EU Convention goes 'off the rails' towards a super state
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Daily Telegraph -28/12/2002

As the Convention on the Future of Europe nears its halfway stage, it is clear that the 105 "Founding Fathers" drafting a constitution are opting for a highly integrationist text that creates the governing machinery of a fully-fledged European state with superpower ambitions.

Before Christmas, the foreign policy working group - chaired by Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former Belgian prime minister and ardent federalist - presented its final report, proposing a European Union "diplomatic service" with "EU embassies" backed by a "diplomatic academy".

There should also be a "European External Representative", or Secretary of State, and "a single spokesman" at bodies such as the United Nations.

The report called for "maximum use" of majority voting in foreign policy, with dissenting countries limited to "constructive abstention".

When the draft text was shown to London's man on the Convention, the Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, he demanded that the term "EU diplomatic service" be removed. It was not. He also asked for "EU embassies" to be struck out in favour of the less loaded term "EU delegations". The authors denied him even this solace.

Britain received the same contemptuous treatment in the defence group. Arguing that national defence is "no longer sufficient", the final report proposed a Euro-Pentagon commanded by a defence chief with a broad mandate to conduct worldwide military operations.

The justice report upgraded Eurojust (an EU body of magistrates) into a Justice Department able to launch investigations into cross-border crimes, backed by a proto-FBI.

David Heathcoat-Amory, the lone Tory MP on the Convention, said the survival of the English common law system was now in question. "What's happening is extremely alarming. The whole Convention is going off the rails," he said.He said the Government was fatally mistaken in thinking it could "rescue" the text during the final treaty talks next June.