European Affairs

One problem with these European debates is that we are like two peoples speaking completely different languages—it is a dialogue between the deaf. One view, which we have just heard, is that this is somehow all a plot by the bureaucrats in Brussels. That takes no account of the fact that the real threat to democracy in the world is the unelected bankers, financiers and chief executives of multinational companies. The people of democratic countries need to find ways to co-operate, regulate and take control so as to minimise the worst effects of what those corporate individuals do. However, there is another model. We have just had the fifth anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargement, and the conclusions of the EU Council of 5 May said that the""enlargement was not only a historic step in unifying a long-divided Europe but also a success from an economic point of view resulting in a win-win situation for the whole EU."" If the EU is such a terrible organisation, why have 10 countries that used to be in the Soviet bloc or the regulated communist system, from the Baltic states down to Slovenia, joined it in a period of just over 10 years? Despite the fantasies of the Conservative friend President Klaus of the Czech Republic—who believes that the EU is somehow recreating the Soviet bloc in Europe—people in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia have come out of communism and said overwhelmingly that they wish to be part of the voluntary club that now consists of 27 nation states. They want to work co-operatively together: why is that? There are 500 million people in the EU, and 6 billion in the world as a whole. There are more than 1 billion people in India, and in China as well. Japan has a massive economy, as has the US, so it is clear that we in Europe need to work together in world trade talks and, with the Copenhagen meeting coming up later this year, in the international negotiations on climate change. If we do not, the agendas will be set, and the conclusions written, by others. As Europeans, we have to get into the real world of the 21st century and stop pretending that we are still in the 19th century.