|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Empires have gone and most people in the world now live in Nation-States said Lord Shore * Separate Ways
by
Peter Shore
PART 2 Duckworth. Price £18.99 Inside
the European Union – New options The process of integration is far from coming to an end. It
has spread ever more widely and gone ever more deeply and the lines of further
advance are clearly marked. Tax harmonization and the development of a Common
Foreign Policy, backed up by a European Defence capability are plain for all to
see. At the same time the supernational institutions are to be
strengthened and the European Union itself, as distinct from the European
Community, is on course To
be given legal personality as an internationally recognised entity. This will
enable the EU to take a seat on the UN Security Council, quite possibly in
place of the UK and France, and to have a single Diplomatic Service. This surely, is what is involved in’ being at the heart of Europe’ and yet is completely contrary to the pledges of the British government, for example, on retaining the veto on tax matters and rejecting Federation. Where is the escape from this nightmare that is not to amount to yet another and final surrender? The conventional wisdom is that it is not possible to say
‘Yes’ to what suits us and ‘No’ to what doesn’t, to ‘pick and choose’. But in
many ways we have done little else but exercise opt-outs. The British electoral
system based on the single constituency was retained for twenty years for elections
to the European Parliament. The UK stayed out
of the Exchange Rate Mechanism from 1979 to 1990 and had to be peremptorily
withdrawn two years later. It is a practice that resembles the behaviour of
France in relation to NATO when in 1958 it withdrew all its forces from unified
commands, expelled NATO HQ from its territory but retained its seat and voice
in NATO Council Chamber. The development, which gives the greatest credence to
multitier working, is the project of enlargement to the East. Twelve states
have now applied for membership, all of who are in principle entitled to it.
Great obstacles have to be overcome. Thanks to history the Eastern economies
are unlikely to withstand unrestrained competition, the power of the European
Commission to veto state aids, the cost of compliance with the massive quantity
of regulation in all fields that constitutes the acquis communautaire, All at the same time as adopting the single currency and an
open-ended commitment to Political Union. The burden for the existing member states may seem even
heavier. The Common Agricultural Policy, which has bestowed great prosperity on
the farmers of France, Germany, Holland and Denmark, remains substantially
intact but cannot be extended to the applicant countries without either massive
change or a huge increase in costs. The Commission’s Agenda 2000 proposals for dealing with the problem, however limited, were simply torn up in favour of French farmers and the status quo. A similar difficulty is evident in the claims that might be
made by the applicant countries for regional assistance at the expense of its
present recipients. The figures do not add up but there has been no recognition
of this within the EU. Any proposal to increase the ‘own resources’ of the EU to
the level required, that is substantially, would be a subject of explosive
sensitivity for the member states that would have to provide them. If that were
not enough there is the enormously challenging problem of the free movement of
labour, which is a basic principle of the EU. The pressure for immigration from
the impoverished East cannot be resisted within the terms of the treaties that
are the law of the EU The negotiation of transitional periods has been the
traditional device for tackling accession problems and in this case some of
them would have to be very long indeed. Despite denials this would amount to
creating a two-tier Europe. At the same time it has been recognised that the
institutional arrangements for managing an EU of fifteen member states and
giving each of them appropriate representation cannot be continued with
extensive enlargement, which may well not stop at twenty seven. Where does
Europe end? This brings us back to the whole question of a two-tier or
a multi-tier Europe. It might be fudged for several years by the device of a
prolonged transition period but that cannot last. Enlargement spells the end of
the strategic aim of ‘ever closer union’ and requires a much looser
association. The United Kingdom would not be alone in pressing for a long
–term, probably permanent, two-tier or multi-tier Europe, rather than a
temporary one. Many member states are already half-convinced that this is now
the most satisfactory option- indeed the only realistic option available. The Treaty of Amsterdam introduced the concept of ‘closer
co-operation’ to enable some member states to pursue new integrationist
policies without in any way obliging the others to accept a time limit on their
abstention or discrimination against them. This is recognition that diversities
and differences between the nation states of Europe must be accepted, not
crushed and disciplined by the imposition of a single set of laws, policies and
institutions covering the whole of their affairs. There is a
particular advantage in enabling the Eastern applicants to avoid participating
in the common defence policy that is on the stocks. They were formerly
satellites of the USSR and a number of them have a common frontier with present
day Russia. Were they all to be brought into the EU’s military alliance it is
difficult to envisage that for Russia, given her history, this would be an
unacceptable development. There should be an
urgent debate on a two-tier Europe and Britain should take the lead in
introducing it. There is a strong pull from the majority of the British
electorate for some degree of separation. It is their knowledge of this mood in
the country that obliges British Ministers (2001) to act in a kind of charade
in which they obstruct proposals in the European Council so that they can
return home to boast of their resistance, while constantly asserting their
ambition to be at the heart of Europe. (As they do today) How different it will be when an open and honest British
leadership, with the backing of its Parliament and people, states: ‘We can go no
further. But we are your friends and most reliable ally and we wish you well in
your further endeavours to deepen your integration and to create whatever form
of state structure that best meets your requirements and the wishes of your
people’. ‘We would expect no less happy and fruitful a relationship between our 58 million people and the 275 million people who have joined your political family, than now exists between the 25 million people of Canada and their great 250 million neighbour, the United States of America to the south’.
* * *
[Font Altered-Bolding & Underlining Used-Comments in Brackets]
*
*
*
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
