Why EU Regional policy will destroy the Nation State

 

 

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The Breakdown of Europe -by Richard Body - PART 1

 

This extract from a number of articles in the publication

Handshakes not Handcuffs

 

Edited by Lionel Bell

 

June Press

www.junepress.com

 

Price £6.99

 

Sir Richard Body was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1955 to 2001. He is Chairman of the Trustees of the Centre for European Studies and a member of the Editorial Board of New European. He has published a number of books on agricultural policy.

 

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The ultimate danger now facing the European Union is that of disintegration. It is a process that for decades has been producing more and more states in the world because ordinary people wish to govern themselves and it would be surprising if it did not spread to Europe. Ordinary Europeans have never shared the enthusiasm of their leaders for political union.

 

At the same time as globalisation is tending to homogenize the world there is at work a counter-tendency for cultural diversity to find political expression in devolution. We have seen how centralisation can give rise to centrifugal forces and these are sometimes very violent. They, rather than nation-states, have accounted for most wars since 1945.

 

Markets on the global scale have disbenefits as well as benefits but it is not the case that only large political units are capable of dealing with them. This is a view from the past, when states protected their own economies by tariffs and other barriers, but nowadays-political borders are economically less important.

 

It is generally recognised that governmental interference in trade beyond a modest level is likely to do more harm than good. When it comes to dealing with powerful transnational corporations a multiplicity of small countries can do better in defending their interests than one super-state that needs to be lobbied in only one place.

 

The larger the state the more do minorities become impotent and mass majorities are swayed by emotion. Government becomes remote and individuals alienated as decisions are made to forward the interests of an undifferentiated mass. When countries are not allowed to be diverse their peoples will lose their sense of participation in their self-government.

 

Europe out of control

 

The love of power has frequently been the motive for bringing Europe under a single rule. The reason there is a democratic deficit in Europe is that the powers of countries have been taken from them to the European Union whose centralised authorities are not subject to democratical control. Governments sit together in secret to produce legislation in ever –widening areas and making more use of the European Parliament will do nothing to improve accountability and reduce the deficit.

 

An MEP cannot be sensitive to the needs of 500,000 constituents and any one of them will have little say in electing him. In earlier days there was at least a common patriotic concern for the good of the country but such feelings are today downplayed by federalists. The result is that they are replaced by a narrow, selfish interest, but in the end this will not satisfy people and their emotional longings could break Europe apart.

 

There is already great popular hostility at the sheer inefficiency of EU policies, for example in agriculture and fisheries. The direct cost of large- scale bureaucracy, which grows exponently as the state grows and thus takes a growing proportion of resources to sustain it, must become a source of conflict.  At the same time disparities between and within countries that are all part of a single unit can lead to feelings of envy and even hate. If this is the problem now it will be much worse with enlargement.

 

There are already signs of strain within the larger member states of the EU with regional self-assertion. European Union attempts to take advantage of this by a regional policy that will diminish nation states for the benefit of the Union, and regions simply will not meet people’s needs unless the Union’s own authority is dramatically limited.

 

Most people do not show any enthusiasm for the ‘European ideal’ despite the fortune that has been spent on propaganda. They were originally led to believe that they would be richer without giving up political independence; it was a false prospectus and if we find ourselves in economic decline, as we might well do, there will be powerful demands for autonomy.

 

End of PART 1

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