David Cameron has changed the date of his keynote speech calling for a new deal with Europe to avoid upsetting other European countries.
The Prime Minister was forced to make the embarrassing decision after discovering his chosen date clashed with a key Franco-German anniversary.
Instead of taking place next week, the speech has been hurriedly rushed forward to this Friday.
Mr Cameron had initially planned to make his call on January 22, only to find out that date was the 50th anniversary of the Elysee treaty between France and Germany, which signalled a new period of reconciliation between the two countries.
Earlier, Mr Cameron for the first time raised the prospect the UK could leave the EU, in a move that will significantly increase pressure on his Government to act over Europe.
His comments come just days after Chancellor Gorge Osborne warned the EU had to change or risk losing the UK.
The PM insisted it would not be in the UK's interests to leave. But in a notable change in language ahead of a keynote speech on the issue next week he said the UK would not "collapse" if there were to be a so-called "Brexit". The Conservative leader has also launched a charm offensive to convince other EU leaders of his case that the UK's relationship needs to be renegotiated.
Over the weekend the PM spoke to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, as well as the French President Francois Hollande.
Mr Cameron's official spokesman described the discussions as "very friendly and constructive" but refused to be drawn on whether the PM had been pressurised to change the speech date.
Earlier, Mr Cameron had said the UK would not "collapse" if it left the EU. He reiterated his commitment to membership and told eurosceptic members of his party they would have to wait until after 2015 for a referendum on the issue.
He also denied claims by the German Government last week that the UK was attempting to blackmail the rest of Europe.
Mr Cameron said: "I'm not blackmailing anybody. Britain, just like every other European country, has a perfect right to say 'we are members of this club, we are prominent members, we pay a large bill for being a member of this club; we're perfectly entitled to argue it needs to change'."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article