Copyright 2000 Western Morning News
Western Morning News (Plymouth)

November 15, 2000

SECTION: Agency: AGENCY, Pg.4

LENGTH: 584 words

HEADLINE: All is not well with the EU whatever MEP says

BODY:
I WAS interested to read the letter from Christopher Huhne (WMN, October 18) and to note his assurance that all is well with the European Union.

If things are on the up, this must surely be due to the efforts of workers of each member state. Certainly not due to the economic competence of the politicians in Brussels.

Mr Huhne, Liberal Democrat MEP for the South East of England, is careful with the selection of statistics. He makes great play of the fact that unemployment has fallen by a percentage point in a year but forgets to mention that this is due almost entirely to improvement in the German figures. He also omits the fact that average unemployment in the EU is still over 9 per cent, almost double the UK and US figures.

As to the general wellbeing of the economy, we have for the moment only external indications of the mood of businessmen and investors. Apart from the questionable manipulation of credit and interest rates, is not the continual depreciation of the euro a sign of the deep national and ideological rifts amongst Europeans themselves?

What confidence is there in the economy when we read that the overflow of capital from the EU to America is in the region of 168 billion dollars, with very little investment going the other way. (Schroeder Salomon, New York). The figures for Britain show something near to balance.

Mr Huhne is a member of a parliament overwhelmed with paper, very limited in debate and criticism, and used mainly as a gigantic rubber stamp. The power is elsewhere in the form of 20 commissioners, 24 judges, 15 ministers and 59 unelected bureaucrats, using a form of dictatorship only slightly less authoritarian than a fascist corporate state.

Not even a dictatorship can manage the unmanageable. The freefall of the euro may herald a return to sanity and the currencies of the individual countries of Europe.

President Prodi can have his United States of Europe but without the United Kingdom. The dream is beset with mismanagement, loss of control and fraud, all deficiencies of the conceit and fallibility of unelected bureaucrats.

Arthur James Sandom

Exeter

Risks of federalism

THE future relationship of this country with the European Union is the most important decision of our day. The question one must ask is "Do you really want to be a 'Canton' of a Federal State of Europe?"

With the General Election looming, it is surely the duty of every Briton to be doing their best to discover and understand the issues involved. This election is not about voting for your local MP, just because he's a very very nice man (or woman). Everyone needs to find out whether their vote will be, in effect, a vote for handing British power to unelected Brussels bureaucrats!

There is an interesting website (http:/www.candidlist.demon.co.uk) for those searching for a broader picture. It has been developed by an independent academic, Dr Sean Gabb, who seeks to classify the views on the European Union of all sitting MPs and candidates at the next General Election.

Our sitting MP, John Burnett, made some vague reservations about European Monetary Union, but failed to justify any other description than that of a Europhile. Thus, a vote for him is a vote, perversely enough, for Britain to be ruled by unelected Eurocrats.

If you want to prevent that, whatever your political persuasion, you need to vote for a Eurosceptic. The Conservative prospective candidate, Geoffrey Cox, is listed as a Eurosceptic.

Susan Collins

Bideford