英国的欧盟小算盘

    自加入欧盟之初，英国就一直将成员身份当作实现目标的手段。这个目标便是获取富国贸易中的有利机会，从而无偿地接触欧洲大陆上千万相对富有的消费者。

    尽管这种想法可能会影响他们的思路，但它并不是其他欧盟成员国（特别是法国和德国）的主要动机。对于他们来说，经济和政治联盟自身曾是而且仍是一种手段。这来自于内、外两方面的考虑：更加紧密的同盟关系可以果断化解这片大陆的战争威胁，因为历史上这片大陆经历了太多的战争（最近授予欧盟的诺贝尔和平奖便是对这一壮举的有力说明）；并藉此与其他大型经济实体站在同一起跑线上竞争（一开始是美国，现在又加上了中国）。

    英国和其他欧盟成员国之间这种简单的差异也解释了他们在对待欧元区债务危机时所表现出的截然不同的反应。英国方面呼吁重新考虑与欧洲的关系，因为目前这一身份所带来的经济效益开始下滑（不仅包括眼前的，还包括净现值）。法、德方面则要求进一步进行区域整合，在推行货币联盟的同时进一步加强财政联盟、政治联盟和银行联盟。

    具有讽刺意味的是，卡梅伦首相公投计划以水火不容的方式将这两者结合在了一起。他在上周所发表的演讲中提到，如果保守党能连任，那么他将分三步来管理英国的欧盟成员国身份：评估欧元区的发展前景；为英国谋求更好的条件；在2017年举行公投决定是否退出欧盟。

    这一做法着实高明，它立即平息了保守党内反对声渐起的少数派群体；拉拢了选民，让他们远离英国独立党（UK independence Party）及该党派极具煽动性的领袖杰尔・法拉奇；同时警告法、德一意孤行、采取扩大欧元区措施可能会产生的后果。而目前欧元区核心国由27个欧盟国之中的17个国家组成。

    然而，随着国家与欧盟之间的目标分歧日益扩大，公投也不失为一个调解的办法。由于英国对留任欧盟成员存在不确定性，酝酿期较长的投资从现在开始将拥有更高的中期风险溢价。而且，采取目前这种办法，卡梅伦可以拿到一些内部的政治得分，而代价便是国家经济增长的些许下降。

    毫无疑问，公投在欧洲大陆并未引发多大的热情，这一点可以理解。至少，这一举措将使目前攻克欧元区危机的举措更加复杂化。它还将削弱欧元区多年的复苏进程和结构性元素，而这些元素应该尽快得到落实。

    In one big lunge, UK Prime Minister Cameron's promise of an in/out referendum on membership of the European Union has made explicit a number of simmering issues that are both complex and consequential -- for Britain and well beyond.

    Since the first stages of the nation's participation in the EU, Britain has viewed membership as a means to an end -- namely, securing the upside of the welfare-enhancing trade that comes with free access to hundreds of millions of relatively well-off consumers on the continent.

    While this may influenced their thinking, this was not the major motivator for other key EU members (particularly, France and Germany). For them, economic and political union was, and remains, an end in itself. It is driven by both internal and external considerations: an ever-closer union that decisively overcomes the threat of war on a continent that historically has seen way too many of them (a success recently underlined by the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the EU) and that competes on a more equal footing with other large economic powers (initially the United States and now China too).

    This simple distinction between Britain and other EU members also explains the strikingly opposing reactions triggered by the eurozone's debt crisis. For Britain, it calls for revisiting the terms of its relationship with Europe given that the economic payoff is now lower (both immediate and in net present value terms). For France and Germany, it is about the need for even deeper regional integration, supplementing monetary union with greater fiscal union, political integration, and banking union.

    Ironically, Prime Minister's Cameron's referendum initiative links the two in an ultimately incompatible fashion.In his speech last week, Cameron identified a three-step path to govern EU membership should the Conservative Party lead the next government: Assess how the eurozone evolves; secure better terms for Britain; and put the package to an in/out referendum in 2017.

    In a rather clever way, the approach serves immediately to pacify an increasingly vocal minority of the Conservative Party; limit voter defection to the UK independence Party and its firebrand leader Nigel Farrage; and warn France and Germany about the consequences of going too far with measures to better integrate the eurozone, which constitutes the 17-member inner core of the 27-member EU.

    But the referendum is also an attempt to reconcile increasingly inconsistent national and regional priorities. In attempting to do so now in this way, Cameron can score some internal political points by risking some reduction in the country's growth, given that long-gestation investments will now carry a higher medium-term risk premium on account of the increased uncertainties about EU membership.

    Needless to say, the referendum was not received with much enthusiasm on the continent, and understandably so. At the minimum, it complicates ongoing efforts to overcome the region's debt crisis. It could also detract from the eurozone's multi-year recovery process, structural elements of which need to be put in place rapidly.