Allies urge Britain to stay in EU

(LONDON) - British Prime Minister David Cameron faced warnings Thursday from the United States, Germany and his own coalition partners about London's plans to renegotiate its relationship with the EU.

Cameron, a Conservative, is due to give a long-awaited speech later this month in which he is expected to offer a referendum after general elections in 2015 on taking back powers from the 27-member bloc.

But on Thursday a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party said a referendum could "paralyse" Europe and said any attempt at "blackmailing" other EU nations would backfire on Britain.

"Britain would risk being isolated. That cannot be in Britain's interests," Gunther Krichbaum, the chairman of the Bundestag's European affairs committee, told reporters as he led a cross-party delegation to London.

"You cannot create a political future if you are blackmailing other states. That will not help Britain."

European powerhouse Germany and Britain have in recent months shared some common ground on the need to reduce EU spending.

The German legislator's warning came a day after an unprecedented intervention on the issue from the United States, which is Britain's closest international ally.

US assistant secretary for European affairs Philip Gordon told reporters at the American embassy in London on Wednesday that Washington wanted an "outward-looking EU with Britain in it."

"We have a growing relationship with the EU as an institution, which has an increasing voice in the world, and we want to see a strong British voice in that EU," Gordon said.

Gordon warned that "referendums have often turned countries inward", and raised concerns about the time spent discussing the EU's structures.

The issue has meanwhile reopened deep divisions in Britain's coalition government between Cameron's increasingly eurosceptic Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Clegg said holding a referendum risked reducing Britain to "subsidiary status" in Europe, where Britain is already slightly marginalised because it does not use the euro.

"Almost regardless of whatever question you put in any eventual referendum, the underlying question is the same -- does Britain want to lead in Europe and continue to lead," Clegg told reporters.

"Do we lead or do we kind of hang back in a sort of subsidiary status?"

Hinting that Cameron's speech will be delivered in the Netherlands, Clegg joked: "I as a Dutch speaker will be at hand to give a translation -- from double Dutch to just Dutch."

Downing Street has refused to confirm details of the timing and location of the speech, saying only that it will be some time in mid-January.

Cameron's spokesman earlier tried to play down the impact of the US comments.

"What Philip Gordon was setting out yesterday was the US is in favour of an outward-looking EU with Britain in it, and that's very much our view," Cameron's spokesman said.

"The prime minister's view is that he wants to change Britain's relationship with the EU and seek fresh consent for that."

Cameron is under intense pressure from the eurosceptic wing members of his Conservative party, including London mayor Boris Johnson, to reduce Britain's relationship to become solely about trade ties.

They cite the examples of non-EU states Norway and Switzerland as possible templates for Britain's future, away from what they view as meddling and wasteful spending by Brussels.

But Cameron has already come under growing pressure from other EU nations in recent weeks to calm talk of a "Brexit" from the bloc, with EU president Herman van Rompuy warning in December that Cameron's plans could break up the bloc.

British business leaders meanwhile wrote Cameron an open letter on Wednesday warning that a renegotiation of membership risked an exit from Europe, with "damaging" consequences for the economy.