Perhaps, they don't care whether Britain is in Europe. Even as David Cameron, the U.K. prime minister was delivering his big speech, 11 euro zone countries, including Germany and France, agreed in principle to create a new levy on financial transactions, the so-called "Tobin tax" and they are doing it without Britain's co-operation or involvement.
The U.K., along with Sweden and Luxembourg, vigorously opposed the tax; Britain feared it would hurt the City of London as a financial centre. But the core euro zone members are going ahead, agreeing to impose a 0.1 per cent levy on stock and bond trades involving a buyer or a seller in the bloc of states that agreed to the Financial Transactions Tax. Britain has opted out and, as a result, abstained from the vote in the EU Council, but the 11 supporting states were able to create a tax bloc, excluding the U.K., in a procedure called enhanced cooperation.
The British government had feared that the tax, if it were imposed on British-based banks, would encourage institutions to decamp and move their business to the U.S. or the Far East. But, hallelujah, the euro zone is going it alone. Barclays and Goldman Sachs will not be subject to the tax (although their customers in the 11 euro zone states will have to pay).
In settling for a mini-tax bloc, Germany and France have delivered exactly what the Tory Right and the UKIP euro-secessionists want: a Britain offshore, low tax and deregulated, occasionally selling services to foolish Europeans who want to be taxed and regulated. Meanwhile, French and German banks that don't want to be caught in the FTT's web will shift their business to London and Britian will win again.
Unfortunately, for Britain, this is unlikely. France and Germany will not sit idly by and watch their financial sectors decamp to London. A more likely outcome is a gradual fiscal mission creep. The euro zone states will find new ways of forcing British banks to levy taxes on behalf of the tax bloc, just as they imposed their will on Swiss banks via a coordinated assault from Washington and Brussels. The lesson is that those who opt out will be shunned until they decide to be good and opt back in.
It is this that Mr. Cameron fears, the deadly anti-competitive embrace of the EU reaching out to states beyond the euro zone borders, states that have no influence over its laws but still must comply.