For anyone groping for the nub of the problem Britain has always had with the EU, French President Francois Hollande has cone up with a quick reference statement giving absolute clarity.
"Initiatives for Europe must first be agreed between France and Germany".
There it is pure and simple.
The second issue is that whereas France and Germany both aim at an eventual political union into a kind of United States of Europe, initially probably federal and eventually centralised, Britain has never wanted more than a Common Market. That, apart from De Gaules' original veto of British membership is why Britain was much happier for a while to go with the alternative European Free Trade Area (EFTA). Unrealistic fears of exclusion from European markets led to the UK eventually seeking,-and gaining,- membership of the EU. This also resonated well with the British political left who saw it as the way to almost indelibly impose European based socialism on the country's society and economy.
Since joining the EU the question of eventual union has been the largely unspoken of elephant in the British living room. Politicians have left the issue under the carpet and remained in denial that EU legislation and other moves have been moving inexorably in a federalist direction leaving national parliaments increasingly in roles akin to those of large county councils.
Unless it gets to grips openly and publicly with the issues soon , the UK will find itself at the eleventh hour and fifty ninth minute that in its state of denial it has sleep walked it into an imminent political union. That's why the pressure is on for a Referendum. Unfortunately the way the issue has been tacked makes UK calls for renegotiation of treaties make it look isolationist and in conflict with the EU itself. A far better approach would be for it to declare itself pro-EU but a different EU in which a free trade and generally cooperative area and not political union the ultimate objective. Many other European nations, especially the Nordics, would be also be much happier with this than living under Mr Hollande's Franco-German superstate. Even Mrs Merkels and her electorate probably don't fancy living under or even alongside Mr Hollande.
