UK can feel at ease in Europe - Blair

A new generation of reformist leaders should help overcome British ambivalence towards the European Union, Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday, adding the time was right for Britons to embrace Europe.

He claimed success in putting Britain at the heart of the bloc and shifting the debate toward economic reform.

But political opponents said Mr Blair was deluded if he believed he was winning the argument in Europe and that he had failed to make Britons feel more at ease with the EU.

"After all these alarums and excursions there has never been a better time to be optimistic in Europe or enthusiastic about Britain's part in it," Mr Blair said, referring to the crisis over an EU constitution and rows over a budget for the bloc.

"Europe has emerged from its darkened room, it has a new generation of leaders, a new consensus is forming. Yes, there is still a debate to be had, but the argument in favour of an open Europe is winning," he told an audience in Oxford.

In his first speech on Europe since his six-month EU presidency ended in December, Mr Blair also consigned the European constitution to the deep freeze, saying Europe should focus on practical issues like jobs, security and energy supply.

The EU is in a "period of reflection" on the planned treaty for an enlarged union after French and Dutch voters rejected it last year. Their "No" votes plunged the 25-nation bloc into political crisis but allowed Mr Blair to shelve a referendum he would have struggled to win.

Mr Blair managed to secure a long-term budget for the EU after fierce wranglings at a summit in December, but not without surrendering part of London's cherished annual rebate from EU coffers - a move panned by his critics.

Mr Blair said yesterday a mid-term budget review agreed by EU leaders would ensure the bloc moved in the right direction - away from protectionism and towards more open markets, to help it meet the challenge of globalisation.

London hopes the arrival of more reform-minded leaders like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will help push the economic reform agenda despite opposition from leaders such as French President Jacques Chirac.

Mr Blair's Conservative Party opponents, who are traditionally eurosceptic, mocked his claims of success.

They said he had failed on two great European projects: taking Britain into the European single currency and securing the constitution he had championed.

"His tragedy is that he never developed a strategic British vision for Europe or created a new model for Europe with which the British people could feel at ease," said Conservative foreign affairs spokesman William Hague in a statement.

"If a new generation of leaders is now beginning to think seriously about a new, more open Europe it is because the last generation of leaders, Tony Blair among them, have been following the wrong road for Europe."

Mr Blair said he had set his government the task of putting Britain at the centre of the EU debate. "We did so but it was never easy," he added.

On the euro, Mr Blair said Britain retained the option of joining but the economics had to be right. He said countries like France and Germany had put the political decision first and struggled to make the economics fit.

"In time, this will sort itself out. But it will take time," he added.