Britain facing the crunch on European
integration Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Daily Telegraph - 07/12/2002
While Tony Blair grapples with the euro,
a more immediate problem is looming in Brussels where the Convention
on the Future of Europe appears to be going horribly wrong for
Britain.
Within six months he may have to choose
between a highly integrated Europe that is anathema to many Britons,
or precipitate a full-blown crisis with the European Union.
Andrew Duff, a Liberal Democrat MEP and
leading federalist, said the Government had misjudged the importance
of the convention, a 105-strong body of MPs, MEPs and ministers
from the 15 EU states and 13 candidate countries that is expected
to draft a European constitution by June.
France, Germany and Spain have all appointed
foreign ministers with decades of EU experience to lead their
teams on the convention, endowing the final result with irrefutable
authority - even if the draft text is not legally-binding.
Downing Street, which initially pooh-poohed
the forum as a talking shop, is still making do with a monolingual
Brussels novice Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary.
"Peter Hain has got an awful lot to
learn about the workings of the EU, and that is about as polite
as I can be," said Mr Duff, who predicted that Britain was
approaching final "crunch-time" in its stormy relations
with Europe.
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the convention's
president, has said no country would be able to block the final
outcome. Recalcitrant states would have to leave the EU instead.
The Foreign Office calculates that France
will in the end join forces to crush any serious attempt to emasculate
the powers of Europe's sovereign nations. But the great shock
in recent weeks has been French willingness to sign up to a series
of ultra-federalist proposals with Germany.
Yesterday the convention debated Franco-German
proposals for an EU justice ministry backed by a powerful EU police
agency and a harmonised system of criminal law.
Describing judicial union as "the next
ambitious stage in the European construction, after the single
market and the euro", the joint document calls for a European
prosecutor with the power to launch inquiries into cross-border
crime.
The EU's police agency, Europol, would become
a "coercive European authority" along the lines of the
FBI with powers to run investigations.
All serious crimes that impinge on the collective
interest would become a "community competence". The
European Court would acquire oversight over law and order.
This followed a joint proposal last month
for an EU defence union, including a Euro-army with an "integrated
command capability" independent of Nato and a "European
Armaments Agency".
A separate Franco-German text is to call
for the abolition of the national veto over taxation.
The Earl of Stockton, a pro-European Tory
MEP on the convention, accused its key working groups on defence
and judicial affairs of ignoring dissenting views from British,
Irish, and Scandinavian members, and in some cases falsifying
documents to suggest uncontested support for federalist proposals.
He said: "I have come to the conclusion
that the Commission has been working behind the scenes with the
French and Germans to push for a very integrationist constitution
that goes far beyond anything acceptable to Britain.
"We're talking about an EU takeover
of social legislation, law enforcement and justice, with the European
Parliament turning into something like the US Congress."
British officials dismissed such views
as unduly alarmist.
