BRUSSELS is warned today that public disillusionment with Europe is at its deepest in Britain and if voters cannot be shown power can flow back to national parliaments, then the EU will become "democratically unsustainable".
The eurosceptic broadside, the strongest yet by a UK Government minister, comes from William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, speaking in Berlin.
It follows the indirect warning from Michael Gove, the Education Secretary for England, that Britain could leave the EU if powers are not repatriated back to Westminster, and Home Secretary Theresa May's determination last week to claw back more than 100 law and order powers.
It also comes on the back of David Cameron's threat yesterday to veto any above-inflation budget for the EU which is due to be negotiated at a summit next month.
The European Commission has proposed a one trillion-euro budget.
Mr Hague will say: "If we do not succeed in making our economies globally competitive and generating sustainable growth, then whatever else we do will all ultimately be irrelevant."
The Foreign Secretary will insist the Coalition is committed to Britain playing a leading role in the EU but will warn: "I must also be frank; public disillusionment with the EU in Britain is the deepest it has ever been. People feel the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say."
He will add: "People feel the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change."
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