A new study by Open Europe has found that EU legislation has been responsible for 77 per cent of the cost of regulation on businesses since 1998. The study calculates that EU-derived legislation has cost the UK economy £30 bn. pounds since 1998 alone. Based on previous research by the British Chambers of Commerce, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has argued that "around half" of the cost of regulation on business is caused by EU legislation. But the new analysis - based on the Government's answers to an extensive programme of Parliamentary questions - suggests that even this is an under-estimate, because many pieces of supposedly domestic legislation are in fact implementing EU legislation.
The report also finds that, despite repeated promises by the European Commission that it will reduce red tape, the burden of EU regulation on the economy is still rising sharply.
In a foreword to the study, former CBI President Sir John Egan states that "Europe's production of new regulations is actually increasing at an alarming rate. Of the 22,000 pieces of legislation on the EU statute book, about 12,000 have been introduced in the eight years since 1997, compared to 10,000 during the forty years from 1957 to 1997." The study also states, "Look closely at what the European Commission's 'war on red tape' really means and the sad answer is: not very much. The emphasis seems to have drifted towards redrafting laws rather than actually hacking back red tape. Given Europe's slow growth, high unemployment, and future demographic problems, this kind of tinkering around the edges is not a proportionate response to the scale of the challenges Europe faces. We cannot afford to go on like this."
The Dutch government has announced that it is planning to appoint a high-level official to screen new EU legislation, and "sound the alarm in time", so that undesirable EU regulations can be opposed by the Dutch government. The "watchdog" will also look at areas where less EU regulation is possible and will try to stop the EU legislating in areas which should be left to Member States.
Perhaps our Parliament should look at this development. Over the last year our own Government has increasingly come under fire for preventing Parliament from scrutinising EU legislation. Under an agreement dating from 1980, the Government is not supposed to sign up to EU legislation if MPs say that they want to scrutinise it first. But this so-called "scrutiny reserve" system is being undermined - because the Government increasingly chooses to "override" MPs' requests, in order to avoid losing face in EU meetings. In a recent Parliamentary written answer to Conservative MP Michael Gove (22nd November), the Government admitted that it had overridden MPs' requests for scrutiny 322 times since 2001.
Forecasts vary on whether an attempt will be made to revive the proposed European constitution. The EU's track record when it comes to democracy is distinctly unimpressive, as they have already forced the Danes and the Irish to vote again after they had democratically rejected previous EU treaties, so we cannot assume that the democratic vote of the French and the Dutch will be respected: quite the reverse, in fact.
The fact that Jacques Delors has been brought out of retirement to help the EU Commission out of their difficulties will get people's backs up in this country, but it also indicates the determination on the Commission's part eventually to force the constitution through by one means or another. Meanwhile, much of the treaty is being implemented piecemeal, and with dubious legality, behind the scenes. If the proposed constitution is not killed off properly it will be back sooner or later.
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In 1997 Britain had the strongest pensions system of all the 15 countries then in the European Union. For various reasons, some of them the result of Government activity, we have slid down the table, and our pensions are now the sixth strongest out of these 15 countries. We are, however, still well ahead of France, Germany and Italy, who all have a far lower level of funded pensions. Having to share in the costs of their pensions liabilities is one of the many disadvantages which we would incur if we were so foolish as to give up the Pound. And it is surely more than coincidence that two of the countries above us, in the top five, are Sweden and Denmark, who have also retained their own currencies.
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One of the simple pleasures of life for those who are awake at five-thirty in the morning, whether regularly or occasionally, is the UK Theme on Radio 4, a five-minute medley of traditional British tunes arranged by Fritz Spiegl, who came to Britain from his native Austria as a refugee from the Nazis. But no more. The Controller of Radio 4 has decided to axe this delightful piece of music with effect from April, in favour of a "pacy news briefing", as if Radio 4 does not already have plenty of news.
At the moment there is a pleasing balance in Radio 4's opening its day with the UK Theme and closing it with the playing of the National Anthem. The change reflects the fact that many in the BBC establishment are the sort of people who do not really like their (and our) country, and feel that submerging it into a European superstate would render it more acceptable to them. It is devoutly to be hoped that they will not eventually propose the replacement of the UK Theme with the EU anthem, lending credence to those who dub our beloved BBC the "Brussels Broadcasting Corporation"!
Open Europe, the eurorealist think-tank, is offering young people aged 25 or under the chance to win £1,000 in an essay competition.
Entrants are asked to write a maximum of 1,500 words on the subject: "The European Union isn't working; how should it change?".
The closing date is 31st March and entries should be sent to: Open Europe, 7 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3QN, or by e-mail to: info@openeurope.org.uk. Further information is available from the same addresses.
Of course, the Anti-Common Market League would say that the likelihood of changing the EU to any acceptable extent is negligible, and that a more preferable course would be to leave. Perhaps some entries along these lines would provide food for thought.
According to a report in The Sunday Telegraph on 29th October, the EU is planning to spend several million pounds celebrating, in March 2007, the fiftieth anniversary of its establishment as the European Economic Community. Apparently there will be "fifty days and nights of parties". Sophie Goeminne, a spokesman for the Belgian government, is quoted as saying, "This will be our way of bringing the EU closer to its citizens".
If our government is sensible, it will make sure not much of this money is spent in Britain, as it would prove a ready-made target for public hostility towards the European Union. The closer the EU is brought to British citizens, the more contempt they have for it.
Almost fifty cases of potentially fraudulent use of EU funds are currently under investigation in Romania, Bulgaria and parts of the Balkans - despite none of these countries being members of the EU. Several million pounds-worth of taxpayers money is involved.
This startling fact came to light at a meeting of the budget control committee of the European Parliament in Brussels on 29th November. The European Commissioner responsible for the fight against fraud, Siim Kallas of Estonia, told the committee that 49 cases were currently under investigation by OLAF - the investigating arm of the EU.
Romania and Bulgaria are set to become members of the EU in 2007, but no date has been agreed for any Balkan countries.
Commenting on this revelation, Ashley Mote, Independent MEP for South-East England, said: "We have known for a long time that the EU buys support in candidate countries, but this is ridiculous. British taxpayers do not expect their money to be used for such purposes, let alone misused. As for OLAF,it has no power to prosecute, so no one will be convicted and all the money will be lost."
Froude Today
John Coleman New European Publications 1-872410-38-3 £12.99* 158pp.
The historian James Anthony Froude is largely neglected in these days, unlike in his own 19th century. The author of this book, who is a kinsman of Froude, will be well-known to quite a few readers of BRITAIN through his work in the Common Market Monitoring Association and other organisations, and makes the case here that Froude's views are of relevance to our present time, not least on the question of Britain's involvement in the European Union.
The author was told by Victor Montagu, sometime Member of Parliament, Earl of Sandwich and President of the Anti-Common Market League, that "in my day we were all brought up on Froude". While the book's study of Froude's attitude towards religion, education, the development of industrial capitalism in his own day and the nascent trade unions will be of interest to some readers of BRITAIN, it will be how Froude can be applied to the question of power that will be of most relevance to our cause.
Froude recognised the inevitability of change, but preferred the natural evolution of society to sudden or extreme change. In the century before that of Leopold Kohr and E.F. Schumacher, he seems to have anticipated them to some extent in his preference for the human-scale, and was concerned at the aggregation of society, politically and economically, into larger and more centralised units.
On this basis he would have probably opposed the European Union, although he would have been a keen advocate of a sort of commonwealth of European nations. With the EU's regional policy in mind, it is encouraging to learn that Froude was a strong supporter of the counties of England as natural units of government; he was proud of being a Devonshire man, and referred to Devon as "my country".
This book will provide "Froude for thought"; most Members of Parliament would benefit from reading it, and it would be a useful addition to most school libraries.
*Available to readers of BRITAIN at £10 from the publishers at 14 Carroun Road, London SW8 1JT.
Open Europe is a new independent think-tank set up by some of the UK's leading business people to contribute new thinking to the debate about the future direction of the EU. It has been set up by some of the people who were behind the successful No campaigns against the EU constitution and the Euro.
Open Europe acknowledges that the EU is still pushing failed policies which threaten our economy and our democracy, and that the EU's institutions are still plagued with corruption. Open Europe aims to campaign for change and map out an alternative vision for a different kind of Europe.
Open Europe was launched on 20th October at the City of London headquarters of the Bloomberg news agency, with an audience of more than two hundred business leaders, academics, politicians and diplomats. At the launch, findings were revealed of new research from Oxford Economic Forecasting which examined the economic benefits of bringing down the EU's trade barriers and reforming the notoriously wasteful Common Agricultural Policy.
The main findings of the research were the following.
Getting rid of the barriers that the EU imposes on our trade with the rest of the world would boost Britain's economy. It would make a typical household of four £1,500 a year better off.
Of the major EU economies, the UK has most to gain from trade liberalisation, because more than fifty per cent of its trade is done with countries outside the EU, far higher than other member states.
At the moment Britain is denied the benefits of free trade with its biggest trading partner, the United States.
The EU puts its highest tariffs on basic necessities such as food and clothing, which take up a bigger proportion of the income of the poorest families. The report finds that the poorest tenth of people in the UK would gain proportionally six times more than the richest tenth from removing EU trade barriers.
The EU currently hits poor countries with even higher trade taxes than rich countries, so developing countries stand to benefit most from free trade. Britain and Europe would gain from free trade - but poor countries could gain even more. Getting rid of trade barriers would boost the economies of the EU as a whole by about two per cent, but the overall GDPs of Africa would increase by just under six per cent - lifting millions out of poverty.
MEPs have called for the European Union to introduce a common EU circus policy. A report entitled "New challenges for the circus as part of European culture" has been approved by MEPs, who argued that circuses cross national borders and therefore should be subject to harmonised standards set by the EU. They called on the Commission "to prepare a comprehensive set of standards for mobile circus facilities and finalise current work on the Safety Standard for Temporary Structures (such as tents)". The report also proposed measures to deal with the education of children from travelling communities.
Some might suggest that the European Parliament is a circus whose entertainment value is far outweighed by its expense and threat to national democracies.
The EU Commission may propose that British merchant ships should start flying an EU flag at sea rather than the Red Ensign. The Commission is arguing that if all European merchant ships flew "a European flag" it would help recognition at sea that these vessels meet the strictest European and international safety standards. The Merchant Navy Association Chairman, Captain John Sail, said, "It is terrible that they should try to alter such a symbol of British success."
The EU Commission has published a new pamphlet for schoolchildren called "L'Europe, Mon Foyer" (Europe, My Home), 100,000 copies of which have been distributed to primary-school children in Belgium. The pamphlet talks about the EU constitution as though it had not been rejected: "Thanks to the new Constitution, the European Union has a Foreign Affairs Minister. He sits in the Council and the Commission and has a very important function; he drives the Commission's common foreign and security policy." It also states: "With this new constitution everything will go like clockwork, just like in your club."
In a section on the Euro, the pamphlet claims that countries are queuing up to join the currency: "Other Member States want to adopt the Euro as quickly as possible."
There would probably be an outcry if such blatant propaganda were introduced into British schools. But more subtle propaganda is made available to schools here, and we need to be on our guard against this.
Popular support for the European Union is dropping, according to the latest EU Commission opinion survey, the Eurobarometer.
Austria and Britain are the least in favour, with 32 per cent of Austrians and 33 per cent of Britons saying EU membership is a good thing for their country, followed by Latvia (36 per cent), Finland (38 per cent) and Sweden and Hungary (both 39 per cent). The EU's greatest supporters are Luxembourg (82 per cent) and Ireland (73 per cent); the former benefits from having many of the EU institutions within its borders or just outside, and the latter has received enormous net contributions from the EU budget. Only 32 per cent of Swedes say they perceive that their country has benefited from EU membership, closely followed by the Austrians and the British with 36 and 37 per cent respectively.
Experts are predicting that last summer's EU trade dispute with China over textiles - dubbed the "bra wars" - will resurface in the near future. The French newspaper La Tribune reported recently that 70 per cent of this year's EU import quotas for Chinese products have already been used up, raising the possibility of products being impounded again in European ports in 2006. Under pressure from Italy, the EU Commission is also considering placing high new tariffs on shoes from China, India and Vietnam. Business organisations have warned that imposing tariffs could spark off a new "shoe war".
How much better it would be all round if we could negotiate our own trade policies.
A recent poll for French weekly Economie Matin has shown that 47 per cent of French people would favour a return to the Franc, compared to 46 per cent who want to keep the Euro. This is the first poll in France to show a majority in favour of returning to the Franc. A majority of women (55 per cent), retired people (55 per cent), and those with average or modest salaries (53 per cent) said they favoured a return to the Franc. This follows a poll in June which showed that 61 per cent of the French miss the Franc, and a poll in Germany by Stern, also in June, which showed that 56 per cent of Germans miss the Deutschmark.
Organised by the Anti-Common League, 28 Highdown, Worcester Park, Surrey, KT4 7HZ (Tel: 01787 376374)
Admission free