THE GUARDIAN: French accused of setting Britain up as 'fall guy' in attempt to ringfence eurozone
David Cameron was at the centre of a furious row with Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday after Paris tried to isolate the prime minister at the EU summit by suggesting that Britain is seeking to exempt the City of London from all European regulations.
In a move dismissed by officials in Brussels as an attempt to set Britain up as the "fall guy", senior French figures said Cameron wanted an "opt out" from EU financial services regulation.
The French were said to have found themselves isolated in their attempts to limit an agreement on tough fiscal rules for the single currency just to the eurozone's 17 members.
Britain said Sarkozy was distorting the British position, which is to ensure that changes to the eurozone do not harm the City of London.
Cameron confronted Sarkozy in a joint meeting with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, shortly before the EU's 27 leaders met for dinner to try to hammer out an agreement to underpin new fiscal integration in the eurozone.
"The prime minister was very determined and very strong in the meeting," one British source claimed. "This is going to be a very difficult discussion."
The joint meeting with Sarkozy and Merkel set the scene for a tense night of negotiations as EU leaders embarked on a mammoth effort to prevent the collapse of the single currency at what was seen as the most important Brussels summit in years. » | Nicholas Watt, Ian Traynor and David Gow in Brussels | Thursday, December 08, 2011
