Extremely interesting and fairly detailed article on why Britain has a completely different expectation from the EU than most other member states.
"This is what the EU has meant to Britain over the decades - trade. It is why the prime minister we associate most strongly with Euro-scepticism, Margaret Thatcher, was in fact the prime minister who took the UK deeper into the European embrace than any other British leader.
In 1986, when she signed the treaty that created the Single European Market, she did so because she saw it as a triumph for trade unhindered by government - as Thatcherism on a European scale. Yet within a few months she was also warning that an emerging European superstate, unaccountable and unelected, now posed a threat to the sovereignty of elected national parliaments.
Portugal, Spain and Greece - Europe's “southern tier” - joined the European Economic Community as part of their transition from right-wing or military dictatorships and highly insular and state-controlled economies. For them, joining the “European family of nations” was not just about trade, it was about emerging from the darkness of oppression and dictatorship. They saw it as a way of entrenching democratic practice, freedom of speech, the rule of law, parliamentary government and a free press.
Economic integration was, for them, not the end in itself. It was the means to an end. And the end was not economic but political."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-95a417ab-0982-4512-b550-20d68fd53f87
Pro-EU have a point that leaving it would be bad news on many levels, trade being the most obvious one.
ReplyDeleteEurosceptics have a point that it is dominated by the undemocratic, corrupt and way too ideologically ultraliberal European Commission.
Neither has the honesty to push for what actually needs to be done: reforms to clean/sideline the European Commission and give Europe a real democratic government.
Pro-EU would strengthen the EU and give better integration to the member states, benefiting to all.
Eurosceptics would neutralize the problematic points with the EU and give member states more autonomy on subjects where cultural and/or geographical difference makes centralized decisions inadequate.
Most European nations seem to be too caught up in the short-term political game for either side to push for it.
Right now, Britain may have a card to play on that : "you want us to stay? Here are the conditions.", and could call individual political factions of the other states out for pushing against actually fixing things.
This would put them in a strong position to ask for more autonomy on some points, and for example go for multiple levels of integration for different member states, so this difference in goals would be counted with.
Not that I expect Britain to play it, but that would be nice.
Yes ! What Elie Thorne said !
ReplyDeleteI want the trade, freedom of movement, and basic human rights protections. What I don't want is a Europe that has direct control of local laws. It's neither practical nor plausible nor democratic. I don't think it actually does - at least not in any significant way - which is why I'd vote to stay, but I do see it potentially moving that way. I don't want to actively seek an "ever-closer union". If that occurs, then fine with me, but I don't believe that's something it's possible to enforce. It has to happen of its own accord or not at all.