In recent history much has been made on the Conservative Party’s stance on the European Union. Here, Graham Brady, Member of Parliament for Altrincham and Sale West, and Shadow Minister for Europe, outlines the Party’s current position.
The Conservative Party believes that the European Union needs profound reform if it is to prosper into the future. The EU has always reformed but historically the problem has been that ‘reform’ has (almost) always been in the wrong direction – more ‘competences’, more regulation, more costs. Until 1965 almost all Council decisions were taken by unanimity. Since then Qualified Majority Voting has been extended by almost every treaty amendment. Maastricht added 30 areas to QMV; Amsterdam another 24; Nice, a further 46, always taking decision making further away from the people.
As this process has gone on, many of the positive benefits that could have been delivered by European states co-operating and trading freely have been lost. Even the Single Market which should have been an engine for growth has delivered disappointing results – with growth and the growth of trade being slower since 1992 than before.
Perhaps even more damaging, the drive to create this excessively integrated bloc is increasingly coming into conflict with the further expansion of the EU – something that has so far produced perhaps the greatest benefit of all by helping to support the development of the fragile new democracies in Eastern and Southern Europe.
The question is, can we turn this around to make sensible reforms that move powers back closer to the people and their democratic structures? Reforms that lift the burdens on business and make it possible for us to compete?
I am optimistic that we can. Why? Firstly, no-one has ever tried before. Our determination to return social and employment laws to national control would mean a Conservative government would be the first ever elected with a mandate not just to stop ceding powers to the EU but to bring them back – to start unwinding the acquis communautaire.
Others have from time to time talked about doing this, but the return of powers to national control has never been brought forward as the policy of a Member State government.
It is also the case that for far too long, those who want to build the EU into a federal state have been given a free run. For new members coming in over the last few years, it has often seemed that the Constitution and the deeper integration it implies are part of an inevitable process.
We are determined to turn this around and create a new body of opinion in the EU which will champion reform to achieve a more flexible EU. In July the Conservative Party and the Czech Civic Democrats announced the establishment of a new Movement for European Reform (www.europeanreform.eu) which will bring together reform-minded politicians and opinion formers from across Europe.
So what levers do we have to make the others agree to changes that would need unanimity? Firstly, the requirement of unanimity works for us as well.
There are those who still want to pursue the 1950s goal of ever closer union, who want new powers to create a federal union along the lines envisaged in the constitution – with its own foreign minister – its own military – its own taxes – and with harmonised economic policies.
The United Kingdom does not want any of those things.
But if others want to proceed they will need our consent. This is where we can make a deal that is mutually beneficial:
- The creation of a genuinely flexible EU that allows for different Member States or groups of Member States to have different types and degrees of integration.
- For the UK that would be less than at present – for others it may be more.
Sometimes it is suggested that the others would just respond by throwing us out?
I don’t think that this is realistic, not only because it would be against their economic interests but for compelling, political reasons:
- on one hand there are those like the German CDU who see the UK as a vital ally in restraining the growth of social and employment costs, fighting for freer markets and against protectionism .
- and on the other hand there are conviction federalists who would see the expulsion of Britain as an even more massive blow to the ‘European Project’ than conceding the principle of flexibility. For them the loss of one of the most important Member States would diminish the stature of the European Union in a way that would be unthinkable.
The success of a Conservative Government in bringing back control over our social and employment laws will have two extremely important implications.
- First, the principle of ever closer union and the one way ratchet of the acquis will have been breached.
- Secondly, once the UK can make more sensible arrangements for lighter regulation and lower costs, other member states will be forced to confront the implications of their own high cost regime much more directly.
Looking at the question ‘can reform happen’ in the longer term; we have to look at the long term economic trends and pressures.
Today, the US represents 25 % of global GDP, the EU accounts for 25% with China on 10%.
In a couple of decades if current trends continue, we will see the US holding its own at 25%, China moving to 25% and the EU at only half its present importance at 12% of global GDP.
In other words, in 20 years time the average European will be half as well-off as the average American.
It is clear from this not only that reform can happen but that reform must happen because the alternative isn’t a prosperous integrated European Union with real weight and influence in the world, it is rather a costly over-regulated backwater of little consequence in the world.
This leads me to the absolute certainty that reform will happen.
But it can happen in one of two ways – the British Conservative way:
- flexibility, lower costs and doing it in the next few years from choice.
Or
- waiting until economic decline and the loss of influence force the EU to confront the folly of its current path and make the necessary changes later from a position of far greater weakness.
Common sense dictates the former option.
Graham Brady is Shadow Minister for Europe and Member of Parliament for Altrincham and Sale West
Being thrown out of the EU should be viewed as a goal. Who wants to be tied to a bunch of Europeans going steadily down hill?
Who is really ‘in charge’ - The People or a bunch of self-serving navel-gazing politicos? Sadly - as a Europe with far-thinking ideas around internal support to focus trade could be a winner - we are forced to think the latter; so the sooner ‘the people’ can have a say in where to stick the proposed constitution/treaty/dictat, and the faster the UK can excuse itself from an uncommon agricultural policy and resume an appropriate level of trade and real-world reality with countries that have traditionally supported the UK by heart and mind, the better.
On the issue of voting….the farce facing ex-pats when trying to vote was brought home in the last election when our voting forms - 2 of the 20,000 - arrived just three days prior to polling day. Democracy comes at a price, but not even the cost of a courier was going to guarantee that our votes counted. The system - other than by proxy - conveniently manages to side-line the ex-pat vote.
Good luck in creating the team that will bring Britain out of the dark ages and just maybe tempt us to return.
You may ‘talk the talk’ but from Maastricht on you have failed to ‘walk the walk’. The left wing of the Party have from Heath on lied through their teeth and continue to do so. Why should anyone believe a word that you say?
I admire the Hewins’ optimism in hoping that you can create a team that is capable of bringing Britain out of the the dark ages - on present form I reckon your chances are nil.
“‘EU Wise Men’s Committee’ needs to work from a heavily and widely promoted, succinctly articulated terms of reference… which includes the committee- as part of its mandate- having to obtain EU member nations’ citizens’ opinions re their preferences for how a ‘future EU’ ought to look, & its possible role(s) in the world”
How?? With the facilitation of multi-question EU plebiscites- in ALL EU member nations!!!!”
The future EU, IE the scope & powers of its internal structures; the independence of its member nations; & its role-in-the-world, are far more complex & profoundly more important issues than ought to be allowed to be determined by a ‘closed membership’ committee.
The almost impossible to-over-state severe likelihood of the pretentiously named ‘wise men’s committee’s’ findings and recommendations being skewed, could be minimized by the committee having to obtain member nations’ citizens’ views and preferences regarding possible ‘future EU models’ & ‘potential future EU roles in the world’.
To this end, basic democratic principles warrant the facilitation by ALL EU member nations- if possible working with Mr Sarkozy’s proposed committee- of non-binding, ‘multi-question, ‘EU-issues plebiscites’.
The plebiscite process would need to mandate the enabling of beforehand dissemination of succinct, easy to understand ‘alternative future EU models’, facilitated by the respective nation’s govt, political-parties & interest-groups.
The plebiscite itself could ask- specifically- for opinions on the future powers, roles & limitations of existing and possible new, basic-EU-structures such as its Parliament, Commission, Council of Ministers, Court of Justice, etc.
Alternative future EU models could, & arguably ought to include:
1) an EU without its own Parliament- or at least WITHOUT AN ELECTED ONE.
This could be easily accomplished by reverting the present EU Parliament back to its 1960’s-type structure in which MP’s were appointed by EU member nations.
Under this model- to preserve the principle of EU member nation equality- all member nations could be allocated equal numbers of MP’s, perhaps 7 or 8 or less.
This would shrink the absurdly large present EU Parliament- nearly 1000 MP’s- down to a size which would allow legitimate discourse and debate.
It would also force the EU Parliament- & its committees- to become sizes which would be discernible & understandable to ‘the average EU member nation citizen’.
2) an EU in which member nations’ are guaranteed- in an explicitly delineated treaty- their integrity & basic nation-state decision making apparatus, & not to be penalized for opting out of things such as the Euro, foreign policy positions, using vetoes, etc.
After over 1/2 a century of development, isn’t it about time that the citizenry of EU member nations were asked for ‘their opinions’ regarding potential future EU models, IE its structures, their powers & limitations & the EU’s role(s) in the world???
The world as a whole needs an EU of ‘independent’, but willingly-aligned-for-good-purposes nations, but not an ego-motivated
‘Super-State’, in which many of the EU’s member nations are effectively rendered to fodder for the international ego-driven agenda’s of a minority, & forced to participate in & contribute to purposes/projects/actions that their peoples may be adverse to…. purposes/projects/actions that- using the Continent’s consistent conflict-filled 1000-year history as a template- would be driven more by imperialistic or power motives than by altruism and world responsibility.
If constituted without an unequivocal mandate to consult with EU member nations’ citizenry, the proposed ‘EU wise men’s committee’ will be another undemocratic, unrepresentative body that functions to repeat all-too-common EU history & deny member nations’ citizens a legitimate productive say in deciding the future of the EU & their country’s role within it.
In other words, it will function- predictably- as another sordid propagator of false-justifications for the EU becoming a super state.
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Roderick V. Louis,
(near) Vancouver,
Canada,
What we fail to discuss here is the importance of the UK cooperating within the EU and embracing the Euro completely. Thus negating the need for USD as a reserve currency and avoiding the terrible crushing inflation tax which is imposed at will by the US, on any country that needs oil (all). With the majority, almost without exception of oil trading currently in USD.
I think its unfair of Mr Brady when he bends facts in this article with “In other words, in 20 years time the average European will be half as well-off as the average American” which was based on.. “In a couple of decades if current trends continue” what trends do you refer to exactly? Some circles are of the opinion the US economy is in a pretty hard place at the moment?, with its oil trading monopoly being seriously tested by developments in the Iranian Oil Bourse. So why hang on to a sinking ship? Surely independence from the US in the current economic climate has to be to our advantage.
“Taxation without representation is tyranny”
James Otis, Jr.