LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron’s rejection of a landmark accord to quell Europe’s debt crisis generated cracks in his Cabinet on Sunday, sparking criticism from the junior partners in his ruling coalition, the Liberal Democrats.
Cameron, a Conservative euro-skeptic, on Friday made Britain the only nation among the 27-country European Union to reject a summit pact aimed at shoring up the foundations of the euro through a new treaty spelling out, among other things, binding caps on government spending and borrowing.
Cameron’s move brought a scathing reaction Sunday from his deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, who said he was “bitterly disappointed” in Cameron’s decision. He added that the move could isolate Britain in Europe and make it a “pygmy in the world.”
“This is bad for Britain,” Clegg said in a lengthy BBC interview. “Euro-skeptics should be careful what they wish for.”
Clegg’s comments did not appear to put the government in immediate jeopardy, with the deputy prime minister saying Sunday that it would be wrong for the Liberal Democrats to consider withdrawing from the coalition. But his remarks suggested just how deeply the debt crisis in Europe has begun to rattle the world of politics in Britain, a country that has jealously guarded the British pound and eschewed the euro.
Britain is not a member of the 17-nation eurozone, but it is a member of the broader 27-member EU. Thus, Cameron’s decision to reject EU treaty changes at the summit forced the 26 other nations of the EU to try to forge a new international pact among themselves, a process Britain will now not be a part of.
Cameron’s veto also complicated the path for those nations, which now face potential legal hurdles in drafting a deal that would boost the powers of European Union institutions without the support of one of its key members, Britain.
Cameron vetoed a broader EU deal after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy rejected a bid by Cameron to win new assurances that future EU rules would not hurt London’s financial district.
Cameron was under pressure to take a tough stance by an increasingly powerful bloc of anti-EU lawmakers in his Conservative Party, where some are calling for a referendum on whether Britain should withdraw from the union.
