The former president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has issued a passionate call for Britain to stay in the EU, warning that it risks financial disaster and political irrelevance if it decides to leave.
In an interview in The Tablet the former Belgian Prime Minister urged the UK to stay despite what he described as the country’s historically “transactional” relationship with the project – the viewpoint he said could be summed up as “What’s in it for us?”
But “there is no future in isolation” he warned, and said that without the EU, the UK risked rendering itself irrelevant in a political landscape where traditional superpowers like the US were losing status.
He cited as reasons to remain within the EU national security – “If we have had 70 years of peace, it is thanks to the EU,” he said – as well as the “enormous” cost of an opt-out for the economy.
“The tragedy would be cutting the links with the EU and then afterwards saying, ‘This is not what we wanted’. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, but I hope that it is a pudding the Britons will never need to eat.”
He dismissed as myth the representation of Brussels as an undemocratic monolith, and called for a common policy on migration and asylum while defending EU policy on free movement of workers.
He also urged a “proportionate” response to recent terrorist attacks in Europe, including the shooting dead of 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
He described vocal anti-Muslim groups as “a minority” in the EU, but warned that their activities could play into the hands of extremists.
“This kind of polarisation is exactly what the extremists want,” he said.
The full interview is in this week’s Tablet. Subscribers can read it here.
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