Prime Minister goes Dutch to explain threats to EU

John Major has been summoned tonight to the Hague for talks with Wim Kok, the Dutch Prime Minister, over Britain's demands for reforms of European Union institutions.

Mr Kok, holder of the EU presidency for the next six months, has called Mr Major to the talks to discuss Britain's threats to use the intergovernmental conference in Amsterdam in June as an election weapon with which to beat Labour.

Mr Major targeted the IGC in his new year message to party workers. The Dutch may have been alarmed by the call by Stephen Dorrell, Secretary of State for Health, for a fundamental renegotiation of Britain's relationship with the EU.

Mr Kok last night reassured leaders of the Socialist group of Euro-MPs that the Dutch presidency would press ahead with the single currency programme and a European social policy to help make the European Union more relevant to its citizens.

Meanwhile, The Independent has learned that Baroness Thatcher tried to persuade Kenneth Clarke over a private dinner to change course on the European single currency.

The Chancellor refused to buckle, and held out through the sweet course to his belief that Britain should preserve its option on joining a single European.

It is understood that Lady Thatcher tried to convince Mr Clarke that a shift of policy, ruling out Britain's entry into the first wave of a single currency, would help the Tories win the general election.

Allies of Mr Clarke said he believes it unlikely that Britain will be in the first wave of a single currency, but believes that ruling out the possibility would invite the Euro-sceptics to press for more.

Lady Thatcher's intervention just before Christmas came within days of a tense Cabinet meeting at which a number ministers on the left of the party, including Mr Dorrell, joined Euro-sceptics led by Michael Howard in challenging a paper by the Chancellor on convergence criteria for entry to the single currency. Mr Clarke was forced into a partial retreat, and will return to the Cabinet with a new paper in the coming weeks. However he secured reaffirmation of the policy of preserving Britain's opt out on a single currency.

His new paper will say that a judgement on whether other member states are fulfilling the criteria for entry to the single currency cannot be judged until the end of this year.

Last night friends of Mr Clarke rdismissed reports that he was being forced into a corner by Mr Dorrell and William Waldegrave, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and intellectual leader of the left in the Cabinet, who has privately come down against a single currency.