Blair defends EU reform plans
Tony Blair has defended current plans for reform of the European Union as it prepares for enlargement.
Delivering a statement to the Commons following the EU summit in Greece last week, the Prime Minister said that the draft EU constitution would provide a valuable blueprint on which to clarify national competences ahead of expansion.
And he stressed that relinquishing the national veto in certain EU policy areas was firmly in the national interest.
The extension of qualified majority voting should not be feared, Mr Blair told MPs, insisting that it was key in such areas as trade.
Giving up the national veto is a major bone of contention for certain eurosceptics, who warn of what they maintain to be a creeping agenda of federalisation within the European Union.
But addressing the Commons this afternoon, Mr Blair insisted that relinquishing the veto in certain areas was necessary to ensure the effective operation of an EU of 25 member states following the enlargement process pencilled in for May 2004.
And he said that prospective members of the European Union were particularly sympathetic to what he described the UK’s concept of “a Europe of nations”.
Such countries – many of them from the former Communist bloc – welcomed economic reform, valued a transatlantic alliance and had no intention of giving up their nationhood, the PM insisted.
In respect of the controversial EU constitution,Tony Blair flatly rejected suggestions that the draft document was a step along the road towards a European superstate.
Issues such as defence, borders, foreign affairs and tax policy would remain firmly in the jurisdiction of Westminster, the PM maintained, arguing that the proposed constitution offered “the prospect of stability in the way that Europe works”.
It stated that the EU only had powers that member-states had granted it, provided for a chair of the council – ending the rotating presidency – and gave national parliaments a bigger role in vetting new legislation, according to Mr Blair.
Responding in the Commons, Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith accused the Prime Minister of ‘setting up a false debate’ about staying the EU or leaving it.
The Tory leader made clear that his party in no way wished to revoke UK membership, but accused the Prime Minister of wanting to make Europe a new superpower.
And calling for a referendum on the proposed EU constitution, Mr Duncan Smith demanded that the UK people be given an opportunity to decide.
The draft constitution was finally signed earlier in June after many months of detailed discussions by members of the convention, headed by former French president Valery Giscard D’Estaing.
While the convention has seen some areas of agreement, there have been disagreements about how power should be distributed. The most notable of these concerns is from small countries, many of which fear that some changes will see them lose their influence to the big six of Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Spain and soon Poland.
There have also been tensions between countries seeking further integration and those seeking to retain national ‘competences’ in key areas.
