29/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - Lord Blackwell, who was UK Conservative Prime Minister John Major's principal adviser between 19995 and 1997, is today arguing for the United Kingdom's relations with the European Union to be completely refashioned. The ideal for the United Kingdom would be to opt out of the institutional, political and legal framework of the European Union and to continue only as part of the free trade area offered by the single market and in a range of specific European programmes chosen by London, with participation based on intergovernmental agreement, he said in an opinion column in the Financial Times of 29 January. “Since we have a veto on any new EU treaty, the new talks provide the perfect opportunity to negotiate what we want in return for allowing those eurozone countries that are set on further integration to proceed on their chosen course,” he says. “Britain should not turn its back on Europe, but we urgently need to define a different, looser relationship within Europe that more adequately serves our future global interests,” he says in conclusion. (hb)