The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson told the Today programme that David Cameron is set to make a major speech on Britain's role within Europe as a counter-balance to a recent pronouncement by the EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso outlining his vision of a "democratic federation" of EU states.

Former Labour cabinet minister and European commissioner Peter Mandelson told the programme that there are "great dangers" in the United Kingdom not being a part of the future central core of EU countries.

If the single currency endures over the next "5-10 years... I think it is quite possible that Britain will want to review its relationship to that Eurozone core" he explained.

Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin accepted that Britain needs to be more active in its relationship in the Eurozone. "What we don't want to see, is that as the Eurozone integrates further, our interests are sort of progressively ignored," he told presenter Evan Davis.

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