Tag Archives: europe

Opinion: An EU exit would be bad for Britain; it is our job to explain why

By Richard Davis | Thu 23rd May 2013 - 10:59 am

When Lord Lawson argued in The Times for a UK exit from the EU (reported in the Guardian; no pay wall! ), he said his arguments had nothing to do with being “anti-European”, but it appears they were nothing but. Filled with emotion and political zeal there was little relevance or fact based on economic evidence. Which is extremely disappointing from an ex-chancellor.

He stated that UK exports to the EU have risen by 40% while exports to the EU from countries outside of it have risen by 75%. If we were to leave the EU we would have to start paying …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged nigel lawson | 13 Comments

LibLink: Richard Marbrow – Ukip is essentially a ‘party of the south east’ despite gains

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 9th May 2013 - 3:33 pm

Writing for Public Service Europe, Lib Dem campaigner Richard Marbrow has an interesting piece on the distinctly geographical ‘success’ of Ukip.

Here’s an excerpt:

For those of us who ply our politics in the north or the west of the United Kingdom, the inability of the British press to understand the existence of parts of the country more than an hour from London is a source of never ending frustration. The game changer of UKIP gains in the county council elections is a phenomenon largely contained in the South and East of England. Their breakthrough did not even extend into the South

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged ukip | 22 Comments

Opinion: Why Lib Dems should support the Referendum on the EU – and let’s have it before 2015

By Jemima Bland | Thu 9th May 2013 - 2:23 pm

In Lancing in early 2013, in the heart of the Adur Valley region of English South Coast, our campaign team was putting together a strategy for the May 2013 county elections.

Not long ago, Lancing and Sompting were Liberal-run towns. Lib Dem councillors had recently brought a French market to Lancing, and a local entrepreneur has just introduced direct flights to Paris from our airport in Shoreham. Local businesses export their products to Europe through Shoreham Port. Hundreds leave the South Coast

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Posted in Op-eds | 46 Comments

Opinion: Ironically, the rise of UKIP makes Britain a more European place

By Giles Goodall | Fri 3rd May 2013 - 7:00 pm

UKIP’s relative success in the English local elections and South Shields by-election this week has met with predictable reactions across the political spectrum: from copycat politics and jealousy on the Tory right, to handwringing and downright despair on the centre left.

But while UKIP has succeeded in hoovering up disenchanted Tories by the thousand, its appeal is clearly much broader. In fact, the rise of UKIP’s populist anti-politics replicates a pattern played out across Europe since the crisis hit, from the Danish People’s Party to Italy’s Beppe Grillo. Ironically, with …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged denmark, eu, featured, local elections 2013 and ukip | 25 Comments

Conference report – Europe policy consultative session

By Joe Otten | Fri 8th March 2013 - 8:09 pm

Europe remains a political challenge for the UK and for the Liberal Democrats. Where the national interest clearly demands British membership of the EU to access and influence the single market, and to leverage British influence globally, the political debate often revolves around a caricature of the EU that brings no benefits and big responsibilities. Where the liberal reform agenda to make European institutions more accountable and cost-effective, to make Europe more economically competitive have widespread support in Europe, there is a danger that a repatriation narrative will fail at the diplomatic hurdle, and hand victory to those in Europe who …

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Posted in Conference, Europe / International, News and Party policy and internal matters | 2 Comments

Fiona Hall MEP writes… Cameron is putting British interests at risk

By Fiona Hall MEP | Thu 24th January 2013 - 3:24 pm

In his speech on Europe yesterday, David Cameron spoke not as Prime Minister but as a Tory party leader backed into a corner by his outspoken tea-party backbenchers. It was never going to be possible to appease his own right-wing and at the same time reassure his European partners. By promising an in-out referendum following an anticipated but far from certain renegotiated EU treaty by 2017, he has chosen to prioritise party political interests.

As a result, the UK will lose further influence in Europe as other Member States anticipate a “Brexit” and discount the UK’s views altogether. Even worse, he …

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Posted in Op-eds | 3 Comments

Cameron fails to practise what he preaches over Europe

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 24th January 2013 - 8:56 am

There will be lots of ~~fascinating~~ analysis of the prime minister’s speech on Europe. However, this response from the deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, Katinka Barysch, over at Comment is Free caught my eye (emphasis added):

Germany, France and other EU countries have indicated that they want to accommodate Cameron to help Britain to stay in the union. What they simply cannot do is to allow Britain a pick-and-choose membership in response to the

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Posted in News | 13 Comments

The speech that never was

By Joe Otten | Sat 19th January 2013 - 10:00 am

David Cameron - License Some rights reserved by Statsministerens kontor While David Cameron’s much hyped speech on Europe has been postponed, it is not clear that this makes much difference. The key points were briefed to the press in advance so we can see the point.

Full marks for not wasting good copy already written go to the Economist which draws four conclusions, including this one:

The prime minister is trying to Europeanise Euroscepticism. The British often assume they are the

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged brexit, david cameron and featured | 4 Comments

Clegg and Cable criticise Tory EU machinations

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 17th January 2013 - 10:02 am

First up, the Independent’s Andrew Grice reports Nick Clegg’s comments from yesterday’s Today Programme:

The battle lines over which powers should be returned from Brussels to Britain will be drawn today when Conservative Eurosceptics list their demands for the “new settlement” with the EU promised by David Cameron.

But Nick Clegg and a new all-party pro-European campaign, which includes Kenneth Clarke, poured cold water on the prospect of Britain winning a major repatriation of powers, accusing the Eurosceptics of making unrealistic demands.

Mr Cameron is expected to welcome the Fresh Start group’s “manifesto for change” ahead of his landmark speech on Europe on

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Posted in News | 7 Comments

Independent View: how should Lib Dems respond to Cameron’s Europe speech?

By Pawel Swidlicki | Fri 4th January 2013 - 3:21 pm

cameron-europe The Westminster village might still be in post-holiday slumber mode, but a significant political event is due to take place only in a couple of weeks – David Cameron’s long awaited, ‘tantric’ speech on Europe. While the exact details remain unclear, Cameron could well argue that the UK’s terms of EU membership require revision, and that this should include the repatriation of some powers, after which the new package will be put to a referendum. So how should the Liberal Democrats respond?

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Posted in Europe / International, News and The Independent View | Also tagged david cameron and nick clegg | 50 Comments

Clegg celebrates the “astonishing triumph of politics over conflict” which is the EU

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 27th December 2012 - 10:38 am

In his acceptance speech – just over five years ago – after Nick Clegg had just been narrowly chosen as the next leader of the Liberal Democrats, he said that he is a “liberal by temperament, by instinct and by upbringing”. But if those influences make him a liberal, they also make him, arguably to a far greater extent, probably the most pro-European of Britain’s senior politicians. Europe is a subject on which Clegg can speak with the authority of someone who is at least as comfortable, if not more so, in Brussels as he is in Westminster.

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Posted in News | Also tagged featured and nick clegg | 14 Comments

This week in Europe… 26-29 November

By Mark Valladares | Fri 30th November 2012 - 3:50 pm

Lib Dems welcome the launch of free trade negotiations with Japan

UK Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder, the party’s European spokesperson on international trade, today welcomed the Council’s decision to authorise the launch of a free trade agreement with Japan, saying it could deliver additional EU exports to Japan worth €43.4bn (around £35bn). She said:

It is time to tap into the huge potential of a free trade agreement with Japan. It is the world’s third largest economy and crucial export market for the

…

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged catherine bearder and political parties | Leave a comment

Three cheers for the unsung heroes of Brussels

By Giles Goodall | Fri 16th November 2012 - 11:52 am

A new survey by European news portal Euractiv has ranked Sharon Bowles MEP as the most influential Brit in EU policy-making, eight places ahead of David Cameron and thirty-three above Nigel Farage. The UK40 survey also features Lib Dem MEPs Andrew Duff and Sir Graham Watson in the top sixteen. National politicians such as Cameron, William Hague and Nick Clegg make the top twenty, but often lose out in the ranking to less well known Brits in the EU institutions.

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Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged ALDE, andrew duff, graham watson and sharon bowles | Leave a comment

“Standing up for the people of Britain by standing tall in our own backyard” – Clegg on Europe

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 1st November 2012 - 5:57 pm

Nick Clegg made a speech earlier today setting out his vision for the role the UK should play in the European Union.

You can read what Clegg had to say (minus, unfortunately, the “party political” segment which has been removed by the Cabinet Office) below, and what the Voice’s Stephen Tall thinks he should have said here. And here’s his fellow co-editor Mark Pack’s take on the speech.

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Posted in Europe / International | 12 Comments

I don’t agree with Nick. We should be in Europe to reform the EU

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st November 2012 - 9:20 am

Nick Clegg will today make the kind of speech which makes it very hard for Lib Dems to push the idea that our party is serious about reform of the European Union. According to the BBC, he will dismiss the chances of any significant changes to the EU’s budget:

In a speech to be delivered to the Chatham House international affairs think-tank, Mr Clegg will say Labour is well aware there was “absolutely no prospect” of achieving a real-terms cut. “Their change of heart is dishonest, it’s hypocritical.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged chatha house, david cameron, eu, featured and nick clegg | 52 Comments

Taking stock – 20 years of the Single Market

By Phil Bennion | Fri 26th October 2012 - 10:21 am

In the current “debate” over Europe, “loss of sovereignty”, and “power grabbing by the Commission” are the central themes… what an irony on the 20th anniversary of the single market – the key achievement of the EU which was spear-headed by a British Conservative European Commissioner, and cemented by a Conservative Government in 1992 under the Maastricht treaty.

Commissioner Arthur Cockfield in 1985 published a list of 300 recommendations needed to eliminate the barriers to real free trade within Europe, to make the (then) European Community more competitive and profitable for Member States.

Since 1992 the focus has been to “complete” this …

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Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged phil bennion and single market | 34 Comments

Opinion: The Tories: tough on Europe, soft on crime

By Giles Goodall | Tue 9th October 2012 - 10:43 am

The news that Sussex teacher Jeremy Forrest has been arrested in Bordeaux on suspicion of abducting pupil Megan Stammers is a timely reminder of the value of EU cooperation to fight crime. The maths teacher, who now faces imminent extradition, joins a long list of suspects caught with a European arrest warrant and swiftly returned to face justice in the UK. But the Conservatives’ dogmatic opposition to all things European is now putting the safety of Britons at risk.

The European arrest warrant, in operation since 2004, has succeeded in cutting average extradition times in the EU from one …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged crime, european arrest warrant and sarah ludford | 10 Comments

David Laws and Vicky Pryce on the crisis in Europe

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 27th September 2012 - 9:28 am

Monday evening at conference saw a discussion between David Laws, economist Vicky Pryce and Simon Tilford from the Centre for European Reform entitled “Europe: from crisis to growth”.

This wasn’t an event that one went to if one needed cheering up: the overall message coming from all the speakers was a downbeat one, even if they all picked out some small shards of positivity.

Simon Tilford began by giving some reasons why on the face of it the past month has been a rather good one in the ongoing saga of the Eurozone crisis: we had the announcement from Mario Draghi, head …

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged david laws and vicky pryce | 19 Comments

Opinion: Europe’s moving ahead. Are we part of it or not?

By Giles Goodall | Thu 13th September 2012 - 12:26 pm

In his annual State of the Union address on Wednesday, European Commission President Barroso issued a clarion call for a ‘federation of nation states’ to take on the challenges facing Europe. The only way forward is more unity and more European integration, said Barroso. But this must be accompanied by more democracy – placing the European Parliament in a central role – and subsidiarity – concentrating EU action on the real issues that need to be dealt with at European level.

There is much for Liberal Democrats to welcome in the speech. The emphasis on the European Parliament, national …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged jose manuel barosso | 45 Comments

Paddy Ashdown: Why the World will never be the same again

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 1:01 pm

Last week, Paddy Ashdown came to the Edinburgh Book Festival. He filled the main theatre twice over with two very different talks.

The first, Why the world will never be the same again, was chaired by the Today Programme’s James Naughtie.

“I wouldn’t trust the UN to run a Liberal Democrat jumble sale”

Speaking without notes and with compelling candour, Paddy told us that we were condemned to living in one of those turbulent times when the balance of power in the world shifts. He saw two such major shifts. The first was a vertical one. Individual nation states could not alone regulate …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged barack obama, edinburgh book festival, eu, james naughtie, nick clegg and paddy ashdown | 11 Comments

The Independent View: Could Europe be an unlikely area of consensus for the revamped Coalition 2.0?

By Pawel Swidlicki | Sat 11th August 2012 - 9:51 am

Following the bad blood within the coalition over the collapse of Lords reform and the constituency boundary review, there has been much speculation that the two parties will enact a policy ‘reset’ after conference season, with Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander already reportedly working out the details. Most people looking for potential fresh common ground between Tories and Lib Dems would hardly place ‘Europe’ at the top of their list. However, while the parties are unlikely to ever see eye to eye on the EU, given political will, there are a number of areas of potential agreement.

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Posted in Europe / International, News and Op-eds | Also tagged common agricultural policy, Danny Alexander, eu budget and oliver letwin | 21 Comments

Opinion: Brussels vs. the banksters

By Giles Goodall | Sat 28th July 2012 - 1:21 pm

European Parliament building

Almost no-one in the UK would these days dispute the fact that the country’s banking sector needs a serious overhaul to correct the runaway behaviour which helped nudge Britain (and others) into the financial crisis. The Liberal Democrats have rightly been most persistent in demanding reforms, in particular a break-up of retail and casino banking, as recommended by the independent Vickers Inquiry.

The latest scandal about fixing the benchmark Libor interest rate plumbs new depths – even by the standards of Britain’s banks. Here were …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged banking and libor | 14 Comments

Opinion: Standing by hard-won freedoms helps remind us what the EU is all about

By Giles Goodall | Thu 19th July 2012 - 11:56 am

European Commission President Barroso yesterday used uncharacteristically tough language to condemn the current political turmoil in Romania. Calling for “urgent action” by the country to win back the confidence of its EU partners, Barroso talked about the “exceptional events” which have been “a major source of concern to the EU” and “shaken our trust.” Barroso also announced that the EU was extending a special system of checks on Romania’s respect for the rule of law and judicial independence, instigated after the country joined the EU five years ago.

The unprecedented language from the EU follows a political crisis which has …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged josé manuel barroso and romania | 2 Comments

Opinion: Britain and the EU-Liberal Democrats need to help reduce the democratic deficit

By Paul Haydon | Tue 17th July 2012 - 4:14 pm

Following the launch of the Balance of Competences review of EU powers last week, the next major debate within the coalition looks set to be over Britain’s relationship with Europe. Nick Clegg has emphasised that the review should not be used as a way to exploit the eurozone crisis and carve out a special EU deal forBritain. However, many Tory eurosceptics will no doubt view it as a platform to push for a significant repatriation of powers, in the run-up to an eventual referendum on EU …

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Posted in Op-eds | 36 Comments

Opinion: Kill the Euro before it kills Europe

By David Allen | Thu 12th July 2012 - 12:53 pm

The Euro was meant to secure the peace in Europe. Instead, it is the cause of conflict. Those who seek European harmony should now recognise that the Euro stands in the way. We need to understand why this is. Here is my take.

Most economic areas have a successful centre and struggling periphery. Think of London versus Northumbria in Britain, Germany versus Greece in Europe. How do winning and losing regions establish competitive equilibrium?

Within a sovereign nation, political pressures ensure large resource transfers from rich to poor regions. Taxes raised in the prosperous centre

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged euro | 67 Comments

Edward McMillan-Scott MEP writes… Our voice on human rights is amplified by the EU

By Edward McMillan-Scott MEP | Thu 5th July 2012 - 11:54 am

The Coalition pledge to put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy is bearing fruit. Thanks especially to pressure from the European Parliament – where as Vice-President for democracy and human rights I have lobbied hard – and the Foreign Office, civil society, the EU’s 27 governments recently adopted a comprehensive new approach. Jeremy Browne, our excellent minister for human rights, and I co-authored a recent article published by the Independent explaining the background of the ambitious new EU Human Rights package.

Although the EU’s foreign ministers gave the green light to a new Strategy with an associated …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged human rights | 3 Comments

Opinion: Scrap the tax on e-books

By Antony Hook | Fri 29th June 2012 - 10:08 am

A liberal success over many decades has been to protect the tax-free status of books and newspapers. A tax on books would be abhorrent as it would be a tax on free speech.

A democratic, civilised society requires the free exchange of ideas, information and art in books. Books are vital for people, young and old, who wish to educate themselves and improve their prospects.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged e-books, neelie kroes, tax and vat | 18 Comments

Opinion: The need for the CAP

By George Potter | Fri 25th May 2012 - 8:55 am

This is the last article in a three part series of articles based on interviews with Lib Dem MEPs George Lyon and Phil Bennion about reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The other two articles can be found here and here.

One of the subjects which came up in the interviews was whether or not to have a CAP at all. Both of them made some interesting points about the subject.

Phil Bennion made the argument that it was necessary for the sake of global food security.

“We have to approach food security, not just from Europe’s point of view ...

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged common agricultural policy | 1 Comment

Nick Clegg: Europe’s future is our future

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 24th May 2012 - 7:28 pm

Nick Clegg has been in Berlin today, along with Vince Cable. to meet with German ministers and launch the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, a £1 million reward for an invention that’s changed the world and benefitted humanity.

He took the opportunity to talk about the economic crisis engulfing Europe, making the point that Europe has to work together to sort it. There were no diplomatic niceties in his language as he criticised the failure to find a solution so far:

…our response to this brewing crisis has been woefully fragmented. We have failed on a number of fronts. We have

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged economy, Eurozone, greece and nick clegg | 5 Comments

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore MP | Wed 23rd May 2012 - 10:56 am

Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore MP writes a weekly column for his local newspapers. Here is this week’s edition.

Independence Referendum

As discussions continue surrounding the process and timing of the Scottish Government’s independence referendum, the UK Government published the results of their consultation on the referendum last week. With nearly 3000 responses, the results demonstrated strong support from all quarters in Scotland for a referendum which is legal, fair and decisive.

Since our consultation was launched in January we have already made a good deal of progress with the Scottish Government – both agreeing that a Section …

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Posted in News | Also tagged farming, Michael Moore, scottish borders council, Scottish independence referendum and Westminster Notes | 1 Comment