Author Description

This paper is the third in a series for a CEPS project on the 'The British Question'. It is pegged on an ambitious exercise by the British government to review all the competences of the European Union on the basis of evidence submitted by independent stakeholders. A total of 32 sectoral policy reviews are being produced over the period 2013-2014, as input into public information and debate, which Prime Minister Cameron would like to lead into a referendum in 2017 on whether the UK should remain in the EU, or secede. This third set of eleven reviews covers a wide range of EU policies: for the single market for services, financial markets, the free movement of people, cohesion, energy, agriculture, fisheries, competition, social and employment policies, and fundamental rights. The declared objective of the Prime Minister is to secure a 'new settlement' between the UK and the EU. From political speeches in the UK one can identify three different types of possible demand: reform of EU policies, renegotiation of the UK's specific terms of membership, and repatriation of competences from the EU back to the member states. As most of the reviews are now complete, three points are becoming increasingly clear: i) The reform agenda--past, present or future--concerns virtually every branch of EU policy, including several cases reviewed here that are central to stated UK economic interests. The argument that the EU is 'unreformable' is shown to be a myth. ii) The highly sensitive cases of immigration from the EU and social policies may translate into requests for renegotiation of specific conditions for the UK, but further large-scale opt-outs, as in the case of the euro and justice and home affairs, are implausible. iii) While demands for repatriation of EU competences are voiced in general terms in public debate in the UK, no specific proposals emerge from the evidence as regards competences at the level at which they are identified in the treaties, and there is no chance of