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Prime minister says use of veto last month prevented 'treaty without safeguards' on single market and financial services
David Cameron has said he will do "everything possible" to stop the signatories of a new EU treaty from using the union's institutions to do business that isolates Britain.
Last month, he said he had been "standing up for Britain" by deploying a veto to block EU-wide treaty changes.
The prime minister denied he had been unprepared after he refused to sign the UK up to a new treaty, which he insisted must be about fiscal union and not the single market.
But he admitted there were "legal difficulties" and said the European court of justice was not a "great independent arbiter".
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the PM added: "Part of the problem is that the legal position is unclear. One of the strengths of there not being a treaty within the European Union is that the new thing, whatever it is, can't do things that are the property of the European Union."
He said Britain would resist any indication that signatories to the new treaty were addressing issues regarding the single market or competitiveness, adding: "We will be very clear that, when it comes to that, you cannot use the European institutions for those things because that would be wrong. You can't have a treaty outside the European Union that starts doing what should be done within the European Union, and that goes back to the issue of safeguards.
"We are there because we are a trading nation and we want access to the single market and a full say about the rules of the single market, and what we can't have is the single market being discussed outside the European Union. We will do everything possible to make sure that doesn't happen."
Cameron said he had met the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, three weeks before the summit to set out the UK's stance. Asked what he had achieved for the UK, he said: "What I stopped was that if you have a treaty within the framework of the European Union that didn't have safeguards on the single market and on financial services, Britain would have been in a worse position. I am not making some great claim to have achieved a safeguard, but what I did do was stop a treaty without safeguards."
Appearing to contradict comments made by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg – who has said there was no plan for Britain to be left in a minority of one at the December EU summit, and that he had not been not told until after the event what the outcome was – Cameron said the action had been agreed "across government".
He said: "We absolutely envisaged either a situation where we had a treaty change at 27 [signatories] with safeguards, or Britain saying no to a European treaty.
"In those circumstances, we were absolutely clear that it was very likely that other European countries in the euro, and some outside, would go ahead and sign a treaty outside the European Union – and that is what it looks like is going to happen."
Speaking about the economy, Cameron warned of another "testing year" ahead for British households. "Looking into 2012, one of the trends I hope to see happen is a fall in the level of inflation so households feel under less pressure than they did in 2011," he said. "It's a testing year, but I think we need to meet these challenges with the sense that we can overcome them."
He said Britain was better placed than other countries because it had a clear plan to cut its budget deficit, but added that the "rebalancing" of the economy away from financial services and public sector borrowing needed to go further and faster.
He said private sector employment was growing and exports were improving, adding: "Some re-industrialisation in the UK is going on. There are some positive signs, but my general point is that we want the rebalancing to go further and faster and that's what the government should help focus on."
The prime minister indicated that, later in the week, he would be making further statements about addressing excesses in the City, saying bonuses remained out of step with public opinion. "People are not satisfied, I am not satisfied. The level of reward hasn't been commensurate with success," he said.
And asked whether he had seen The Iron Lady, a biopic of Margaret Thatcher, Cameron said he believed the film concentrated too much on frailty and age.
He praised a "fantastic" performance by Meryl Streep, who plays Thatcher, but said the film should have been made "another day".
"You just can't help wondering, why do we have to have this film right now?" he added. "It's a film much more about ageing and elements of dementia rather than about an amazing prime minister."