Without Britain at its heart, the European Union will never move with conviction on the world stage, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema told an august audience in Oxford on Tuesday.
The 27-nation bloc would be hobbled by a lack of "political will" if Britain were to stand on the sidelines, D'Alema said during a lecture on the EU's prospects at the European Studies Centre.
"A global Europe meeds Britain, at least as much as Britain needs Europe," he said.
The minister said the "Franco-German engine" had been a great resource for the Union for decades but that now it should be widened, because the challenges facing Europe in 2007 were different from in the past.
Referring to talk of France now returning to the heart of EU politics after last weekend's presidential elections, D'Alema implied that it implied a distorted vision.
"I would like to say that, frankly, Britain is equally crucial for the future of the global Europe," he said.
