David Cameron

This morning, I want to talk about the future of Europe, but first, let us remember the past. Seventy years ago, Europe was being torn apart by its second catastrophic conflict in a generation. A war which saw the streets of European cities strewn with rubble, the skies of London lit by flames night after night, and millions dead across the world in the battle for peace and liberty.

As we remember their sacrifice, so we should also remember how the shift in Europe from war to sustained peace came about. It didn't happen like a change in the weather. It happened because of determined work over generations, a commitment to friendship, and a resolve never to revisit that dark past.

A commitment epitomized by the Élysée Treaty signed fifty years ago this week. After the Berlin Wall came down, I visited that city, and I will never forget it. The abandoned checkpoints, the sense of excitement about the future, the knowledge that a great continent was coming together.

Healing those wounds of our history is the central story of the European Union. What Churchill described as the twin marauders of war and tyranny have almost entirely been banished from our continent. Today, hundreds of millions dwell in freedom from the Baltic to the Adriatic, from the Western approaches to the Aegean.

And while we must never take this for granted, the first purpose of the European Union to secure peace has been achieved. And we should pay tribute to all those in the European Union alongside NATO who made that happen. But today, the overriding, the main purpose of the European Union is different.

Not to win peace, but to secure prosperity. The challenges come not from within this continent, but from outside it, from the surging economies of the East and the South. Now, of course, a growing world economy benefits us all, but we should be in no doubt that a new global race of nations is underway today.

A race for the wealth and for the jobs of the future. The map of global influence is changing before our eyes, and these changes are already being felt by the entrepreneur in the Netherlands, the worker in Germany, the family in Britain. So I want to speak to you today with urgency and frankness about the European Union and how it must change, both to deliver prosperity and to retain the support of its peoples.

But first, I want to set out the spirit in which I approach these issues. Now, I know that the United Kingdom is sometimes seen as an argumentative and rather strong-minded member of the family of European nations. And it is true that our geography has shaped our psychology.

We have the character of an island nation. We are independent, forthright, passionate in defense of our sovereignty. We can no more change this British sensibility than we could drain the English Channel.

And because of this sensibility, we come to the European Union with a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional. For us, the European Union is the means to an end. Prosperity, stability, the anchor of freedom and democracy both within Europe and beyond her shores, not an end in itself.

We insistently ask how, why, to what end? But this doesn't make us somehow un-European. The fact is that ours is not just an island story, it is also a continental story.

For all our connections with the rest of the world, of which we are mightily proud, we have always been a European power, and we always will be. From Caesar's legions to the Napoleonic Wars, from the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution to the defeat of Nazism, we have helped to write European history, and Europe has helped to write ours. Over the years, Britain has made her own unique contribution to Europe.

We have provided a haven to those fleeing tyranny and persecution. And in Europe's darkest hour, we helped to keep the flame of liberty alight. Across the continent, in silent cemeteries, lie the hundreds of thousands of British servicemen who gave their lives for Europe's freedom.

In more recent decades, we played our part in tearing down the Iron Curtain and championing the entry into the EU of those countries that lost so many of their years to communism. And contained in this history is the crucial point about Britain, about our national character, about our attitude to Europe. Britain is characterized not just by its independence, but above all, by its openness.

We've always been a country that reaches out, that turns its face to the world, that leads the charge in the fight for free trade and against protectionism. This is Britain today as it's always been. Independent, yes, but open too.

I never want us to pull up the drawbridge and retreat from the world. I am not a British isolationist, but I do want a better deal for Britain. But not just a better deal for Britain, I want a better deal for Europe, too.

So I speak as a British prime minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union. A future in which Britain wants and should want to play a committed and active part. Now, some might then ask, why raise fundamental questions about the future of Europe when Europe is already in the midst of a deep crisis?

Why raise questions about Britain's role when support in Britain is already so thin? Now, there are always voices that say, "Don't raise the difficult questions," but it is essential for Europe and for Britain that we do, because there are three major challenges confronting us today. First, the problems in the Eurozone are driving fundamental change in Europe.

Second, there is a crisis of European competitiveness as other nations across the world soar ahead. And third, there is a gap between the EU and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years, and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is, yes, felt particularly acutely here in Britain. Now, if we don't address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit.

I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success, and I want a relationship between Britain and the European Union that keeps us in it. That is why I'm here today, to acknowledge the nature of the challenges we face, and to set out how I believe the European Union should respond to them, and to explain what I want to achieve for Britain and its place within the European Union.

So let me start with the nature of the challenges we face. First, the Eurozone. Now, the future shape of Europe is being forged. There are some serious questions that will define the future of the European Union and the future of every country within it.

The union is changing to help fix the currency, and that has profound implications for all of us, whether we're in the single currency or not. Now, Britain is not in the single currency, and we're not going to be. But we all need the Eurozone to have the right governance and structures to secure a successful currency for the long term.

And those of us outside the Eurozone also need certain safeguards to ensure that, for example, our access to the Single Market is not in any way compromised. And it is right that we begin to discuss those issues now. Second, while there are some countries within the EU that are doing pretty well, taken as a whole, Europe's share of world output is projected to fall by almost a third in the next two decades.

This is the competitiveness challenge, and much of our weakness in meeting it is, frankly, self-inflicted. Complex rules which restrict our labor markets are not some naturally occurring phenomenon, just as excessive regulation is not some external plague that's been visited on our businesses. These problems have been around for too long, and progress in dealing with them has been far too slow.

As Chancellor Merkel has said, "If Europe today accounts for just over 7% of the world's population and produces 25% of global GDP, it is currently financing 50% of global social spending. And then it's obvious that it will have to work very hard to maintain its prosperity and its way of life." Third, there is the growing frustration that the EU is seen as something that is done to people rather than acting on their behalf.

And this, frankly, is being intensified by the very solutions that are required to resolve the economic problems. People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity, or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent. We are starting to see this in the demonstrations on the streets of Athens, Madrid, and Rome.

We're starting to see it in the parliaments of Berlin, Helsinki, and The Hague. And yes, of course, we're seeing this frustration with the EU very dramatically here in the United Kingdom. Europe's leaders have a duty to hear these concerns.

Indeed, we have a duty to act on them, and not just to fix the problems in the Eurozone. For just as in any emergency you should plan for the aftermath as well as dealing with the present crisis, so too in the midst of present challenges we should plan for the future and what the world will look like when the difficulties in the Eurozone have been overcome.

Now, the biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy. In its long history, Europe has experience of heretics who've turned out to have a point. And my point is this: more of the same will not secure a long-term future for the Eurozone.

More of the same will not see the European Union keeping pace with the new powerhouse economies. More of the same will not bring the European Union closer to its citizens. More of the same will just produce more of the same, less competitiveness, less growth, fewer jobs.

And that will make our countries not stronger but weaker. That is why we need fundamental, far-reaching change. So let me set out my vision for a new European Union fit for the 21st century.

It is built on five principles, and the first is competitiveness. At the core of the European Union must be, as it is now, the Single Market. Britain is at the heart of that Single Market and must remain so.

But when the single market remains incomplete in services, in energy, in digital, the very sectors that are actually the engines of the modern economy, it is only half the success that it could be. It is nonsense that people shopping online in some parts of Europe are unable to access the best deals simply because of where they live. So I want completing the single market to be our driving mission.

I want us to be at the forefront also of the transformative trade deals with the US, Japan, India, as part of the drive towards global free trade, and I want us to be pushing to exempt Europe's smallest entrepreneurial companies from more EU directives. These should be the officials. These should be the tasks that get European officials up in the morning and keep them working late into the night.

And so we urgently need to address the sclerotic, ineffective decision-making that is holding us back. That means creating a leaner, less bureaucratic union relentlessly focused on helping its member countries to compete. In the global race, can we really justify the huge number of excessive, expensive, peripheral European institutions?

Can we justify a commission that gets ever larger? Can we carry on with an organization that has a multi-billion pound budget, but not nearly enough focus on controlling spending and shutting down programs that haven't worked? And I would ask this: When the competitiveness of the single market is so important, why is there then an environment council, a transport council, an education council, but not a single market council?

Now, the second principle should be flexibility. We need a structure that can accommodate the diversity of the EU's members, north, south, east, west, large, small, old and new. Some of whom are contemplating much closer economic and political integration, and many others, including Britain, who would never embrace that goal.

Now, I accept, of course, that for the single market to function, we need a common set of rules and a way of enforcing them, but we also need to be able to respond quickly to the latest developments and trends. Competitiveness demands flexibility, choice and openness, or Europe will fetch up in a no man's land between the rising economies of Asia and the market-driven North America.

The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc. We must not be weighed down by an insistence on a one-size-fits-all approach, which implies that all countries want the same level of integration. The fact is they don't, and we shouldn't assert that they do.

Now, some will claim that this offends a central tenet of the EU's founding philosophy. I would say it merely reflects the reality of the European Union today. Seventeen members are part of the Eurozone, ten are not.

Twenty-six European countries are members of Schengen, including four that are outside the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. Two countries, two EU countries, Britain and Ireland, have retained their border controls. Some members, like France and Britain, are ready, willing and able to take action in Libya or Mali.

Others are uncomfortable with the use of military force. Let us welcome that diversity instead of trying to snuff it out. Let us stop all this talk of the two-speed Europe, of fast lanes and slow lanes, of countries missing trains and buses, and frankly, let us consign the whole weary caravan of transport metaphors, if you like, to a permanent siding.

Instead, let us start from this proposition. We are a family of democratic nations, all members of one European Union, whose essential foundation is the single market rather than the single currency. Those of us outside the Euro recognize that those in it are likely to need to make some big institutional changes.

And by the same token, the members of the Eurozone should accept that we and indeed all member states, will have changes that we need to safeguard our interests and to strengthen our democratic legitimacy, and we should be able to make those changes too. Now, some will say this will unravel the principle of the EU, and that you can't pick and choose the basis of what your nation needs.

But I would argue that far from unraveling the EU, this will in fact bind its members more closely, because such flexible, willing cooperation is a much stronger glue than compulsion from the center. Let me make a further heretical proposition. The European treaty commit, commits the member states to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe.

Now, this has been consistently interpreted as applying not to the peoples, but rather to the states and institutions, and it's been compounded by a European Court of Justice that has consistently supported greater centralization. Now, we understand and respect the right of others to maintain their commitment to this goal.

But for Britain, and perhaps for others, it is not the objective, and we would be much more comfortable if the treaty specifically said so, freeing those who want to go further, faster to do so without being held back by the others. So to those who say we have no vision for Europe, I say we have.

We believe in a flexible union of free member states who share treaties and institutions and pursue together the ideal of cooperation. To represent and promote the values of European civilization in the world, to advance our shared interests by using our collective power to open markets, and to build a strong economic base across the whole of Europe.

And we believe in our nations working together to protect the security and diversity of our energy supplies, to tackle climate change and global poverty, to work together against terrorism and organized crime, and to continue to welcome new countries into the European Union. This vision of flexibility and cooperation is not the same as those who want to build an ever closer political union, but it is just as valid.

My third principle is that power must be able to flow back to member states, not just away from them. This was promised by European leaders at Laeken a decade ago. It was put in the treaty, but it has never been properly fulfilled.

We need to implement this principle properly. So let us use this moment, as the Dutch Prime Minister has recently suggested, to examine thoroughly what the EU as a whole should do and what it should stop doing. Now in Britain, we've already launched our Balance of Competences review to give us an informed and objective analysis of where the EU helps and where it hampers.

And let us not be misled by the fallacy that a deep and workable single market requires everything to be harmonized, to hanker after some unattainable and infinitely level playing field. Countries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonize everything.

For example, it is neither right nor necessary to claim that the integrity of the single market, or indeed full membership of the European Union, requires the working hours of British hospital doctors to be set in Brussels irrespective of the views of British parliamentarians or practitioners. In the same way, we need to examine whether the balance is right in so many areas where the European Union has legislated, including on the environment, social affairs, and crime.

Nothing should be off the table. My fourth principle is democratic accountability. We need to have a bigger and more significant role for national parliaments.

There is not, in my view, a European demos. It is national parliaments which are and will remain the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the European Union. It is to the Bundestag that Angela Merkel has to answer.

It's through the Greek parliament that Antonis Samaras has to pass his government's austerity measures, and it's to the British Parliament that I must account on the EU budget negotiations on safeguarding our place in the single market. Those are the parliaments which instill proper respect, even fear, into national leaders, and we need to recognize that properly in the way that the EU does business. My fifth principle is fairness.

Whatever new arrangements are enacted for the Eurozone, they must work fairly for those countries inside it or outside it. That will be of particular importance to Britain. Now, as I've said, we are not going to join the single currency.

But there is no overwhelming economic reason why the single currency and the single market should share the same boundary any more than the single market and Schengen. Our participation in the single market and our ability to help set its rules is the principal reason for our membership of the European Union. So it is of vital interest for us to protect the integrity and fairness of the single market for all of its members.

And that is why Britain has been so concerned to promote and defend the single market as the Eurozone crisis starts to rewrite the rules on fiscal coordination and banking union. So these five principles provide what I believe is the right approach for the European Union. So now let me turn to what this means for Britain.

Today, public disillusionment with the EU is at an all-time high, and there are several reasons for this. People feel that the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to. They resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation.

They wonder what the point of it all is. Put simply, many ask, "Why can't we simply have what we voted to join, a common market?" They are angered by some legal judgments made in Europe that impact on life in Britain.

Now, of course, some of this antipathy about Europe in general really relates, of course, to the European Court of Human Rights rather than the EU, and Britain is leading European efforts to deal with this. And there is indeed much more that needs to be done on this front. But people also feel that the EU is now heading for a level of political integration that is far outside Britain's comfort zone.

They see treaty after treaty changing the balance between member states and the EU, and they note they were never given a say. They've had referendums promised but not delivered. They see what's happened to the euro, and they note that many of our political and business leaders urged Britain to join at the time, and they haven't noticed many expressions of contrition.

And they look at the steps that the Eurozone is taking, and they wonder what deeper integration for the Eurozone will mean for a country which not, which is not gonna join the euro. The result is that democratic consent for the EU in Britain is now wafer-thin. Some people say that pointing this out is irresponsible, that it creates uncertainty for business and puts a question mark over Britain's place in the European Union.

But the question mark is already there. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away. In fact, I would argue quite the reverse.

Those who refuse to contemplate consulting the British people would, in my view, make our exit more likely. Simply asking the British people to carry on accepting a European settlement over which they've had little choice is a path to ensuring that when the question is finally put, and at some stage it will have to be, it is much more likely that the British people will reject the European Union.

That is why I am in favor of having a referendum. I believe in confronting this issue, shaping it, leading the debate, not simply hoping that a difficult situation will go away. There are some argue that the solution is therefore to hold a straight in/out referendum now.

Now, I understand the impatience of wanting to make that choice immediately, but I don't believe that to make a decision at this moment is the right way forward, either for Britain or for Europe as a whole. A vote today between the status quo and leaving would be an entirely false choice.

Now, while the EU is in flux and when we don't know what the future holds and what sort of EU will emerge from this crisis, is not the time to make such a momentous decision about the future of our country. It is wrong to ask people whether to stay or go before we've had a chance to put the relationship right.

How can we sensibly answer the question in or out without being able to answer the most basic question? What is it exactly that we're choosing to be in or out of? The European Union that emerges from the Eurozone crisis is going to be a very different body.

It will be transformed, perhaps beyond recognition, by the measures needed to save the Eurozone. We need to allow some time for that to happen and help shape the future of the European Union. So when the choice comes, it will be a real one.

A real choice between leaving or being part of a new settlement in which Britain shapes and respects the rules of the single market, but is protected by fair safeguards and free of the spurious regulation that damages Europe's competitiveness.

A choice between leaving or being part of a new settlement in which Britain is at the forefront of collective action on issues like foreign policy and trade, and where we leave the door firmly open to new members.

A new settlement subject to the democratic legitimacy and accountability of national parliaments, where member states combine in flexible cooperation, respecting national differences, and not always trying to eliminate them, and in which we have proved that some powers can, in fact, be returned to member states. In other words, a settlement which would be entirely in keeping with the mission for an updated European Union I have described today.

More flexible, more adaptable, more open, fit for the challenges of the modern age. Now, to those who say, and there are those who say it, that a new settlement can't be negotiated, I would say, listen to the views of other parties in other European countries arguing for powers to flow back to European states. And also look, too, at what we have achieved already.

We've ended the obligation for Britain to bail out Eurozone members. We've kept Britain out of the fiscal compact. We've launched a process to return some existing justice and home affairs powers.

We've secured protections on banking union and reformed the Common Fisheries Policy. So we're starting to shape the reforms that we need now. Now, some of these things will not require treaty change.

But I agree, too, with what President Barroso and others have said. At some stage in the next few years, the EU will need to agree on treaty change to make the changes needed for the long-term future of the Euro and to entrench the diverse, competitive, democratically accountable Europe that we seek. Now, I believe the best way to do this will be in a new treaty.

So today, I add my voice to those who are already calling for this. Now, my strong preference is to enact these changes for the entire European Union, not just for Britain.

But if there is no appetite for a new treaty for us, and if there is no appetite for a new treaty for us or for us all, then of course, Britain would be ready to address the changes we need in a negotiation with our European partners.

So the next Conservative manifesto in two thousand and fifteen will ask for a mandate from the British people for a Conservative government to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next parliament. It will be a relationship with the single market at its heart.

And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice, to stay in the European Union on these new terms or to come out altogether. It will be an in/out referendum.

Legislation will be drafted before the next election, and if a Conservative government is elected, we will introduce the enabling legislation immediately and pass it by the end of that year, and we will complete this negotiation and hold this referendum within the first half of the next parliament. It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time for us to settle this question about Britain and Europe.

Now, I say to the British people, this will be your decision. And when the choice comes, you will have an important choice to make about our country's destiny. Now, I understand the appeal of going it alone, of charting our own course, but it will be a decision we will have to take with cool heads.

Proponents on both side of the argument will need to avoid exaggerating their claims. Of course Britain could make her own way in the world outside the EU if we chose to do so. So could any other member state.

But the question we'll have to ask ourselves is this: Is that the very best future for our country? We will have to weigh carefully where our true national interest lies. Alone, we would be free to take our own decisions, just as we would be freed of our solemn obligation to defend our allies if we left NATO.

But we don't leave NATO because it's in our national interest to stay and to benefit from its collective defense guarantee. We have more power and influence, whether implementing sanctions against Iran or Syria or promoting democracy in Burma, if we can act together. If we leave the EU, we cannot, of course, leave Europe.

It will remain for many years our biggest market, and forever our geographical neighborhood. We're tied by a complex web of legal commitments. Hundreds of thousands of British people now take for granted their right to work, to live, and to retire in any other EU country.

Even if we pulled out completely, decisions made in the EU would continue to have a profound effect on our country, but we would have lost all our remaining vetoes and our voice in those decisions. We would need to weigh up very carefully the consequences of no longer being inside the EU and its single market as a full member.

Continued access to the single market is, as I've said, absolutely vital for British business and for British jobs. Since 2004, Britain has been the destination for one in five of all inward investments into Europe, and being part of the single market has been absolutely key to that achievement. Now, there will be plenty of time to test all the arguments thoroughly in favor and against the arrangement that we negotiate.

But let me just deal with one point that we hear a lot about. There are some who suggest we could turn ourselves into Norway or Switzerland with access to the single market, but outside the EU. But would that really be in our best national interests?

I admire those countries, and they're friends of ours, but they are very different to us. Norway sits on the biggest energy reserves in Europe and has a sovereign wealth fund of over 500 billion euros. And while Norway is part of the single market and pays for the principle, it has no say at all in setting its rules.

It just has to implement its directives. The Swiss, they have to negotiate access to the single market sector by sector, accepting EU rules over which they have no say or else not getting full access to the single market, including in key sectors like financial services. The fact is, if you join an organization like the European Union, there are rules.

You'll not always get what you want. But that doesn't mean that we should leave, not if the benefits of staying and working together are greater. We would also have to think carefully, too, about the impact on our influence at the top table of international affairs.

There's no doubt that we're more powerful in Washington, in Beijing, in Delhi, because we're a powerful player inside the European Union. That matters for British jobs, for British influence, for British security. It matters to our ability to get things done in the world.

It matters to the United States and other friends around the world, which is why many tell us very clearly that they want Britain to remain in the European Union. So we should think very carefully before giving that position up. If we left the European Union, it would be a one-way ticket, not a return.

So we will have time for a proper, reasoned debate. And at the end of that debate, you the British people, will decide. And I say to our European partners, frustrated as some of them no doubt are by Britain's attitude, work with us on this.

Consider the extraordinary steps which the Eurozone members are taking to keep the euro together, steps which a year ago would have seemed impossible. It does not seem to me that the steps which would be needed to make Britain and others more comfortable in our relationship with the European Union are inherently so outlandish or so unreasonable.

And just as I believe that Britain should want to remain in the EU, so the European Union should want us to stay.

Because a European Union without Britain, without one of Europe's strongest powers, a country which in many ways invented the single market and which brings real heft to Europe's influence on the world stage, which plays by the rules, which is a force for liberal economic reform, that would be a very different kind of European Union. And it is hard to argue that the EU would not be greatly diminished by Britain's departure.

Let me finish today by saying this. I have no illusions about the scale of the task ahead. I know that there will be those who will say the vision I've outlined will be impossible to achieve, that there's no way our partners will cooperate, that the British people have set themselves on a path to inevitable exit, that if we aren't comfortable being in the EU after 40 years, we never will be.

But I refuse to take such a defeatist attitude either for Britain or for Europe, because with courage and conviction, I believe we can deliver a more flexible, adaptable, and open European Union in which the interests and ambitions of all its members can be met. With courage and conviction, I believe we can achieve a new settlement in which Britain can be comfortable and all our countries can thrive.

And when that referendum comes, let me say now that if we can negotiate such an arrangement, I will campaign for it with all my heart and all my soul, because I believe something very deeply, that Britain's national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable, and open European Union, and that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.

Now, over the coming weeks, months, and years, I will not rest until this debate is won for the future of my country, for the success of the European Union, and for the prosperity of peoples and for generations to come. Thank you very much indeed.