David Cameron's reshuffle sends a message to Europe that Britain is ready to leave the union on present terms and does not view the job of European commissioner highly enough to dispatch one of the government's "big beasts" to Brussels, European analysts said.

Britain's new European commissioner, Lord Jonathan Hill of Oareford, is a technocrat, a former adviser to John Major, and not a Eurosceptic. He was at the former prime minister's side when the 1991 Maastricht treaty was negotiated, and was a special adviser to Ken Clarke, the most pro-Europe of the senior Tories. He knows the minutae of European laws and procedures.

"It's a huge responsibility to have the opportunity to play a part in reforming the EU, but it is one that I am excited to have been offered," Hill said. "I also believe that the UK's interests are best served by playing a leading role in the EU, shaping the organisation as it changes to meet the challenges it now faces.

"In five years' time, when the next European elections take place, I want to be able to say to people across Europe – including Britain – that the European commission has heeded their concerns and changed the EU for the better."

However, Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform said: "I'm sure Lord Hill is a good man, but he is not one of the government's 'big beasts'. Cameron did not want to trigger a byelection by sending an MP. That sends a signal to partners that party management is the main concern. Sending a relative lightweight to Brussels suggests that Cameron doesn't see the dossier as very important."

"Replacing Hague, who had come to realise at the Foreign Office that European membership was a force-multiplier for British foreign policy, with Hammond, who is on record as saying he would vote to leave Europe on present terms, is also going to send a negative signal," Grant added.

Meanwhile, the new foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has said that he would vote for Britain to leave the EU unless British membership is renegotiated. "I believe that we have to negotiate a better solution that works better for Britain if we are going to stay in," he said last year.

Conservative Eurosceptics will be encouraged by Hammond's appointment, as they saw the outgoing foreign secretary, William Hague, as having taken on the Foreign Office's pro-European instincts, becoming an advocate of collective European action on a range of issues.

However, there are already some doubts over whether Hammond will stay at the Foreign Office after next year's election, even if the Tories win. The chancellor, George Osborne, is said to covet the post. In that case, Hammond would be a stopgap foreign secretary who would not be in that post during the runup to a referendum.