it's still unclear when precisely the
referendum on britain's membership of
the european union will take place David
Cameron has still to agree the precise
terms of a new deal for Britain with his
European partners so the referendum
could take place in the summer maybe in
the autumn or maybe even a lot later
because Jen and Ganesh our political
commentator you have a slightly
different take on whether we should be
having a referendum at all at this time
well people obsess about whether it's
going to be June whether it's going to
be September whether it could
conceivably be next summer I think the
problem with timing is that we're not
doing this maybe a decade from now there
is so much uncertainty about the future
direction of the European Union and how
Britain relates to it that really we
have no sense of what we're voting to
stay in or get out of and that the
principal example that I talked about
this week in the column is eurozone
integration it is not impossible that
within a decade the eurozone becomes the
real EU in all but name it becomes the
effective decision-making caucus for
things like economic and find out that's
what David Cameron thought was going to
happen at the height of the crisis in
2012 and one of the reasons he called
for a referendum absolutely and the
government tried very hard to protect
Britain in the event of that integration
so they were very complicated double
majorities introduced in bits of banking
policy so there has to be a majority of
non euro countries as well as euro
countries for certain policies now that
eurozone integration hasn't happened yet
but I think that's mainly because of the
sheer slog of getting any of these
constitutional and institutional changes
in the EU give it several years and I
think there's a chance maybe in the form
of a new treaty that something like that
emerges to secure what has been an
unstable currency over the past five
years well we are where we are but i
think the other interesting historical
perspective that you gave this week
jinan is that actually the referendum
the first referendum that we had in 1975
still flush with new membership in 73
should have taken place in the mid-1980s
when we had the big push to the single
market
a bit more about that well 1986 was a
far more important year in Britain's
relationship with Europe than 1975 was
an 86 Margaret Thatcher prime minister
at the time signed the single European
act which began the single market as we
know it as we know it now it introduced
more qualified majority voting reduced
vetoes eroded national sovereignty for
the sake of this internal market that
was a much bigger decision point for
this country and there wasn't a
referendum in 1975 a much more limited
European Economic Community we'd only
been in for two years and we did have a
referendum so we've got the timing wrong
I think already and I worry that if we
were a decade early last time we're a
decade early this time but we are where
we are as I was saying so David Cameron
where how do you cess his chances of
securing a yes at this particular moment
and where's the balance of opinion in
Britain some of it hinges on the quality
of the deal that he extracts in February
the eighteenth and nineteenth when
there's a European summit so no more
closer Union bit of a crack down on
benefits for migrants and some
guarantees of protection against that
euro going into a eurozone integration
that you talked about earlier well this
is where he has a problem the area of
renegotiation that matters most of this
country's strategic interests which is
protecting non-euro countries within the
EU so we don't just become a rubber
stamp it's not the area of renegotiation
that matters to voters which is
migration and if you look at the
preliminary deal he agreed with Donald
Tusk the council president it the
government is clearly prioritized
winning stuff back on migration and fair
played have done quite a bit of that but
they haven't concentrated quite the same
diplomatic capital on the technical work
of protecting non-euro countries in the
EU so I think his chances of winning the
referendum a reasonable he's got
something on on migrants my Warriors
will vote to stay in and then find
ourselves in a very invidious position
within several years so David Cameron's
chances of securing an invoke a romaine
vote in the European Union are somewhat
better than arsenal's chances of winning
the Premier League so what you're saying
sadly much much better thank you very
much jeneggener Schanke
you