Liberal Democrat Councillor Jill Shortland, from Somerset, is Deputy Coordinator for Citizenship, Governance and External Relations in the ALDE Group of the European Committee of the Regions. Yesterday, she paid tribute to Charles Kennedy at a meeting of the Committee in Brussels. She said:
As a Liberal Democrat from the United Kingdom, I wish to use my 2 minute intervention to pay tribute to a former leader of my party who sadly and unexpectedly died yesterday.
Charles Kennedy had been a Member of Parliament for 32 years, and he was also President of the European Movement in the UK since 2008. Two years ago he wrote an article which I would like to quote.
He said: “At an age of continent-sized powers, with global ambitions, European nations are better off working together, pooling resources, joining forces.“
And he added: “Now more than ever, membership of a strong, confident, effective, outward-looking European Union should be an absolute priority for all European nations.”
He was absolutely right.
Part of this process involves, of course, discussions on the institutional arrangements of the Union. But citizens need to perceive that the EU is relevant to the challenges of this century. Charles Kennedy pointed some of them out: climate change, security, the global economy, and defending our democratic values. However and unfortunately, from my own experience in the recent general election campaign, too many citizens feel that the EU is too bureaucratic and a threat to their employment opportunities and stability.
So we need results on the economic front quickly and we need to demonstrate to citizens how the EU is the solution to challenges.
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4 Comments
We need, of course, to distinguish defence issues.
The EU was founded on an attempt to make war between France and Germany impossible., which led to the objective of an ever closer union, (also applying to the removal of artificial barriwers to trade)..
1870, 1914 and 1939 caused much too much destruction to life, property and environment, as well as having a damaging effect on smaller neighbours whose neutrality was ignored and violated.
An early attempt at a common defence policy failed. NATO was set up including USA, Canada and Portugal. It has expanded to include democratic Spain and continued to do so, whereas Poland has left the Warsaw Pact..
If a Tory says that he/she wants sovreignty and jurisdiction in UK hands, try mentioning NATO and look at the consternation on the faces of MPs such as Bill Cash.
Consider also that several of the EU member states are neutral. An EU common defence would be difficult to achieve, probably require treaty changes and cause numerous difficulties. What, for instance, would happen about Cyprus?
“If a Tory says that he/she wants sovreignty and jurisdiction in UK hands, try mentioning NATO and look at the consternation on the faces of MPs such as Bill Cash.”
Why, Richard, should this be so?
There is a very fundamental difference between an intergovernmental treaty organisation and a supranational form of governance.
And yet, Jedi, the EU is an intergovernmental treaty organisation, albeit one that has delegated a few powers to supranational institutions created by those treaties.
I wouldn’t call it a supranational form of government until the day that it becomes more important to persuade MEPs of your view than to persuade heads of member governments. And there is no sign or prospect of that happening.
Joe, i don’t think it is controversial to say that this is where the eurozone is going:
“The finance of the country is intimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which English Liberty has been gradually acquired … It lies at the root of English Liberty, and if the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison …That power can never be wrenched out of your hands… That powerful leverage has been what is commonly known as the power of the purse – the control of the House of Commons over public expenditure – your main guarantee for purity – the root of English liberty. No violence, no tyranny, whether of experiments or of such methods as are likely to be made in this country, could ever for a moment have a chance of prevailing against the energies of that great assembly. No, if these powers of the House of Commons come to be encroached upon, it will be by tacit and insidious methods, and therefore I say that public attention should be called to this.”
Or, that this represents a threat to fundamental british sovereignty:
http://www.openeurope.org.uk%2FContent%2FDocuments%2FPDFs%2FEBAsafeguards.pdf