STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 23 January 2013

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13. EU Speech: Cameron Says Britain to Hold 'In or Out' Referendum in 2017

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/british-prime-minister-david-cameron-to-offer-in-out-eu-referendum-a-879175.html

In his strongest warning to Europe yet, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that he planned to hold a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union by the end of 2017.

"I don't just want a better deal for Britain," David Cameron said in his sharply critical and long-awaited speech on London's future relations with Brussels. "I want a better deal for Europe too." He went on to describe major challenges, including high debt, a lack of competitiveness and the people's diminishing trust in European institutions. The union, he argued, must urgently be reformed.

"The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change," Cameron said, "but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy."

Without reform, he warned, "the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit". With that statement, Cameron continued on to the most important point of his speech with his announcement that, if he is re-elected, he will offer the British people a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether the country should stay in the EU. He described it as a "very simple in or out choice. To stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether."