A Smaller, Stronger, Committed Union for Europe

'Europe worries people and, worse still, citizens are asking if it is not the nation state that protects them better than the Union.' Nicholas Sarkozy.

Got it in one. The Union works for its original member states and, on the whole, for Spain, Austria, Hungary, and probably Poland and the Czechs and Slovaks; that is, for the central land mass of continental Europe. What it does not lend itself to is resolving the fractured history and cultures of peripheral nation states. These will be communitaire only when their interest is served, which is far less frequently than the identification of economic, geographical and historic interest in the main parts of Europe.

So why do we go on? Why cannot there be an inner core and an outer, looser favourable trade and commerce terms group of countries? Abandon Nice and build on the solidity of the original six plus the east and Spain. The United Kingdom simply does not belong, but neither too is it reasonable that Malta and Cyprus and bits of the Balkans, let alone countries suffering serious underdevelopment like Romania, should disturb the open-bordered Union many of us would like to see and some of us enjoy living in.

For many others, particularly those with a different institutional structure, as well as those who have only recently recovered self-determination, as it is for those who celebrate the Union ideals, it is too far too fast. Some of us want to be out and some inside equally strongly do not want those who do not share the dream.

President Sarkozy is right again when he condemns the destructive activities of the British Trade Commissioner Mandelson. Why should we open the Union to world trade when we have no wish to make our living standards vulnerable to global economic weather? The Union is there to protect us and our living standards; if the UK government wants to set up some global free for all, good luck and goodbye.