He starts with the following observation (while talking about Giscard):
Like de Gaulle half a century ago, Giscard has recognised that Britain would no more fit into the 21st-century European state than it would have fitted into the European empires of the 16th, 19th or 20th centuries.The overal point here is the neccessity for pro-Europeans to recocinze that we have to develop towards a multi-speed union. His proposal:
Giscard may well find the EU more likely to unravel into a new West European Republic of six or 10 states willing to sacrifice their identities to gain the undoubted advantages that the United Kingdom has enjoyed in its own union of England, Scotland, Ulster and Wales, and 15 or 20 still sovereign states in a new treaty relationship.That is indeed a distinct possibility and in my opinion it is absolutly possible that this really that best structure for our continent. After he talks a little about Thatcher and internal Tory stuff he comes to the conclusion,
The task for the Tory leadership, the euro-sceptics, the "Better Off Out" supporters and Ukip is to crystalise the vision of Mrs Thatcher's Bruges speech into the architecture of a new European treaty, one that would constitute a framework within which sovereign states would co-operate with a European Republic formed of those nations willing to enter a complete political union of their ownExactly! It would be a really positive devolpment if Europhobes would present a vision how they think the EU should be structured in the future along the lines of this article. This would finally enable us to have constructive debate about the EU.
3 comments:
RZ,
It is interesting how the joining of forces of states within a democratic and federal European state is equated (erroneously) with the disappearance of citizens' identities.
We, our languages, customs, cultures live and our daily lives evolve fairly unaffected by how foreign, security and defence policy, internal security, external trade and the single market are improved at European level to take account of globalisation.
But the risks to our security and prosperity are greater outside.
Tebbit is a bit of a mental - he's long been the major Tory hate-figure for British left-wingers, and with good reason (quite a few on the right think he's a nutter and all). But the Tories do have a good model on which to base their stance on the EU - and it is the celebrated Bruges speech given by Thatcher 20 years ago that he mentions. Well worth reading in full - because it's now become this near-mythical anti-EU manifesto for British withdrawalists (notably anti-EU "think tank" the Bruges Group, named after the speech). Listen to the anti-EU crowd and you'd think this was a blistering attack on the very idea of a common European future.
Yet it actually contains much that is positive towards a European Union, and fully supports continued British engagement at the heart of the process. It's just that it doesn't support the direction the current EU has been heading for the last 30-odd years towards greater centralisation and uniformity. Pretty much all of Thatcher's suggestions back then are still being made to this day - and not just by eurosceptics.
Sadly, though, Thatcher's Bruges speech is more referred to than read - and thanks to its current associations with flag-waving anti-EU nutters it is mostly ignored. Yet its overall vision for Europe remains a sound alternative to the current model, while in the details are identified many of the key problems with the current set-up, none of which have really changed in two decades.
Most satisfying, though, is that it provides a healthy supply of quotes defending Britain's close involvement with the rest of Europe (even to the point of advocating greater use of a European single currency) which can be thrown at any British eurosceptics that happen by...
Thank you for that information. While I do know the shape of contemporary British politics I did not know who Tebbit is. Nonetheless his article is quite interesting.
The full text of Thatchers speech is worth reading. However, let me quote something which I think is at the heart of the contradictions in the Eurosceptic vision of Europe:
"My first guiding principle is this: willing and active cooperation between independent sovereign states is the best way to build a successful European Community. "
A community build on cooperation between fully sovereign nation would essentially have to do away with all supranational institutions and all forms of cooperation would be intergovernmental. However it is exactly the intergovernmental process in todays EU which is secretive and democratically unaccountable.
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