Howard urges rethink on EU treaty
Tory leader Michael Howard has urged European leaders to ditch the draft EU treaty when they meet in Brussels later this month.
With French and Dutch voters rejecting the treaty this week, Mr Howard said there was a “tremendous opportunity” for a root and branch rethink on the fundamentals of the union.
Mr Howard told the BBC EU leaders of the European Council meeting on June 16th and 17th should bring the ratification process to a grinding halt.
“The EU is too centralised, too remote, too unaccountable, and it does too much.”
“The constitution wouldn’t help to deal with any of these shortcomings, it would make them worse”, he said.
With the treaty effectively “dead and buried”, he said there was no pressing reason for a vote in the UK.
But the eurosceptic added the caveat that if leaders decided to press ahead with referenda and parliamentary votes on the treaty, Britain should follow suit and hold its national plebiscite next year as planned.
Tony Blair and the British government were encouraged to “seize the opportunity” and make the EU “a force for good”.
But Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is expected to tell MPs on Monday that the EU Referendum Bill will be put on the backburner for the foreseeable future.
To date, ten states have ratified the treaty. All 25 members of the EU must ratify the treaty by November 2006 for it to come into effect.
