The attitude of David Cameron and his UK Conservative Party towards the EU should have alarm bells ringing across Europe. His recent speech confirming his U-turn on holding a referendum on the now ratified Lisbon Treaty was marked by a startling ignorance of the interaction between the EU and nation states and offered the unfortunate possibility of future conflict between Britain and the rest of the EU. With Labour's Catherine Ashton as the new EU High Representative on Foreign Affairs at the European Council summit last week, the potential for conflict looks even more likely.
It should be said that Mr Cameron's U-turn was a relief. After the painstaking process of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, the last thing anyone wanted was another roadblock to reform. We are just days away from the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit which, we hope, will secure a new worldwide agreement on cutting carbon emissions and in the middle of the worst economic decline for several generations. The time for haggling over the EU institutional framework has surely passed.
But what is concerning are the proposals, admittedly threadbare, made by Mr Cameron and their implications for the rest of Europe.
Nobody needs to worry about his proposed Sovereignty Bill. Mr Cameron was very vague about what it might entail but there are two options: either it tries to establish that UK law has primacy over EU law - when EU law has always had primacy over national law ever since the first treaty in the 1950s - or it establishes that in areas where the EU does not act then ultimate authority lies in the UK Parliament and the courts. This, you would think, exists anyway - it certainly does in Malta! In other words, one option is impossible without leaving the EU, while the other is a total waste of time.
Trying to win an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights is also bizarre policy. The charter only applies to EU law and ensures that if EU legislation does not respect fundamental human rights then it can be struck down by the courts. It is a safeguard, not a threat.
In many ways, the most significant pledge was his promise to re-claim a British opt-out from the Social Chapter of the EU treaties, covering all legislation related to employment and social affairs. The opt-out was abolished by Tony Blair when he became British Prime Minister in 1997 and to achieve this opt-out would require the agreement of all 26 other EU countries.
The British Conservatives are ahead of Labour in the polls and are likely to be in government after the election expected next year. The chances of Mr Cameron, once in office, being able to win his opt-outs would be very slim. What could be a problem, is if these negotiations get caught up with the British rebate, another totemic issue in Britain's uneasy relationship with the EU, when the next round of EU budget talks take place next year.
A possible compromise could be an increase in Britain's budget rebate in return for dropping its demand for opt-outs. This would mean smaller countries, including Malta, effectively increasing already existing subsidy to one of Europe's wealthiest countries. This would be unfair and unjust, particularly when it will take several years for our economy to recover from the financial crisis, to punish other European countries for the sake of domestic politicking in the UK.
All told, if Mr Cameron were to win power it would be bad news for Malta as well as Britain. Labour's Gordon Brown has shown courage in leading global measures to tackle the financial crisis and on getting EU-wide climate change agreement. Mr Cameron is one of the very few mainstream politicians to be opposed to stimulus packages to safeguard jobs and investment during the financial crisis.
Britain is one of the largest and richest countries in the EU and the attitude of its Labour government to many policies decided at EU level are quite similar to ours. A Britain that returns to the isolationist stance taken by Margaret Thatcher and John Major wouldn't just damage their national interests. It could damage ours as well.
Prof. Scicluna is a Labour member of the European Parliament