Rodney Shakespeare: Britain, EU not addressing real issues

Press TV has interviewed Rodney Shakespeare, a professor at the binary economics from London, on an agreement between the European Union and Britain.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Let’s talk about this recent agreement reached between the British government and the EU, which is envisaging a mechanism to block unwanted EU legislation.

Shakespeare: It is a mechanism which will force reconsideration of legislation but will not necessarily stop it. It is an improvement and it is an element of democracy and Cameron will claim that. At the same time, there’s going to be some way towards the British demand for restriction on welfare benefits to migrants from the EU.

But at the same time, the two great big issues, which are forcing Europe apart, are not being addressed in any way at all either by Europe or by the UK.

Number one is the unemployment, 12 percent officially in Europe and then 20-25 percent amongst young people and 65 percent amongst young people in the south of Spain.

And the other big issues smashing Europe apart, which is not being addressed at all and is deliberately being made worse by Cameron, is of course the support for Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, which creates the Daesh, which creates the flux of people who are fleeing for their lives.

Now, I don’t think the people of the UK are going to be taken in by Cameron saying, ‘There you are, we’ve improved the situation, democracy at last,’ because the two great big issues are simply not appearing at all in discussions between Cameron and Tusk, between the UK and Europe.

And if they don’t appear in those discussions then the political pressures to withdraw from Europe, which are increasing in not just the UK but in France and in Spain and Italy and in Poland, those pressures will increase.

Press TV: Mr. Shakespeare, one of Prime Minister David Cameron’s main reform targets for EU membership has been mostly covered in this recent agreement. Still three more main targets remain. How much bargaining power does Britain have in all of this? Or in other words, how important is it for the EU to keep Britain in it?

Shakespeare: You mentioned the four targets that Cameron has. One is the one we’ve just been discussing and the next one is the wealth and benefit. The third one is rather key; it is in fact he wants to preserve the relationship and the particular position of the UK Pound. Now, nine countries out of 28 now are not part of the Euro... And Cameron has got to protect that. So, the deepening of Europe has not really been stopped and at the same time, as I’ve said, the big issues are not being addressed.

So, there’s a long way to go, but Cameron is going to attempt to bamboozle the British public by saying that a huge advance has been made. It has not been made and neither Cameron nor Europe is addressing the real issues. They’re basically trying to keep the situation as it is, and pretend that nothing really substantially is going on.

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