Blair warns coalition over eurosceptics

 
By Tony Barber in Berlin
 

Tony Blair, former prime minister, on Monday warned the Conservative-led coalition government not to betray Britain’s national interest by seeking short-term political advantage from the euro crisis.
 
Mr Blair told a conference in Berlin that a solution to the crisis required “a large measure of political union” among the eurozone’s 17 states, but it was essential that the wider EU should remain a coherent entity.
 
“If eurozone structures end up with a Europe that is fundamentally divided politically as well as economically, rather than a Europe with one political settlement that accommodates different levels of integration within it, the EU as we know it will be on a path to break-up,” he said.
 
“It is massively in Britain’s interest not to play short-term politics with this issue,” he added. “For Britain to push itself to the margins would be a huge mistake.”
 
Mr Blair did not refer specifically to David Cameron, the prime minister, nor to the ruling coalition, whose official position is that closer political and economic integration among eurozone countries is necessary to overcome the crisis.
 
His remarks nevertheless sounded like an appeal to Mr Cameron to rein back eurosceptic Tory ministers and members of parliament, who hope to exploit the crisis as a way of loosening the UK’s relationship with the EU, or even withdrawing completely from the 27-nation bloc.
 
“If you look at the state of British public opinion, it’s obvious where the short-term political advantage lies,” Mr Blair said, alluding to polls that show low public enthusiasm for the EU and substantial support for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
 
“Ultra-eurosceptics – by which I mean those essentially in opposition to the whole Europe project – are on the wrong side of history,” Mr Blair said. “The 21st century case for Europe is based not on war or peace but on power and relevance . . . In its essence Europe is the right idea, at the right moment of time and in the right geographical space between east and west.”
 
Mr Blair was speaking at a meeting in the German capital of the California-based Nicolas Berggruen Institute on Governance.
 
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.