German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president François Hollande have snubbed the UK coalition's much-heralded review of the relationship between Brussels and Member States.
The Foreign Office invited Berlin and Paris to take part in its so-called “balance of competences” study, which is examining whether powers should flow back from Brussels. But after high-level discussions between the French and German governments, they have decided not to assist the British review.
David Cameron had hoped the exercise would prompt a Europe-wide re-appraisal of the way in which Brussels’ rules have encroached on national life. But Mr Hollande and Ms Merkel concluded the exercise was more about an internal British political debate about the country’s EU membership than a genuinely impartial stocktaking.
Mr Cameron wants to put the result of his renegotiation to an in-out referendum on Britain’s EU membership in 2017, although he has been warned by Ms Merkel that she is not willing to see any unstitching of EU treaties.
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