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We need EU’s clout to make our voice heard
• JOHN Mills, writing on the new EU treaty negotiated in Brussels at the weekend, is regrettably full of eurosceptic misconceptions and misrepresentations (Gordon, it could all come down to EU on this one, June 21).
He claims some 70 per cent of all legislation applicable in the UK emanates from Brussels. A study published two years ago demonstrated that the correct figure is less than 10 per cent.
Then John asserts that legislative powers have seeped away from our elected Westminster MPs to unelected officials of the European Commission. Yet all European legislation is enacted by the elected representatives of member governments in the Council of Ministers and the elected members of the European Parliament.
The Commission’s task is to ensure the implementation of such European laws. Following the opt-outs for Britain negotiated by Tony Blair at the weekend the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will not apply to us and we retain full national control over justice and home affairs.
The new post of special representative on foreign affairs aims at combining two posts at present exercised by the commissioner responsible for foreign trade and that of the current special representative on foreign affairs, Javier Solana.
Then there is the argument on the new treaty being submitted to a referendum in the UK. The treaty negotiated in Brussels last weekend is actually more modest in changes than those setting up the single market in the 1980s, the Maastricht, Nice and Amsterdam treaties in the 1990s and all the enlargement treaties. None of these required referendums in this country.
What is missing from his account is any recognition of the basic reasons for the EU and British membership of it. The original motives of making wars between its members impossible and achieving unprecedented prosperity for them are now taken for granted.
But entirely new challenges are facing us which make it even more important for the EU to be united and act as one in world affairs. On such global issues as climate change, energy, terrorism and peace-keeping, countries the size of Britain carry little clout with the United States or the emerging superpowers of China and India.
For the EU, with 500 million inhabitants and a gross domestic product larger than that of the US, speaking with one voice in world affairs can best protect and advance our common interests.
Finally, there is the issue of sovereignty. What is important to recognise is that powers ceded to the European institutions are confined to those which member states, unanimously, recognise can no longer effectively be exercised solely at national level and are best acted on in common.
ERNEST WISTRICH
Vice-president, European
Movement
• JOHN Mills must have an amazing crystal ball to be able to predict the outcome of the recent European summit before the leaders had even arrived. But there is so much that is wrong about his predictions that it is difficult to know where to start.
First, the outcome did not see “crucially important changes”. The result was a typically EU fudge or compromise. No “constitution” emerged, but rather a series of amendments which recognised that structures designed for six or 15 member states could not manage effectively with 27.
These do not require a referendum any more than the far more significant changes agreed, for example, at Maastricht. Margaret Thatcher and John Major did not hold a referendum on any of the far more important EU treaties agreed during their time in office so it is disingenuous at best for the Tories now to be calling for one.
Mystic Mills states without reservation that the EU will have a foreign minister. Not so, since it is agreed that, although a single individual will have responsibility for foreign affairs, there will not be a single EU foreign policy. He or she will speak for the EU only on foreign matters which have been agreed by all 27 national governments.
Mr Mills is also critical of the lack of democracy in the EU yet it is the only international grouping to which Britain belongs which has a democratically-elected parliament. That parliament and the 27 national assemblies will also be given greater powers of scrutiny by the agreement.
The crystal ball also produced evidence that “the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will become British law”. Wrong again, since the British acquired an opt-out. And what does the fortune-teller have against the charter? Is it the protection of freedom of thought, conscience and religion? Does he object to freedom of assembly and of association or freedom of expression and information?
Or perhaps protection of the right to asylum worries him. The disgrace is not the creation of such a charter but Britain’s opting out.
Time for Mr Mills to pension off the ball and the red velvet and, when getting worked up about the EU, to look at the facts when they are known and to write a piece of serious analysis.
TERRY BISHOP
University Street, WC1
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