Cameron calls for 'open Europe'

David Cameron has pledged to create a new European Union that reflects the public's priorities.

Making clear he will not take his party out of Europe, the Conservative leader said the EU should instead be focusing outwards on issues such as global warming, world poverty and economic health.

He was speaking in Brussels on Tuesday at the first conference of the Movement for European Reform (MER), set up last year when the Tories said they would pull out of the European People's Party after the 2009 elections.

Cameron was joined at the event by his MER co-founder, the Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek.

Seeking to re-open Europe as a non-divisive issue for the Conservatives, he argued that the project has become diverted by political priorities.

"This is a moment for us to reflect on where the EU is - and where it needs to be," he said.

"A visitor from Mars, witnessing the signing of the declaration, would take a close look of the inner workings of the EU and observe earnest discussions about reviving constitutions, transfers of competence, relative voting weights and other distractions.

"But the intelligent Martian would say the EU should be focusing on the economic challenges of globalisation and the urgent need to reform European economies so that it could maintain its prosperity.

"It should also concentrate on the challenge of climate change and the need for swift action at all levels to slow the rate of global warming."

And he added that the EU "should be absorbed by the moral and security challenge of global poverty".

"Every night, some hundreds of Africans board boats and rafts to sail to Europe," Cameron noted.

"They risk death at sea in order to work in menial jobs, illegally, far from home, in an often hostile and alien culture. They do this because Africa is in a wretched state.

"This demands action for its own sake, but for our sake too we have to address the state of Africa if we are to preserve our security in the face of unstable regimes to our south."

Expansion

The Tory chief argued that the three priorities are reinforcing.

"It is only by responding to the challenges of global competition and by opening up our economies to free trade that we will fight poverty in Africa," he said.

"Ultimately it is enterprise, not aid that will save the developing world.

"In the same way, it is only by liberalising our economy that we will develop the technologies for energy security, the innovations that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and gas.

"It is by finding sustainable ways of powering industries that we will hand on a prosperous nation to our grandchildren."

Cameron said he wants to expand the MER to include "the peoples and parties of Europe who share our vision, to create a new union, a new union based not on uniformity and compulsion, but on diversity and voluntary cooperation of independent nation states".

"That is why we have formed the Movement for European Reform. To act together with others - some, like Mirek Topolanek, already in government - to respond to the feeling of so many of our fellow Europeans that it is time to chart a new course, to focus on the things that matter," he claimed.

Isolation

But Europe minister Geoff Hoon attacked the strategy as isolationist.

"Beyond the warm words and the PR, David Cameron has marginalised the Tories in Europe and if he gets his way will marginalise Britain too," he said ahead of the speech.

"He has already confirmed that he would deny British workers the rights that their European counterparts enjoy through the Social Chapter, and has pursued his commitment to withdraw Tory MEPs from the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament, a move described by Ken Clarke as 'head-banging'.

"This commitment would reduce Britain's influence in Europe and hamper the ability to work with European partners in, for example, negotiating new agreements to tackle climate change.

"Cameron's isolation is proven by the fact that the 'Movement for European Reform' to which he is speaking tomorrow has the support of only one other centre-right party outside the UK.

"If it is to form a proper group in the European Parliament he needs to sign up parties from another four EU members. Unless David Cameron now names which other parties he has persuaded to sign up to his new group, his speech will be seen as nothing more than warm words."

Liberal Democrat spokesman Michael Moore agreed that the Conservatives remained outside of the mainstream on Europe.

"David Cameron's attempt to pass himself off as some new-European visionary does not cut it," he said

"He has isolated his party from Europe because he refuses to accept the reality that European countries have to work with each other.

"The Conservatives have at least taken one step in the right direction by recognising the need to rebalance our foreign policy; perhaps sometime soon they will recognise the importance of our special relationship with Europe."