Blog: Europe is back in the headlines; not just in Britain, but across the world. The Eurozone crisis is the epicentre of global economic difficulties.

As was predictable and predicted, monetary union without greater fiscal integration has not worked.

Saying we told you so is, though, a comment and not a policy. The countries of the Eurozone are our friends and closest neighbours; more than forty per cent of our trade is with them.

Uncertainty over the Eurozone’s future is worrying financial institutions and markets across the world. Nothing would do more to help our economic recovery than a resolution of the Eurozone’s difficulties, while its disorderly break up would be disastrous.

That crisis is stimulating debate in Britain about our place in Europe, a debate already present because of the British public’s unprecedented disillusionment with the European Union. That disillusionment has, I believe, one great and many particular causes.

The great cause is the Lisbon Treaty. The EU has changed a great deal since we joined in 1973 and confirmed our membership of the then EEC in a referendum in 1975, with five major treaty changes. Yet all but one of those treaties that brought about changes in the role of European institutions in our national life had this merit: their agreement had been foreshadowed in the governing Party’s general election manifesto.

That was not true of Lisbon, which not only did not feature in their manifesto but was close in substance to the Constitutional Treaty on which Labour had promised a referendum. The Conservative Party fought hard for a referendum and was united in voting for one but we did not succeed: Labour got it through without consulting the British people, a shameful achievement. That has been a serious blow to the European Union’s democratic legitimacy in this country.

The many particular reasons are those European policies, regulations and directives that are at best unnecessary and at worst actively damaging  unwanted interferences in our national life for which there is no good reason why they should be decided in Brussels rather than by our own Parliament in Westminster.

Two spring immediately to my mind: why on earth should it be decided in Brussels what herbal medicines people here can or cannot buy? And why should the training of doctors in my local hospital be mucked about by European legislation on working hours? These many irritations have piled up until they have become a great rash on the British body politic, an itch that people want to scratch.

It is also true that despite the many pains and nuisances the EU brings advantages that are enjoyed daily by people and businesses across the country and important for our prosperity: nearly untrammelled free trade across 27 countries with a market of more than half a billion people, enforceable and enforced legal rights to work and to put business on a level playing field in all those nations and combined clout in trade talks beyond to open new markets for our goods and services. The ability to lead European countries to a united position, as on sanctions on Iran and Syria, strengthens Britain’s power in the world. Even obscure directives can have appreciable benefits: Directive 2009/147/EC on the conservation of wild birds prevents the slaughter by hunters of the songbirds in our gardens as they migrate over the Mediterranean.

Consequently the bulk of British public opinion has a come to a settled view on the European Union: we should be in it to enjoy its advantages but not let ourselves be sucked into a federal state and we should be bringing powers back rather than handing more over. I find across the country that this is also the view of the majority of Conservative Party supporters. It has also always been my view: in Europe, not run by Europe. That has long been the Conservative Party’s policy and was exactly the platform in our manifesto on which we were all elected last year.

The question remains how best to proceed. Some honourably argue that the British public should be given a straight choice – to stay or leave the EU. That choice, however, would give no choice to the position favoured by most: to say neither yes or no to everything in the EU but to stay in the EU and see its role in our national life reduced to a more acceptable level.

Some have proposed, and as Parliament debated this week, a three way choice; in, out or renegotiation. It has genuine attractions but a real flaw: referendums only carry real meaning if they are on a specific proposition and an invitation to re-negotiate does not do that.

There is also this fact: at a time of global economic difficulty, when the British people want us to be focussed above all on fostering growth and job creation, it would not serve this country nor be widely understood if we were to create a new economic uncertainty by pouring our energies into a referendum on our place in Europe.

We have a Coalition Government, and the two parties have differing views on Europe, but we have still accomplished more in a year and a half than Labour did in thirteen: real success in bringing the EU budget under control, saving hundreds of millions of pounds from what Labour committed us to; keeping Britain out of EU bail outs of Greece and, where Labour enmeshed us in EU bail outs, we have won agreement to get us out permanently of such liabilities; and now that the referendum lock is law there can be no further change to the EU treaties that shifts power from Britain to the EU without triggering a national referendum.

As for the future, we should use any further changes to the EU Treaties to our national advantage. The whole Government is agreed that we must first make sure that Eurozone integration does not allow countries in the Eurozone to gang up against countries outside it and, second, ensure that Britain’s leading position in financial services in recognised and protected.

Beyond that it is my view that we should seize opportunities as they arise to reduce the EU’s powers in Britain in other areas, most importantly in social and employment laws, where one size fits all legislation is doing real harm.

A decade ago many thought we could settle on Europe for thus far and no further. That is no longer adequate. There may be debates about means and timing but the Conservative Party is united around the goal of bringing powers back from Brussels to Britain. That is what we stand for; that is our aim now and that is what we will campaign for in future elections.

Daniel Kawczynski MP

Shrewsbury