PM 'may refuse to sign EU treaty'

6 December 2011 Last updated at 13:30 ET

David Cameron says he will go to Brussels to "defend and promote British interests"

David Cameron has said he will not sign any reworked EU treaty designed to solve the eurozone crisis if it does not contain safeguards to protect British interests.

The prime minister said there must be protection for the single market and the UK financial services sector.

The EU treaty may be rewritten to achieve greater fiscal integration within the eurozone.

But that would require the agreement of all 27 members, including the UK.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has told BBC Radio 5live the "hand on the clock is moving to the 59th minute" in the eurozone crisis.

British interests

Germany and France are developing a plan for greater fiscal integration among the eurozone's 17 members ahead of a crucial meeting on Friday.

Mr Cameron said he would be there "to defend and promote British interests", but stressed that the most important thing for Britain right now was to resolve the eurozone crisis.

"If they choose to use the European treaty to do that then obviously there will be British safeguards and British interests that I will want to insist on, and I won't sign a treaty that doesn't have those safeguards in it."

He added: "As long as we get those then that treaty will go ahead. If we can't get those, it won't."

Mr Cameron said that if the eurozone chose not to change the treaty but did want to use European institutions, such as the Central Bank or Court of Justice, to implement its plans, then he would also insist on certain safeguards for the UK.

Downing Street has said that none of the proposed changes being discussed would trigger a referendum in the UK as they would not constitute a significant transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels.

The measures under consideration were about how the eurozone countries organised and governed themselves, it has claimed.

But many MPs say an agreement involving just the 17 members of the eurozone would alter relations with the EU as a whole and a referendum was needed.

Mr Clegg said the collapse of the euro would be "a complete cataclysm" for the whole of Europe.

"There is real urgency to it... we need a clear roadmap towards new rules in the eurozone, to make sure the currency is buttressed by great fiscal intervention," he said.

"That might need some kind of treaty revision here or there... that will take several months to thrash out. But what everyone is looking for is a basic roadmap for the future of the eurozone at the summit at the end of the week."

'Time of crisis'

Earlier, Business Secretary Vince Cable said he was "pretty confident" the eurozone could resolve its immediate problems, but warned the UK cannot be "marginalised" if the EU reshapes itself.

He said critics of the eurozone and, Germany in particular, were displaying schadenfraude and they "consistently underestimated the willingness and capacity of the European countries to get their act together at a time of crisis".

"I am rather more optimistic about the eurozone than a lot of people in the UK," he said.

"The Germans appear to have accepted there is a commitment to real fiscal discipline in the rest of the eurozone... on the basis of that, I am pretty confident they will move forward to accept there needs to be much more liquidity and back-up from the European Central Bank."

Mr Cable said he was not worried if closer co-operation between eurozone members resulted in a "two-speed Europe" as long as the UK fought its corner over issues of vital national interest such as free trade and the single market.

"It would harm Britain's interests if we were marginalised from decision making about the single market of which were are part. We have to make sure we are not."

The business secretary, one of the most prominent Lib Dems in the Cabinet, played down suggestions that the issue of a referendum would destabilise the coalition.

'Too much Europe'

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith told Sky News on Sunday that a public vote was needed in the event of a major treaty change but Mr Cable said he had not heard him say that in cabinet.

And he added: "Under current circumstances we see no justification for having a referendum."

The prime minister says he will seek to return powers to the UK at the right time but many Conservative MPs want him to go further.

Last month, more than 80 Tory MPs defied the government and called for a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU.

Conservative MP Douglas Carswell, who wants the UK to leave the EU, said EU leaders appeared as if they were trying to solve a problem created "by too much Europe by giving us even more Europe".

"Unfortunately, for the political elite the people are not just going to go away," he told the BBC News Channel.

"We were promised by all three party leaders in the last Parliament that we would have a referendum. Now it does not suit them to do this they have dismissed this as something they can afford to ignore. We need a say over whether the new deal which will emerge from these negotiations is in our national interest or not."