Mandelson warns Labour over Europe

In comments aimed at Gordon Brown's eurosceptic stance, Peter Mandelson has called for Britain to take its place at the heart of Europe.

The European trade commissioner used an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme to say that closer ties with Europe should be made a key battleground at the next general election.

His intervention came as he prepared to chair a London conference on Britain and the EU. The Policy Network event will be addressed by a string of ministers including Tony Blair.

Mandelson said Labour had previously failed to make the case for Europe.

But, writing in The Guardian, he said that the challenge of globalisation required Britain to team up with its European neighbours and embrace the EU as a "multiplier of diminished power".

"The realities of globalisation are shifting the debate on to more favourable ground for pro-Europeans because of the lack of national solutions to its challenges," Mandelson wrote.

"The same principle is true in dealing with the economic superpowers of Asia, or for our armed forces to share more and do more together under European defence.

"How, post Iraq, can we establish a more equal relationship with the US except by putting more effort into building common European positions, as we have done on Iran?"

Mandelson argued that Britain was converging with the continent as UK public spending approached EU levels and Europe became more British in its attitudes towards market reforms.

He added: "Another lesson is for Labour itself to ponder as it debates its future: without an effective and accountable EU, with Britain at its heart, the party's capacity to fulfil its progressive ambitions will be severely diminished."

A Britain sidelined from the European agenda would be "disastrous", he said. "We must have the confidence to make a pro-Europe, pro reform-in-Europe stance a key battleground at the next election."