I recently put questions to Nick Clegg on behalf of the LDEG, the party’s pro-European campaign group. In it, Nick makes clear the importance he attaches to the role of MEPs, responding to a question about whether the party appreciates MEPs:
individual MEPs have far, far more opportunity to actually get laws changed and improved than MPs.”
He very modestly avoided agreeing with me that he had a role in leading Britain’s pro-Europeans, although that is a role he sees for the party as a whole. He described Sharon Bowles MEP’s appointment as Chair of the Parliament’s Economics Committee as “immensely important” (a view echoed by the Financial Times which calls her “one of the most powerful women in European finance”.
The interview covers the Lisbon Treaty and Nick suggests that after the debate on the treaty “we need to move on to improving Europe’s policies rather than its treaties.” On the single currency, he says that recent events make the case for membership stronger and, asked about banks, says that the EU “is vital to getting a grip on the behaviour of credit institutions.”
We also cover rights for Britons arrested in another state of the Union, the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, food and energy security, the 2009 European Elections, electing more MEPs in future, and much more besides.
You can read the interview in full here, and can join LDEG here.
* Antony Hook is a Liberal Democrat campaigner in the South East.
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2 Comments
Pleace vote for democracy and against the treaty of lisbon
Dear irish people!
Pleace stop the treaty of lisbon! Is is antidemocartic, militaristic, antisocial. The disadvantages are much bigger, than the advantages. The EU can live with its actuell laws. They should only be changed into a democratic direction. With the treaty of lisbon, the european council is able to change this treaty in great parts without asking the parliament. This is nearly the same law, which mades the nationl- rassistic- party of Germany so powerfull in our country in the year 1933. Our basic law (the german constitution) and all other european constitutions should not be replaced by the treaty of lisbon. But the new treaty tries to bring all right- sytstems in a lower level than the new european right. Here is my informationpage: http://sites.google.com/site/euradevormwald/english . When you have some more english information, pleace send me a link or text or write it into the visitors book of my page. And pleace spread this text all over Ireland.
In the hope in your activities for a better Europe, Felix Staratschek, Freiligrathstr. 2, D- 42477 Radevormwald (Germany)
Antony,
Great to ask Nick Clegg to lead the pro-Europeans in the UK. Maybe his saying ‘why he wants to be Prime Minister’ last week was enough for this month. Ask him again next month.