The EU: are we approaching a tipping-point?

 

By

 

EUROFACTS

(Extract from a fortnightly Journal)

 

Vol 9 No 7 – 16^th Jan. 2004

 

2003 was a perfectly dreadful year for europhiles – and the good news is that there is no reason why the present year should be any better.

 

After years of trying to slow the pace of EU political integration, eurosceptics are so used to failure that they sometimes appear reluctant to recognise success. But a review of events of 2003 makes it clear that last the last year was one of abject failure for the advocates of a European State – and of great success for those seeking to resist the goal of ever-closer union.

 

2003 witnessed the collapse of the Stability and Growth Pact, the Government’s tacit admission that Britain will not be entering the EURO during the lifetime of the present Parliament, an emphatic ’NO’ in the Swedish referendum on the Single Currency, the complete failure to forge a common EU position on the war in Iraq, and most importantly of all, the failure to obtain agreement on the text of a Treaty to establish a European Constitution.

 

On top of all this, europhiles had to explain away much bad economic news from the euro-zone as well as a seemingly endless stream of revelations about fraud and corruption within European Institutions while also contending with the reality of growing US hostility to the emergence of a unitary European Stat, as the scales fell from Washington eyes. For their part, the europhiles can point to the consolation of successful referenda in the 10 Accession States, but the inclusion of the new members is already proving a double-edged sword: if it had not been for Poland, the Constitution would be a done deal and Britain’s long history of self –government at an end.

 

In reviewing the events of the last twelve months, the contributions of two women in standing up for their principles deserve great credit. We refer to Mrs Marta Andreasen, the former EU Chief Accountant who has continued to speak out bravely on the subject of EU fraud; and Gisela Stuart, the Labour Party’s Parliamentary Representative on the Convention on the Future of Europe.

 

When Ms Stuart arrived in Brussels as a member of the 13-strong inner Presidium she was a europhile. By the time the Convention had completed its task she was a eurosceptic, as her Fabian Society pamphlet, the making of Europe’s Constitution (review to follow) makes clear.

 

Her description of the anti-democratic implications of its conclusions has made nonsense of recent assurances of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. It has also quite destroyed the credibility of Peter Hain, the Government’s representative on the Convention, whose readiness to please his political master led him to make the absurd claim that the proposed Constitution would strengthen National Parliaments.

 

Since the publication of her pamphlet |Ms Stuart has since challenged the Prime Minister to do more to end the ‘’creeping’’ intrusion of Brussels into national life and called for a fundamental assessment of the European Project (the Times, 3^rd Jan. 2004).

 

Ms Stuart believes that the EU remains at the point where it must choose between returning powers to National Governments and Centralising still more power in Brussels.

 

It is all too evident that unlike Ms Stuart, the French and German Governments remains committed to the second of these options and is desperate to move ahead swiftly in order to obtain an extension to qualified majority voting and an end to National Opt-Outs…

 

But it is also clear that there will be no early attempt to win approval for the revised Constitutional text. The Irish Presidency will not attempt this, confining its task to ‘’consulting’’ with other members while devoting its energies to the immensely important business of staging Dublin street parties to celebrate the admission of new members on May 1^st 2004. Indeed according to the Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, there may be no attempt to get an agreement this year, with discussions dragging on into 2005. It is likely, however, that a second failure to obtain agreement on the Constitutional text would prove fatal to the endeavour and to the underlying goal of ever-closer union.

 

All of which suggests that we could be –just could be - close to ‘’a tipping point’’, a moment in the history of the European project that will present unique opportunities to those who wish to reverse the integrationist ratchet. At which juncture, it seems appropriate to wish all our readers a happy, prosperous and active New Year.

 

www.junepress.com

 

JANUARY-2004

 

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www.eutruth.org.uk

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www.thewestminsternews.co.uk

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www.speakout.co.uk

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Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION to the EU

www.telegraph.co.uk.blogs

 

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VOTE

MAY -2007

 

TO LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION

WITH THE ONLY PARTY WITH A MANDATE

TO SET YOU

 FREE

 

THE

UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY

www.ukip.org

 

TO RECLAIM YOUR DEMOCRACY DON'T VOTE FOR THE TRIPARTITE PARTIES IN WESTMINSTER

BUT

SMALL PARTIES THAT SPEAK THEIR MINDS WITHOUT SPIN AND LIES.

*

 

ONLY

PRO-PORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

WILL BRING DEMOCRACY BACK TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE

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Home Rule for Scotland

WHY NOT

HOME RULE for ENGLAND

 

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MAY/07

 

[All underlined words have a separate bulletin

 

THE QUESTION THAT THE VOTER MUST ANSWER

 

‘DO YOU WISH TO BE GOVERNED BY YOUR OWN PEOPLE, LAW AND CUSTOM OR BY THE CORRUPT ,EXPENSIVE UNACCOUNTABLE AND ALIEN BUSYBODY BRUSSELS’

 

-SIMPLE IS IT NOT?