David Cameron ready to veto treaty to shore up euro

So says the Indy headline this evening.

Hmm.

What does the article say?

Mrs Merkel has suggested that all European countries need to be willing to surrender more sovereignty to give the EU powers to prevent another Greek-style eurozone crisis.

But, on the second leg of his first foreign trip as Premier, Mr Cameron was quick to pour cold water on the idea.

"There is no question of agreeing to a treaty that transfers power from Westminster to Brussels. That is set out 100% clearly in the coalition agreement," Mr Cameron said.

"Britain obviously is not in the euro and Britain is not going to be in the euro, and so Britain would not be agreeing to any agreement or treaty that drew us further into supporting the euro area."

The Prime Minister went on: "It goes without saying that any treaty, even one that just applied to the euro area, needs unanimous agreement of all 27 EU states including the UK, which of course has a veto.

"I think these are very important points to understand."

Some wriggle-room here.

The Prime Minister did not (on the face of it) rule out accepting a treaty to prop up the Euro which did not transfer more power from Westminster to Brussels, or otherwise ‘draw in’ the UK to further support for the Euro area.

(A quite separate question, of course, is whether the new UK government would formally block a new treaty, or put any such new EU treaty to a referendum and let the public trash it.)

So if a group of EU countries wanted such a new EU treaty which explicitly involved them and them alone footing the bill and responsibility, the UK might go along with it? This would be enhanced cooperation on steroids.

The Times report spots this nuance, but maybe misses one in what Angela Merkel said. Can you spot it?

His remarks left open the possibility that the 16 eurozone countries could introduce greater control from Brussels that applied just to them.

Mrs Merkel suggested that she had not given up on her desire to re-open the Lisbon treaty but played down its significance today. “There are certain ideas that Germany has tabled where treaty change plays a role. But this is the beginning. It is very early days as yet,” she said.

She added: “I have made it clear that we need to stabilise the euro but at a later stage we will be able to say what we can do and how should we do it.

“And then we will see what the majority will want and the interests of the eurozone.”

There, in the last sentence.

She hints at the idea that what happens next depends on what the ‘majority’ want – does she plan to get round any UK veto by contemplating radical changes rammed through by Qualified Majority Voting under existing arrangements, if necessary in defiance of UK wishes?

In short, some deftly done public UK/German skirmishing over central questions.

Can the Eurozone and the European Union survive in its current form? 

If not, what mechanism will be used to change things in favour of something very different?

Will the Germans and other integrators vote to opt out of the current set-up? Or will they try to manoeuvre the UK into forlorn opposition on issues of strategic substance which ultimately forces us to opt out?

In other words – who will be blamed for collapsing the status quo?