Thoughts that Britain might be short of friends at the EU summit were dispelled in an interview given by Krisjanis Karins, Latvia’s economics minister. He told the Times that Europe needs to boost competitiveness by economic liberalization, and called for Europe to open its markets. Gabriel Rozenberg reports that:

Latvia, where corporation tax is now just 15 per cent, is one of the strongest advocates of open markets in EU and is seen as a "new Europe" ally of the UK…He urged the European Union to take seriously the Lisbon agenda, its market reform plan to create the world’s most dynamic economy by 2010, and to adopt the services directive which would liberalize the provision of services across the Continent.

Mr Karins thinks that since the EU constitution will not be adopted in the short term, Europe should go back to the basics of an open common market. He is right, and the signs are that others among the 25 members have had enough of the Franco-German engine driving Europe towards restrictive rules and an oppressive bureaucracy. Few want the low growth and high unemployment which the 'social model' has brought.

Maybe it is time to get tough with the Brussels-loving bureaucrats and begin taking Europe in our direction. We can start by renouncing the Common Fisheries Policy, and let them take us on a many-year journey through the courts. Then we can join with others in refusing to accept any more the Common Agricultural Policy. The Franco-German stitch-up fixed that until 2012, but we should make clear that it might be fixed for them, but it is not fixed for us. We should repudiate it on human rights grounds, given the numbers that it kills in poorer countries outside Europe.

Other countries such as Latvia might join us in a thorough review of those 100,000 pages of Brussels rules, as we strike down the ones which are no business of a central, unelected, bureaucracy, and very much the business of the peoples of individual member states. Britain is no longer isolated, and now is the time for us to join the new Europe in curbing the centralist designs of the old Europe.