BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British and French government ministers criticised the Conservatives' policy plan for Europe on Thursday, saying it would leave Britain isolated in the European Union.
The Conservatives have dropped the idea of holding a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which reforms the EU's decision-making and institutions to increase the bloc's global clout, because all member states have ratified the document.
But Conservative leader David Cameron said on Wednesday he would seek the return of some powers from the EU to Britain if, as expected, his party wins a parliamentary election next year.
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson accused Cameron of pandering to Eurosceptics in his party.
"I don't believe that Tory (Conservative) Eurosceptics which are now in the majority in his party are being faced down. I think they are being given fresh red meat in what he said yesterday," he told reporters in a video link-up with Brussels.
"So if the Tories get into government, we now know what will obsess them -- petty fights in Europe and isolating Britain in the EU."
He said Cameron's plans would "plunge Britain's EU relations into semi-permanent crisis."
Cameron said his party would try to negotiate the return of Britain's right to opt out of some areas of EU social and employment law, win back powers in the criminal justice area and seek a "complete opt-out" from an EU human rights charter.
He also said he would change British law so that any future transfer of power to Brussels would have to be put to a referendum in Britain.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters it was "extremely positive" that Cameron had abandoned plans for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and said the treaty contained certain opt-out clauses that applied to Britain.
But Pierre Lellouche, France's secretary of state for European affairs, said Cameron's speech had made him "sad."
"My message is simply to say 'Please, have mercy! Spare us further institutional debates.' And I say it with great friendship towards the British people and towards Britain, which we Europeans need," he said.
Lellouche said that by quitting the mainstream centre-right alliance of legislators in the European Parliament in favour of a more radical, Eurosceptic group, the Conservatives had already diminished their own clout within the EU.
"The isolation of their group means that their influence is infinitely less today than it was in the past, and as a friend of Britain, I say: 'Please do not isolate yourselves'," he said.
"Europe is made of daily compromises because we all need one another. Of course it would be easier to go it alone. But in today's globalised world, whether you're a big or a small country, the risk of marginalisation weighs on all of us."
(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
