr. Cameron, not more austerity

David Cameron has just lost another opportunity to create Jobs and Growth in the UK. In December, he came to Brussels and annoyed a lot of our friends and allies – and helped advance British interests not one jot – when he used a so-called veto. At the end of January the European Leaders met once again at a summit designed to boost Jobs and Growth. Together, they failed to deliver the growth strategy that we all need.

What Europe needs now is a massive boost to the economies – instead we got a damp squib. It may be better than nothing, but all the Leaders agreed on at their January summit was to re-direct €82 billion in previously unallocated EU funds. The EU is by no means perfect but as all our European economies are now linked, our Leaders should have given us a major plan for growth, not more austerity. Faced with a world economic crisis three years ago, Gordon Brown, in contrast, came to the European Parliament in Strasbourg and then went to South America and North America and led the world in a global solution to the global economic crisis.

What do we get from Cameron? Just more austerity from him at home, and, together with right wing governments across Europe, stifled growth and rocketing unemployment, particularly among the young.

His empty rhetoric this week was about the need for jobs and growth. Even if he meant it, how could he deliver? With no friends or allies we are not the major player we should and could be, as a direct result of his December walk-out.

The next few months are critical not just for the future economic health of the Eurozone but for Britain too, and unfortunately we no longer have a seat at the decision making table. What an utter disaster.

Many other countries had misgivings about the need for a new treaty in December, but nonetheless they are there around the table. It may be that they do not in the end all sign up to the treaty, or even that there is no new treaty agreed at all, but they will all have been able to defend their interests more effectively than simply by commenting from the sidelines.

David Cameron’s veto was not so much about the interests of British business, and the sixty five million British people, it was more about protecting his own back from a few Tory MPs who are now desperate for a referendum. His veto has given the hounds a taste for euro-sceptic red meat and, somewhat inevitably, they will crave more.

Glenis Willmott MEP is the leader of Labour’s MEP.