EU Referendum

Schröder met with "high-ranking Polish officials" in Warsaw yesterday, to urge Poland to support the entire current draft of the constitution, which he said was essential to keep the bloc "politically manageable." He emerged "confident" that a compromise deal could be reached, telling Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski that: "Everyone has to push himself a little."

However, in what could be taken as a hint of menace, Schröder also told the Poles that it was up to all EU members to work towards the June deadline. "The German government is prepared to discuss specific arrangements... but we cannot allow ourselves a fiasco in June," he said. "I assume that we will find a solution in June that is fair and acceptable to all and that takes into account Poland's weight and importance."

Nevertheless, Deutsche Welle is reporting that the caretaker Polish prime minister Marek Belka may not be able to agree a deal, owing to his weak position. As leader of a government that has no parliamentary mandate, his hands could be tied.

That there are serious reservations to a deal being made on the current terms comes from the prestigious Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE), a Warsaw "think-tank" set up with American money. Writing in the Financial Times, one of its trustees, Jacek Rostowski, argues that Poland should hold out, alongside Spain, for the higher threshold on the double majority voting system.

"Poland's main reason for opposing the 50/60 double majority", he writes, "is the fear that it will significantly strengthen France and Germany within the EU. With 30 per cent of the EU's population, they will need only to co-opt one large country, or Spain or Poland plus a small country or two, to block any measure".

Interestingly, Rostowski states that Poland views the US as the only serious guarantor of its independence in the face of a resurgent and increasingly autocratic Russia. It fears that Paris and Berlin "may try to use the additional power the new system would give them to squeeze the US out of Europe".

"Schröder's readiness to put electoral considerations before his country's strategic interest in having the US committed to Europe", he adds, "came as a shock to Warsaw. These worries have been increased by recent Franco-German attempts to put pressure on new member states not to compete with western Europe on corporate tax, and their apparent commitment to build up selected companies as Franco-German 'European champions'".

"Another reason for Polish ministers' resistance to Franco-German pressure is their acute sensitivity to political manipulation and bullying. The convention that drafted the proposed constitution and the inter-governmental conference supposed to approve it were clearly timed so that accession countries would feel too insecure - out of fear that their accession treaties might not be ratified - to oppose the will of incumbent members".

"Then came the redrafting of the European Central Bank's voting system. Here weighting by population - which would have favoured the new members - was excluded in favour of weighting by gross domestic product. The final straw was the ostentatious refusal by France and Germany to abide by the rules of the stability and growth pact".

Rostowski asserts that "far from not understanding how Europe works, Poland's post-communist politicians feel they are in a strikingly familiar environment, where the big decide and the small are supposed to shut up". He feels that a change in political culture is needed before introducing a voting system that would give even more power to the two "core" states – "especially as France and Germany seem bent on doing all they can to protect themselves from change".

If this is a sentiment that is widely shared by politicians in Poland, then the summit is indeed in for a rocky ride.

Apparently not, according to Her Majesty’s Government. Replying to Lord Tebbit’s question about the case of Hans-Martin Tillack, the investigative journalist, who had been manhandled by the Belgian police and whose files and computer have been confiscated [see German journalist's office is raided by the Belgian police ... Again ], Lord McIntosh of Haringey reiterated several times that this was a matter for the Belgian courts and we could not intervene.

When Lord Lamont asked whether “we should not be concerned” that “the Belgian police or OLAF were in any way more interested in the suppression of evidence about fraud, rather than in combating fraud”, Lord McIntosh merely suggested that nobody would like it if “the parliament of another member state were to start to intervene in the activities of a British court”.

Of course, the situation is not the same at all, as a number of peers pointed out. We are not talking about the British parliament intervening in a purely internal Belgian matter, say, the Dutroux case, which is still rumbling through the courts. Tillack was investigating fraud and irregularities in the Commission’s anti-fraud unit. Its remit ought to be the investigation of how our money among others’ is spent or mis-spent. Instead of which, they merely want to suppress a journalist’s legitimate right to report on these matters.

As we, too, contribute and rather a lot to the funding of the EU, we ought to be materially interested in the fate of those funds; as we are part of the EU, we ought to be materially interested in freedom of speech and press in it. This is not, pace Lord McIntosh of Haringey and his advisers, an internal matter for the Belgian courts to decide on.

To read the full debate click here.

Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, usually described as “colourful”, does not mince his words. He accused the Transport Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio of trying to restore a “communist valhalla” of uniformly high air fares throughout Europe.

Mr O’Leary is going to the European Court of Justice to appeal against the Transport Commissioner’s ruling that the special deal Ryanair had done with Charleroi airport, near Brussels, (incidentally, allowing that airport to survive and turn in a profit) was a case of illegal subsidy. De Palacio also asserted that such a deal could not have been done with a private airport. Mr O’Leary described the ruling variously as “North Korean-style”, “asininely stupid” and, more succinctly, “bullshit”.

Ryanair, according to its chief executive has been inundated with offers from publicly and privately owned airports but fighting the Commission decision was a matter of principle. In his opinion, the Commission was acting against free competition and against the interests of providers and consumers of service. There was no question in his mind: a publicly owned company has the right to make the same sort of a deal as a privately owned one. And it is hard to understand what the Commission wants: for airports to use the subsidy to help keep fares high and undermine their own profits? Would that be a good way of using money?

So determined is Michael O’Leary to fight the case that he is ignoring the fall in his company’s share price.

Despite what was clearly an attempt at news management by the foreign ministers’ collective after their meeting in Brussels on Monday – ensuring that no detailed account of the IGC negotiations reached the media – with a group as large as 25, there is always one who will break ranks. The "grass" in this case is Hungarian foreign minister László Kovács who has confided his inner feelings to the Central Europe Business News agency.

His view is that there is a fifty percent "or somewhat better chance" of reaching agreement on more heavily debated issues at the June IGC although, according to Kovács, last Monday’s meeting left out "the particularly important issue of the voting system". "Views on this issue are still too far apart to warrant discussing it just yet," he said.

Zoltán Horváth, head of the EU department at the Hungarian Parliament’s foreign affairs office, adds to this. "All that was really achieved", he says, "was finalisation of several areas "where member states reached an informal agreement last year". One of these was the general principles of enhanced cooperation schemes. There is to be included a stipulation that at least one-third of the member states must take part – which effectively stops Germany, France and just a few others launching off on their so-called "pioneer group".

Another important compromise was in the method of adopting the EU’s long-term financial perspectives (the budget). It was agreed that the next perspective for the period of 2007–2013 will be adopted with the unanimous agreement of all member states, while a qualified majority would be enough after 2013. This is one to watch, as the veto over the budget is one of Blair’s red lines.

As to the rules on majority voting, Horváth confirmed – as if we did not know already – that the key divisive issue is the concept of a double majority proposed by the Irish presidency. "Compared to last December, when certain member states opposed the whole scheme, now there is agreement on the scheme on the whole, but there is heavy debate about the actual figures defining a majority," he said.

Spain and Portugal are still holding out for a better deal, demanding a population minimum at 65–67 percent on the second-tier majority decision. But that has been rejected by smaller member states, such as Hungary. "I expect tough debate on this," Kovács said.

Nevertheless, some insiders are suggesting that much of what is being released by way of public comment is merely posturing by the political players, manoeuvring for a better deal. The parties, they think, are closer to agreement than the (few) headlines would suggest, with some estimating that there is an 80 percent chance of a deal in June.

French truckers are complaining again about the fact that they cannot make ends meet. And when French truckers complain others often find that they cannot move at all, as the roads get blocked.

Jean-Paul Grard, president of the UPR truckers' association, told a press conference, that the government had to do something to ensure that French haulier companies survived in business. Specifically, the French government must control European competition. In theory, that is impossible as it would go against single market rules. In practice, we shall have to wait and see.

On the other hand, M Grard clearly understands more economics than the people who set the rules in France and the EU. He argued that these companies must increase their profitability and to that end the government must make working rules more flexible, particularly when it comes to breaks and night-time driving. People, he thought, should be allowed to work more and earn more money if they wanted to.

This is rather a novel idea in the European Union and in France, particularly. Let us hope it all gets sorted out before the French take to the roads in their millions for the vacances annuaires.

As they say, you pays your money and you takes your choice. On the one hand, we are told by Brian Cowen, the Irish Foreign Minister that the chances of an agreement on the Constitution are quite good, adding that the talks the Foreign Ministers held on Monday (May 24) were “constructive”. That is only one stage better than frank and open, but, at least, one presumes the Ministers did not come to blows.

In fact, Cowen was in a very good mood. Or so we think, as it is not entirely clear what he meant when he told the press conference:

"Things are going as we planned them and we hope that by the time we get there... we will be down in broad measure to final political agreement on the major issues, and on that basis we'll be able put a full text that would meet with agreement."

Not to be outdone in obscurantist phraseology, Jack Straw told the same gathering of pressmen and women that he was being “incrementally satisfied” on Britain’s “red lines”. And before you ask, no, I don’t know what that means.

On the whole, though, there seems to be some satisfaction emanating from the Irish corner and a general feeling of let the wind blow where it will from the British one. Enter the Poles, as usual. The Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz thought that it was unlikely that there would be an agreement on the vexed question of voting rights, not to mention the rather difficult one of Christian traditions (though not, as he put it, Christian values) becoming part of the Constitution.

The Foreign Ministers are due to have another meeting on June 14-15, for another, allegedly final, show-down about the text that will go to the Summit on June 17-18, the last of these dates, as we keep pointing out, being Waterloo Day. It is odd, though, to recall that the Nice Summit, which had a much more limited programme was scheduled for four days and eventually took up five. For an agreement on an interminably long, difficult and controvesial constitution only two days are scheduled. Whose planning is that?

Sometimes one reads serious press releases from the European Commission and wonders whether to laugh or cry. Take this one: on May 22 David Byrne, the Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner (a wonderfully Orwellian title) announced “That it was time to take on obesity.”

He was commenting on the fact that the World Health Organization and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization met in Geneva to debate a global strategy, if you please, on obesity. It is, apparently, the latest disease to take the world by storm. No doubt the Geneva conference was marked by a number of lunches, dinners and receptions at which a great deal of food and drink was consumed at the taxpayers’ expense.

The EU is joining in this extremely important endeavour. It is providing its own programme that will also deal with the problem of lunches and dinners for officials. Its aims are:

1. To support the identification and development of effective public health strategies;
2. To provide EU-wide data and analysis;
3. To ensure EU labelling law plays a positive role.

Pompously, the press release adds:

“Most in the public health community share a common analysis of the root cause of the epidemic: a population eating an increasingly high-energy diet but living a sedentary, low energy, lifestyle.” In other words, as the Daily Telegraph put it long ago: “Move more and eat less.”

The trouble is that this advice could be given extremely usefully to all Eurocrats, Commissioners, former Commissioners and MEPs. One and all, they are extremely large, even sometimes obese and all because they hop in and out of cars and taxis and eat huge amounts of rich food. As one member of the House of Lords once put it: “You can always tell the former Commissioners because they occupy two seats on the aeroplane.” They are not the people to lecture the rest of us on obesity but, of course, they are the people to use our money to set up more organizations, more studies, analyses, regulations, anything and everything to save us from our own exertions.

It is worth noting that obesity is not exactly a problem in most of the world. The average North Korean does not suffer from it. Most Africans do not know the meaning of the word. Chinese inmates of slave labour camps are unlikely to hold weekly meetings to discuss the problems of obesity. Plenty of people in other parts of the world, such as the former Soviet republics, while not actually starving, find it hard to understand how a plentiful and varied diet could be a problem. “We should have problems like that.” – they sigh.

Perhaps the EU Commissioners (and WHO and FAO) should spend a little time looking at what causes those more serious food problems. Could it be their economic policies, which skew trade between the EU and the Third World? Could it be the corrupt and corrupting system of aid that keeps certain countries in permanent poverty? Could it be, finally, the support given to appalling dictators, who keep the populations of potentially affluent countries in dire poverty to protect their own power? Answers on a postcard, please.

Meanwhile, the lunches, dinners and receptions will go on.

Giles Merritt, the director of Forum Europe and secretary general of Friends of Europe (there’s glory for you, as Humpty Dumpty would say) has written an article in the International Herald Tribune on the next president of the European Commission.

He does not seem to know any more than anybody else does as to who it is going to be and the chances are Ladbroke’s does not have a book on a subject that is so profoundly boring. However, Mr Merritt is full of advice as to the qualities the next president should have.

“The qualities needed are not quite as obvious as they seem. A high political profile, of course. Just as important will be a taste for the minutiae of international economic policymaking, combined with a flair for showmanship and media relations. The European Union's top job needs star quality as well as technocratic brainpower.

But the most important characteristic will be the one that Europe's national leaders like least - a streak of dogged independence little short of contrariness.”

In fact, Mr Merritt says, rationally enough, the ‘what’ matters even more than the ‘who’. Most of us would add another word from the Elephant-child’s arsenal: ‘why’. What is the Commission president for and do we actually approve of it?

Mr Merritt has his own ideas and, fortunately, has no compunction in voicing them, unlike, say, certain politicians:

“To do the job properly, a commission president must be prepared to defy member governments that seek to impose their national interests, and, when necessary, to appeal to European public opinion over the heads of national leaders.”

Well, now, this is very interesting. Exactly, how is he going to appeal to the European public, given that it does not exist as such over the heads of the democratically elected leaders? Plebiscites? Focus groups? Opinion polls? Just a general article in all the newspapers? Successful demagoguery is bad enough but this particular suggestion seems to advocate unsuccessful demagoguery, that would achieve nothing while undermining the legitimacy of elected national leaders. We hear a great deal of European heritage but one aspect of it is the consistent ability of unscrupulous demagogues to undermine legitimate, democratic and liberal political structures by “appealing to public opinion”. Surely a “Friend of Europe” would know that.

When it comes down to names, the same five get trotted out: Chris Patten, who is in the lead, or would be if the French had not taken a dislike to him and if he were not embroiled in the growing scandal of EU money going to terrorists in the Palestine instead of the Palestinian people; Javier Solana, who may be more interested in being EU Foreign Minister to promote the non-existent common foreign and security policy; Guy Verhofstadt whose over-riding political aim on becoming Prime Minister was, apparently, to destroy the main opposition party, the Vlaams Blok (see A Very Dangerous Precedent); and the present also rans: Antonio Vitorino of whom little is known and Jean-Luc Dehaene, already rejected once and the man who lost the Belgian election as a result of the Dutroux scandal, that is still rumbling on.

Strangely enough, Mr Merritt thinks “that any one of these veteran politicians would probably be a strong enough leader to restore the commission to its position as honest broker and defender of the interests of the EU's 19 smaller states”. I think I’d like to know more about Mr Merrit’s organizations.

That’s the way with stories about European Parliament ‘perks’: you wait for ages for one and then two come along on the same day. To be fair they were written by the same two journalists but slightly different versions appeared in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.

The stories tell nothing new to anyone with the slightest knowledge of how the Brussels gravy train works but to the uninitiated the tale of travel allowances, claims put in as MEPs skip away merrily to the airport, employment of entire families and so on, must seem rather shocking.

The authors point out that all those who call for reform also find ways of justifying the system, that plays badly with the voters.

"I have been accused of boarding the gravy train," said Bill Miller, a Scottish member who argued for reforms. "I have been accused of being dishonest. I've been accused of being greedy. I've been accused of being a parasite. I've been accused of being a leech. And that's just by members of my own political party."

Mr Miller, apparently, thinks that reforms of the system is absolutely essential. Whether he thought that before the former journalist Hans-Peter Martin controversially filmed some of his colleagues saying one thing and doing the opposite is not clear.

And what of the upright Scandinavians? This is how the New York Times article ends:

“Esko Seppanen, a Finnish member of the Green Parties bloc, endorsed reform in a recorded conversation with Mr. Martin just after 8 a.m. one morning last November. He had just signed for his daily stipend.
He noted that all Finnish members support changes in the benefits system. But, he said, while waiting for his free ride to the airport, ‘As long as it's paid, everybody takes it.’”

How true, how very true.

The oddest questions get asked about the European Union and, to be fair, the oddest answers get given by some unfortunate minister.

On May 20 Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty’s Government “whether they will uphold in the European Union a moral vision in its internal and external policies appropriate for a reunited continent”.

The whole thing beggars belief. What reunited continent? When was it last united in one state or political entity? Does Lord Hylton know any history at all? And what’s with the moral vision, as some of my younger acquaintances would say? Is all that minutely detailed regulation of everybody’s life part of a moral vision?

Come to think of it, is the endless kow-towing to some of the world’s worst dictatorships, like China, even North Korea, certainly Iran and so on, just to score off the Americans part of a moral vision? What about the feebleness of the EU’s response to President Mugabe of Zimbabwe? A curious sort of moral vision this is that needs upholding.

However rum Lord Hylton’s question was, Baroness Crawley’s reply was even odder. Without batting an eyelid, she said:

"… the European Union has helped to create an area of peace, prosperity and shared values in Europe after centuries of conflict and instability. The recent accession of central and eastern European countries has dramatically extended this area, reuniting a continent divided by the Cold War."

Well, well, well. We have already dealt with the myth of the EU keeping and preserving the peace that had nothing to do with it. What of those shared values? It seems that a major part of them consisted of "centuries of conflict and instability". Perhaps peace and stability are not part of the European values at all. Or perhaps, Europe has somehow managed to preserve its "shared values" without any help from the eurocracy that skims off so much money and power for itself and its pet projects at the moment.

To read the full debate click here.

Comment

All day yesterday we were getting messages of "confidence" from various luminaries on the European political scene, that a deal could be done on the EU constitution. There was Schröder, who was "quite hopeful", French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who said today he was "optimistic", and of course Bertie Ahern who has been doing nothing else but exude confidence.

Judging from what was clearly a clampdown on information emanating form the foreign ministers' meeting yesterday, and the diffidence of Brian Cowan, representing the Irish presidency, it is clear that all is not well.

And yesterday was the day that issues other than those primarily concerning the UK were aired. Yet the UK issues have yet to be resolved – at least to the satisfaction of Mr Jack Straw – which means that the number of issues which remain to be agreed at the summit must be quite considerable.

Yet, EU watchers will recall that at the Nice summit, there were only four substantive agenda items, and only fifteen member states negotiating. And that summit wens into an unprecedented fifth day and nearly collapsed over only one of the issues which will again be the agenda – voting rights on the Council.

Now with 25 countries actively engaged in the negotiations and with an unknown but substantial number of equally contentious issues on the agenda, it is hard to believe that any agreement on the final shape of the constitution can be expected, especially as only two days have been allotted for the summit.

In all probability, Ahern has already devised his exit strategy. It may well be that, over the next few days, coded messages will be leaked, suggesting that a final agreement is not being sought at the summit, carefully "spun" to indicate how much progress has been achieved.

The messages will then stress that it would be a mistake to put at risk all this progress for the sake of trying to rush the last fence – or words to that effect. Therefore, the final negotiations will be handed over to the Dutch, who – thanks to the sterling work done by the Irish presidency - will be able to bring them to a successful conclusion.

It could be, of course, that this message is reserved for the summit, when all the heads of states and governments will come out of the conference room after a relatively short time, all smiling for the cameras, to say that they have agreed – in the most amicable way possible – to disagree.

Whatever else happens, Bertie Ahern will not risk pushing to negotiations to the wire if he believes that no agreement can be reached. For the summit to break up in disarray, as it did last December, would spell disaster for the constitution, and seriously damage the EU as a whole.

On that basis, the central question is not so much whether, but how, the negotiations will be called off. The certainty is that they will be.

Updated

Sources: Bloomberg, AFP, Financial Times

News is only just beginning to drift out on the resolution of the foreign ministers' "emergency meeting" in Brussels today – the last-ditch attempt to resolve the major issues on the constitution before the summit on 17/18 June.

After what was clearly a marathon session – although relatively short by EU standards – some indications of the mood can be gained by the comment from Jack Straw when he emerged: "Predictions of success and weighing of odds are, I think, a pretty pointless exercise", he said. "These things are never over until they're over."

Irish foreign minister, Brian Cowen, is being pretty tight-lipped about the outcome, announcing that "Things are going as we planned them", telling reporters that he hoped to be able to produce a full text that would meet with agreement.

Pressed for more details, he refused to give any, saying that the "community method" – whatever that means - has to be given time to work. "It's not rocket science, but it's the way we work," he added. "It doesn't make front-page headlines in terms of no fisticuffs, but I can only tell you what the truth is. There is no point in having a melodrama."

Despite this, the Financial Times has done its best to talk up the meeting, with its headline, "Foreign Ministers bullish on EU treaty", but this does not seem to be wholly the case.

Spain and Poland seem to have indicated that they might be prepared to live with a "double majority" voting system on the Council. The second vote, based on a regime where countries representing sixty percent of the EU population, seems the consensus option.

However, it is also reported that Poland still has "some reservations" and Polish foreign minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, asked if changing the threshold figures would be enough, said: "It will be part of a solution, but it's not enough."

As part of the package, to offset the small countries loss of influence on the Council - and the commission - ministers also discussed raising the minimum number of seats in the European Parliament allotted to the smallest member states such as Malta, which currently has four.

No agreement on this was reached but there has been complete agreement on removing the proposal that the European Parliament should have the final say on the EU's annual budget.

There was no agreement at all on the question of God. The seven countries named in an earlier Blog have reaffirmed their commitment to demanding a reference to Christianity in the preamble of the constitution. But France is totally opposed to this proposition.

It would appear that the substantive issues on unanimous voting on tax, social security and foreign policy, also have not been resolved, so Britain's red lines are still under threat.

These and other outstanding issues – about which more will emerge when the Irish presidency issues its final, pre-summit draft of the constitution – will go to the summit in June, presided over by a Bertie Ahern who is anxious to see its success as the crowning achievement of his political career.

With the current arguments about the inclusion of Christianity in the preamble though, the outcome of this summit may be in God's hands than Ahern's. Whatever else, agreement cannot be that close or Cowan would have been chirping like a sparrow about his success.

Source: Deutsche Welle

Mario Monti is a busy man these days. Fresh from presiding over the shambles of EDF and Alstrom, and banning the Scottish Crofters Commission from supplying bulls for small farmers, today he was in Brandenburg, East Germany, to discuss future financial support for the region.

And, in contrast to the treatment of EDF and Alstom, it seems as if the money is about to dry up. With the accession of the eight former communist countries into the EU and after the expenditure of some 1.25 trillion euros, Eastern Germany is set to lose some of its reconstruction aid

Unsurprisingly, Brandenburg's premier Matthias Platzeck is less than impressed, complaining of difficulty of explaining the cutbacks to his people. Eastern Germany, he said, had been completely deindustrialized after the collapse of the GDR, and rebuilding the region was far from over.

But the main problem is uncertainty. No one has any idea how deep the cuts will be and all the commission will say is that it is conducting "a comprehensive review" of regional policy. But the essential problem remains that, with the latest round of enlargement, Eastern Germany is no longer among the poorest regions in the EU, even though unemployment stands at over 20 percent

Given the current behaviour of the commission though, it would seem the answer is obvious. Eastern Germany should declare itself an autonomous region of France, and watch the money roll in.

With a possibly rogue poll putting UKIP into third place ahead of the Lib-Dems in the Euro-election stakes, it is always nice to see someone else catch up.

This is all the more pleasing when it is the Daily Telegraph leader, with its clarion call to the Conservative Party. "The only way to choke off the UKIP advance", it intones, "is for one of the mainstream parties – which in effect means the Conservatives – to offer a plausible vision of a self-governing Britain".

That is precisely the line taken by this Blog, in several posts dealing with the priorities of the "no" campaign. In fact, long before this Blog started, we have argued that until and unless the Eurosceptic movement come up with that vision, the British public – however much they may dislike or distrust the EU, will always go for the status quo, for fear that the alternatives may be worse.

What applies to the Eurosceptic movement though also applies to the Conservatives – in spades. To make an electoral breakthrough in the general election, it must recover the million or so votes that in 1997 went to either the Referendum Party or UKIP and, in 2001 largely stayed at home.

Some of those voters may come out to play in the Euro-elections, and are happy to give the Conservatives a "kicking" by casting their vote for UKIP. But no one really believes that any such action is a vote of confidence for UKIP and its alternative policies – not least because it does not have the capability of creating credible alternatives.

The Telegraph, somewhat optimistically, argues that the Conservatives still have time – just – to offer the plausible vision before 10 June, but that is probably asking too much. Developing alternatives is a difficult and time-consuming business, more so in a polyglot party where Howard has to carry all wings of the party with him if he is to present the British public with a semblance of unity.

Furthermore, the actual resources devoted to working on alternatives, within the framework of the Party, are minuscule. To expect anything quickly would be entirely unrealistic.

If the voters do give Howard a "kicking" at the Euros, therefore, the best outcome would be that his Party will take the right message and devote some real resources to fulfilling the Telegraph’s injunction – offering a plausible vision of a self-governing Britain.

In the wake of the bail-out of EDF, with its sham privatisation, another rescue plan is near completion, this time for the troubled engineering giant, Alstom. This is the company which, thanks to state aid, was able to bid competitively for the contract to build the huge new Cunard liner, the QM2.

EU competition commissioner Mario Monti and French finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy, it seems, are ready to stitch up a deal, which may be announced today. It will pump two billion euros into the company yet circumvent the EU’s state aid rules – although there is one remaining "sticking point" which neither side will disclose.

The rescue plan involves converting 800 million euros of Alstom debt into stock which will be bought up by the French government, giving it a 31.5 percent stake. The company is also expected to launch a share issue or debt-for-equity swap, which, under heavy pressure from Sarkozy, will be backed by a consortium of commercial banks.

As a token gesture to allow Monti to save face, Alstom will be required to forced to link with other, unspecified , competitors, and may have to sell assets.

According to Reuters, quoting a London-based analyst, "This has all been about political posturing. The EU wants to defend state aid rules and France wants to defend French business. They'll probably meet somewhere in the middle and may come up with something decent." Quelle surprise!

However, the company is far from out of the woods. Its shareholder equity has shrunk to less than one billion euros, compared to net debt of 4.5 billion euros in September or close to 10 billion euros including off-balance sheet liabilities. It is expected to post a net loss of around 1.1 billion euros for the just-ended business year on Wednesday, only slightly better than last year's record 1.38-billion-euro loss.

The contrast between Monti’s tolerance on Alstom and his directorate’s attitude to the scheme run by the Crofters Commission in Inverness - whereby the far-flung small farmers of the Scottish highlands and islands have been able to hire the services of top-quality bulls and rams to inseminate their cows and ewes – could not be more extreme.

As publicised in the Booker column yesterday, this "livestock improvement scheme" relies on modest public funding, and officials of Mario Monti directorate have ruled that it is in breach of "state aid rules", forcing it to close down. Clearly, in the EU game, it pays to be French.

On the whole it is unlikely that Europe will thank Russia for anything much, but Andrei Illarionov may be right in saying that the EU will one day realize that not signing the Kyoto Treaty is a very smart move and by effectively killing it off, Russia is saving the Europeans a great deal of unnecessary expense.

So far the interview with Illarionov in the Sunday Telegraph, who describes him as the second most powerful man in Russia seems unexceptionable. He is also completely reasonable in his argument that pollution can be countered only by a strong economy and rich country. Despite Liam Halligan’s rather silly comment about America being an arch polluter, it is quite clear that the the environment is in much better shape in the rich western world than anywhere else.

Russia, according to Mr Halligan is riding high, what with 8 per cent growth and higher oil prices. He also feeds Mr Illarionov with his lines reminding him that the American theory was that oil prices would go down as soon as Iraqi oil will start pumping. Somehow, neither of them gets round to mentioning that the reason that oil is not pumping is various organizations being determined to prevent that development by blowing up pipes and installations. How jolly for all of us, especially Sunday Telegraph journalists and Russian economists.

Russian economic indicators seem absolutely excellent and many people, including the EU, are impressed by President Putin, preferring to forget the slowly mounting offensive on free speech and the free press. The trouble is that economic indicators for the Soviet Union were good until the CIA managed to establish a surveillance system that told us all how poor the Soviet economic achievement was. In fact, that turned out to be an understatement – the situation was far worse.

The idea that human rights and freedom of speech are, while being a desideratum, somehow separate from economic achievement, is seriously flawed. Time and time again it was proved that apart from the moral argument, there is a practical one about freedom: how do you know whether those indicators are at all accurate when public criticism and discussion are being stifled?

Nor is it particularly healthy for an economy to rely entirely on the export of raw material. Oil prices are high at the moment but what will happen if those Iraqi wells do start pumping? And should we not ask ourselves whether Russia’s peace-loving attitude to the Iraqi war had anything to do with those calculations? Or, indeed, with the evidence that certain people not a million miles away from Putin’s cabinet profited from the fraud that surrounded the oil for food programme.

None of this bothers the EU or its leaders. The organization who wants to build a foreign policy entirely on moral foundations seems oblivious to all the problems. All they care about is Russian support for their own foolhardy determination to wreck various developed economies through the badly throught through, economically and scientifically unsound Kyoto Treaty. And there, Mr Illarionov has them where he wants them.

"The EU is becoming a centralised superstate"

The central administration – the EU Commission – is tiny, with fewer employees than Leeds City Council. Some superstate!

Richard Corbett MEP

The myth this week is by way of a rebuttal of a rebuttal. This issue here is not directly whether the EU is or is about to become a "superstate", but the rebuttal used many Europhiles to counter this claim.

Corbett’s claim, quoted above, is typical of the genre. It purports to show that the EU could neither be not become the fabled "superstate" simply because of the small number of staff employed by Community institutions – commonly cited as less than a medium-sized local authority.

Interestingly, as far back as 1975, during the referendum campaign, Margaret Thatcher herself had used this argument, pointing out that there were "only 7000 officials" working for the Commission, mainly in Brussels. In later years, this number crept up to "only 15,000 officials", then "only 18,000", then "only 22,000", then "only 25,000". Currently, with enlargement, the number is approaching 40,000 but it still remains less than work for many UK local authorities.

Nevertheless – as you would expect – the argument is specious. There are plenty of historical examples of very small numbers of people dominating large populations, not least the British Raj. While not directly comparable with the EU, it is nevertheless germane to note that, at the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, 300 million Indians were ruled by barely 1,500 British administrators of the Indian Civil Service, and perhaps 3,000 British officers in the Indian Army.

Excluding British soldiers, there were probably no more than 20,000 Britons engaged in running the whole country – fewer than the number of permanent officials currently employ-ed by the Commission. (Judd, Dennis [1996], Empire – The British Imperial Experience From 1765 To The Present. Harper Collins Publishers, London, pp. 79-80.)

However, referring to the actual number of employees of the Commission is misleading. On any given day in Brussels there are not only the officials of the Commission itself but also thousands of visiting national civil servants, from every country in the EU. They may work for the national representative offices, they may be on detachment to the commission or council, or they may simply be visiting for discussions – but they are all engaged in some way or another in the construction of the "project".

The commission, of course, is the "dynamo" of the project, spewing out directives and regulations by the thousands, now totalling over 97,000 pages, plus millions of pages of other documents. Looking at this output, common sense would tell you that such a small staff could not possibly achieve such levels of productivity. And, of course, it does not. The preparation of much legislation and many of the technical reports is contracted out, or otherwise farmed out to outside agencies, ranging from paid contractors, universities and other academic institutes, sympathetic think-tanks and even the growing legion of non-governmental organisations in the pay of the commission.

Much of the rest comes from other sources, ranging from civil servants of member states to an array of anonymous committees, made up from professional consultants and academics to environmental pressure groups, or commercially-funded lobbyists acting on behalf of a particular industry or company. It is estimated that there are 1600 such committees operating in Brussels, and beyond them 170,000 lobbyists of one kind or another across the EU, ranging from pan-European trade associations representing whole industries to the representatives of individual county councils pleading for a share in regional funding.

Once the legislation is produced, it must then be implemented – the task of national civil servants and agencies. And where policy domains like fisheries and agriculture are involved, the hundreds of thousands of civil servants working on these portfolios in the 25 member states are effectively working for the EU. For sure, they may be appointed by their member states, they write on paper bearing their own governments’ letterhead, and they are paid by the taxpayers of their own countries, but their activities and their functions are all dictated by Brussels. They are national civil servants in name only.

Thus, to say that 30 or even 40,000 Brussels bureaucrats are insufficient to run a "superstate" is completely to miss the point. They are only the tip of a huge iceberg. The real point is that "Brussels" acts as a nexus, the centre of a network, linking thousands of other organisations throughout the Community, not least the civil services of all the member states.

And that point was latterly acknowledged by Thatcher in her book Statecraft, published in 2002. She noted that the figure given for the commission staff – which by then had increased to 30,000 - "leaves out the much larger number of national officials whose tasks flow from European regulations". (Harper Collins, London, p. 324.) Those and the many others, amounting possibly to millions, directly or indirectly working for the project, are more than sufficient to run a "superstate".

Early birds may well have caught the news that the EU’s commission is calling on the UK to introduce random breath tests to catch drink-drivers. As we all know, police at the moment can only demand a breath test if they have "reasonable suspicion" that a driver has been consuming alcohol.

So far, we have had a robust statement from the Home Office, which insists that random tests are not an efficient way of catching drink-drivers. It sees not need for them to be introduced. However – and here is the crunch - the president of Tispol, the European Traffic Police Network, said the commission would attempt to make its recommendation a directive if it is not followed.

Says Ad Hellemons, also Dutch Assistant Commissioner of Police, talking to BBC Radio Five Live Five: "This is the first time the European Commission has made such a recommendation. The vast majority of member states already carry out random breath tests. We can’t understand why governments would want to protect drink-drivers".

"The European Commission has made it clear that they expect this recommendation to be followed. If not they will try to make it a directive". There you have it – you will do as we "recommend", or we will make it compulsory.

However, there is even more to this than the headline story makes out. In fact, quietly and very much behind the scenes, the EU has been conducting wide-ranging studies on road traffic law enforcement.

Between 1998–2002, as part of the European fourth framework programme (DG TREND), information was gathered and assessed concerning police enforcement strategies and effects throughout Europe for the EU research project ESCAPE (Enhanced Safety Coming from Appropriate Police Enforcement).

This "ESCAPE" project was itself a follow-on from another EU project called GADGET, funded under the "4th Framework Programme project", with the sinister title of "Legal measures and enforcement". This and other EU projects "prepare the groundwork for implementing Europe-wide demonstration projects in enforcement".

For its powers, the EU is relying on the Maastricht treaty, which included an explicit requirement in the modified Article 75 that Common Transport Policy should also include measures to promote transport safety. That the commission intended to make use of this provision was flagged up in 1993 in an obscure commission paper, "The future development of the common transport policy", in which "road safety issues" were "recognised" as being a major health problem in the EU area.

At that time, however, the commission was not prepared to launch a programme on road safety and has left it for ten years before starting to make formal moves. This is absolutely typical of the way the EU works. As we earnestly discuss the next treaty, the last treaty but two is still not yet being fully implemented.

However, with the authority of the Maastricht Treaty behind it, slowly, steadily and insistently, the EU is moving towards taking over the whole of policy domain on road safety policy and law enforcement throughout the 25 member states, Britain included. Today’s story was only the tip of a huge iceberg, the outcome of which will be that, in the fullness of time, the Home Office - whether it likes it or it - is going to have to do as it is told.

And we still think we are an independent country?

Anyone wanting to read the full EU report, "Traffic enforcement in Europe: effects, measures, needs and future", click here. (Warning: pdf file – 138 pages long.)

Booker's Notebook

"The yobs of Europe" shrieks Polly Toynbee, writing in The Guardian on the latest twists in the tale of the proposed EU constitution. The focus of her wrath are those "British hooligans", led by Jack Straw, who have been "breaking up the negotiating table".

Perhaps Ms Toynbee should not be blamed for displaying such ignorance since, as a good "little Englander", she has taken her view from the laughably parochial coverage given to this story by most of the British media.

The truth is that the bid to give the EU a constitution is in far more trouble than most people have yet realised; and the problems arise, not just from Mr Straw fighting for Britain's "red lines", but from almost everyone involved.

Last summer, when Giscard d'Estaing handed over his draft constitution to the heads of government, he warned them to approve it as it stood, because otherwise it might unravel completely - which is precisely what has happened.

Since the first talks on the draft foundered last December on the insistence by Spain and Poland that their voting rights must not be reduced, behind-the-scenes negotiations have thrown up more and more disagreements.

Reflecting this, the Irish presidency two weeks ago published 130 pages of amendments already agreed to Giscard's draft treaty, followed a week ago by 99 pages of new proposals.

Spain and Poland are still banging the table on voting rights, opposing German demands that a "qualified majority" must be reduced to only 55 per cent of the EU's population, which would give the Franco-German alliance the power to call the shots.

Poland's position is further complicated by the fact that its new prime minister, Marek Belka, recently lost a parliamentary confidence vote. This leaves him as a powerless lame duck until a general election in August, when he is likely to be replaced by a fiercely nationalist successor.

Hungary's "red line", contradicting one of Giscard's key proposals, is that each country must still have a commissioner. The Poles, Italians, Maltese and four other nationalities have laid down another on the inclusion of "God" in the constitution.

There are now proposals on the table for no fewer than three separate EU "presidents' - one for the Commission; another, according to a cumbersome troika formula, for the Council of Ministers; a third, chosen for two and a half years, for the European Council, which is now to be included in the treaty for the first time as a fully-fledged "Community institution" and as, in effect, the government of Europe. The council will also have the power to change the constitution without further treaties.

Compared with all this, the breaching of Mr Blair's own "red lines" over foreign policy and judicial law is little more than a sideshow.

The fact is that Giscard's draft is dead, and the prospects of having a constitution on which Mr Blair can hold his referendum look more distant by the day. The pity is that this may deprive us of that real national debate through which we could reflect on whether we wish to remain part of such a shambles at all.

Give or take a few thousand quid, each MEP we elect costs the British taxpayer £1.2 million a year, in salary, expenses and overheads. Over the five years of a parliamentary term, therefore, each of the 87 individuals we send to the European parliament costs us £6 million – a grand total of £522 million. That is well over half a billion pounds, more even than the exorbitant £460 million cost of building the Scottish parliament.

For that money, one would expect something really first rate in return, so it was interesting to read, in the run-up to the Euro-elections, a 1500-word political interview in the Herald on Sunday, devoted to 30-year-old Catherine Stihler, Labour MEP

Penetrating the guff, however, is not easy. We learn that Stihler is a "bundle of energy", she will be running in the Edinburgh marathon on 13 June and she was told by she was told by her secondary school guidance teacher in second year that she was a born enthusiast. Not a lot for £6 million so far.

He main complaint, it seems is that "Inaccurate reporting leads people to think the EU is about straight bananas, triviality, rather than the nitty-gritty of THE work", (emphasis in the original) which leaves us all agog to hear more about THE work, nitty-gritty and all.

What we get from the Herald, though, is "Stihler is one of those people for whom the European project was created. She has a passion for legislating. Regulatory devices seem to course through her blood". Now there's a thing. But where’s the beef?

Well, for Stihler, "Europe is the means to ensure better working hours, better maternity and paternity leave, better food labelling, better access to drug treatments for multiple sclerosis sufferers. She paints a picture of a Brussels which benignly embraces betterness, and evangelically enthuses about the way it affects the day-to-day lives of Scots".

And now we get down to detail. "The MEP points to a packet of cigarettes at the next table, where a young woman is smoking. Her life has, in a way, already been bettered by Stihler. The packet no longer entices women with softening words like 'lite', 'ultra' or 'mild'. It has huge letters on it, with the type of dire health warning that could have come from Free Kirk copywriters."

WOW!!

But it gets better.

"Stihler lays claim to having taken on the formidable lobbying power of Big Tobacco and won. The legislative amendment she tabled and then spent two years pushing through the processes of Euro law-making allowed for the 25 EU member states to make the health warning more prominent, ban the 'lite; marketing ploys and force manufacturers to list their contents."

And even better.

"What comes next – and she seems gruesomely proud of this – is a proposed new move for cigarette packets in Britain to display graphic pictures of the havoc the evil weed wreaks on the human body. 'They’ll use whatever means necessary to get their perspective across,' she says, pledging to do likewise. Her spiel travels instantly to a visit to an Aids project in Kenya (another of her causes) where cigarettes were being given away free". "I’ll do everything I can to fight against the tobacco industry," she says.

And then?

"But for now, her battle is an uphill one with voters and their perception of Europe. It must surely be frustrating seeing the EU ignored or inaccurately reported by the UK media, but even that does not get Stihler down: 'When there is frustration, I look for a way forward and a solution to it. We have a unique situation in the UK, with the press we have. About 80% of what I read about the European Union has an inaccuracy in the story. That leads people to think the EU is about straight bananas, about the triviality, rather than the nitty-gritty of the work that goes on day-to-day.'"

And for the grand finale:

"The image of Europe has people asking ‘Why are you doing this, and why are you involved with that?’ Yet all of the good things that come out of the work we do on legislation is not heard. We have to do a better job of selling things and saying why we’re doing what we do, why it’s better for consumers and better for the quality of life you want to lead."

That, basically is it - £6 million on the hoof and all we get is gruesome pictures on our fag packets. Some deal.

Just for the record, it costs about £10 million a year to run a fully equipped infantry battalion. For the price of 87 MEPs, we could have had ten such battalions. No guesses which would have increased out influence more – and we could have had the gruesome pictures thrown in for nothing – if our own MPs had wanted them.

President Putin has assured the world that there was no tit-for-tat agreement between the EU and Russia on support for entry into the WTO in return for signing of the Kyoto Treaty, so dear to the heart of the European Union.

On the other hand, he also told the world that the fact that the EU has agreed to support Russia’s membership of the WTO “cannot but have a positive effect on our attitude to Kyoto”. So, as they say, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

It does seem rather illogical that China, whose attitude to WTO rules is cavalier, to put it mildly, whose human rights record is considerably shoddier than Russia’s and whose internal market is almost entirely controlled by the state, should be a member of the WTO, while Russia, whose credentials are, of course, suspect, is left out. On what basis is one deemed to be more worthy than the other?

So what has the EU agreed with Russia when Pascal Lamy on all our behalf signed a deal with German Gref, the Russian Minister for Trade? (In parenthesis, let it be noted, that the EU signs international trade agreements and has no intention of giving up that right. People who say that we should negotiate this, that and the other, while remaining members of the European Union, do not seem to understand that.)

Russia will double internal prices on gas by 2010 but, as the BBC Russian Service analysis notes, those prices at present are somewhere around 20 per cent of west European ones. This undertaking is not going to hit Russia particularly hard, especially as Gazprom will retain its monopoly on gas exports.

The Russian telecommunications market will be demonopolized, though a compromise was reached on the position of the present monopoly, Rostelecom. Nothing much in that, as there are compromises on that subject in almost all of the EU member states.

Russia will go on protecting its agriculture (what there is of it) but lower average import duty on industrial goods. The payment on allowing the flight of planes over Siberia (a handy little earner) will be lowered and the rules that allow foreign investors into the Russian banking sector adjusted.

Not a lot there for the EU, who will now cautiously support Russia’s application to the WTO, though, presumably, before that becomes a general policy, it has to be decided at the Council of Ministers. Russia, in turn, will “move towards an acceptance of Kyoto”, over which, as President Putin said, there are serious misgivings.

Indeed there are. Putin’s economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, who is more or less a free marketeer, is against it, as are the scientists who have already said that they were unimpressed by the science that undrpins it.

Who, one wonders, has gained more from the bargain?

The actual referendum battle, as opposed to the battle to avoid a referendum, will involve many other issues. We had better start preparing ourselves. And that is, of course, what this blog is doing in its own way.

The referendum is still a long way off, if, indeed, it will ever take place. But the amount of nonsense spoken and written about it on both sides of the divide is quite astonishing. Given that a large proportion of the population is in the “don’t really know, not too sure, but will make up my mind at some later stage” category, this is becoming a serious problem.

Let us look at the “yes” side first, because their problems are easier to analyze. Take the, for instance (no music hall jokes, please). Earlier this week they had Polly Toynbee fulminating in her usual semi-ignorant and wholly arrogant fashion about the “British hooligans” who are causing trouble at the negotiations, beating up their opponents and refusing to come to any agreement on some “red lines” that she has clearly not given much thought to. Well, that’s Ms Toynbee, one might say. What would we do without her for entertainment?

Today, however (Saturday, May 22), the Guardian has a thoughtful leader, which acknowledges that “[b]ritain is not the only country whose objections are causing the current final drafting process to take longer than expected” but refuses in its usual anglo-centric fashion even to look at what it is that bothers other member states.

Instead it calls on the government to abandon its “David and Goliath” stance, presumably agree to whatever is that is required to produce a constitution and start campaigning for a “yes” vote. “Whether one agrees with last month's u-turn on the referendum or not, it is plain that the vote will only be won if the government gives a lead to all those others - opposition politicians, business leaders, workers' organisations, pressure groups and even newspaper editorial writers - who need to be mobilised if the current Eurosceptic majority in the country is to be turned around.”

What this thoughtful leader lacks is any analysis of what the constitution says or does or why the government should be asking for a “yes” vote. Why should the Eurosceptic majority be turned round? Just because it is a majority and whatever the vulgar majority wants must be wrong? Does the Guardian think that fighting for British interests or having Britain’s interests at heart is somehow ipso facto wrong, while other countries are fully entitled to fight for theirs? Do they think no country has a right to fight for its interests? Do they think that European integration and the creation of a single European state (superstate or otherwise) is such an absolute good that it must be pursued by whatever method it takes? If so, why do they not say so?

The problem with all the voices on the “yes” side or supposedly on the “yes” side is that they tend to blame others for not fighting the good fight but refusing to do so themselves. The Guardian, an influential publication, quite clearly still lives in a world when the word Eurosceptic invokes a frisson or horror in all right-minded, educated, politically sophisticated people. Alas, it is not so. The reason the “no” side has managed to make some headway is because it has produced a large number of substantive arguments against the constitution, the way it was concocted, the way it is being rammed down people’s throats (to use a vulgarism the Guardian and Ms Toynbee would probably shudder at) and, above all, against the whole ideology of the European unification.

If the government or the europhile media or, for that matter, business organizations and trade unions, old uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all, want to win the referendum vote, whenever that may happen, and want to win or, even, win back the hearts and minds of the British population, they had better stop behaving like the proverbial maiden aunt who hears a naughty word in her presence. You think we should support the constitution; you think we should vote “yes”; you think the Eurosceptics are wrong. Well, get in there and tell us why. Tell us what is right with that constitution, as it stands and why we must accept it.

So much for the “yes” side. Despite all that, despite all the intellectual advantages, the “no” side is crowing too soon. It seems to be spending too much time preening itself before the media and too little time marhalling arguments and looking at what might be termed the bigger picture (unlike this blog, naturally). It is good to have some parts of the media stating unambiguously why the constitution is wrong, why Blair is completely wrong in campaigning on an “in/out” ticket (if that is what he is doing) and, even, occasionally, why “out” is not such a frightening thing. It is good to have Gisela Stuart explaining to the left what was wrong with the Convention on the Future of Europe and with the constitution it produced (though, as we have already noted, it would be good if she could learn a few things beyond that). It is good to have Lord Blackwell write a pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies on what will happen if we vote no (nothing very much) and why we should, while we are at it, reform some of the clumsy and entirely wrong-headed EU policies.

Yet it is worth remembering that the other side has not started campaigning. When it does, it will marshall resources that are not available to the “no” side. It is very good to read in the press that the “No campaign” is ready to go into action as soon as the constitution is agreed on at the June Summit. But what if, as looks quite likely, it is not agreed on and negotiations will resume in the autumn for the December Summit? Will the “No campaign” take the manifestly sensible option of continuing its activity, strengthening the foundations and advancing the arguments in general? Or will it simply stop and say that as there is no constitution there can be no campaigning?

It is good to know that the glib, divisive and hard to explain slogan of “No to the Constitution, Yes to the EU” (or some such wording) has been abandoned in favour of “Vote No.” But is there a clear understanding that this campaign is going to be very different from the one against the euro?

The aim of the “No campaign” as it was fighting against the euro was very simple: to avoid a referendum. As long as there was no referendum, there was no euro. Given the famous opt-out and the equally famous promise extracted by Jimmy Goldsmith from both the main parties during the 1997 election not to go into EMU without a plebiscite, this was a clear and easily taken option. It was successful but largely because the “No campaign” had a powerful ally in the Chancellor of the Exchequer. For whatever reason, Gordon Brown, refused to say that the five spurious conditions that he attached to our entry had been met and, therefore, Britain could not take that last step and call a referendum.

The negative side of that concentration of effort was that the “No campaign” appeared to be manning a political Maginot line. The tanks of the EU came round the end of it and imposed a large number of laws and regulations on the City, business and the country in general, tying it all down without membership of the euro. The positive side is that we kept out of EMU and the economic black hole that is euroland. Together with the “no”votes in Denmark and Sweden the “No campaign” in Britain has ensured that the whole European project is looking distinctly battered. The argument of inevitability has not been heard for a long time.

However, the battle of the constitution is going to be fundamentally different. For one thing, there is no option about whether we have a referendum. If and when the constitution is agreed on, each member state will have to implement it. That means, given Blair’s statement on it, a referendum, whenever that is covenient to the government, which is, in itself, a difficult problem. Therefore, the methods used to prevent a referendum will not be entirely appropriate to a fight for a “no” vote in the referendum.

Furthermore, when it comes to the actual referendum, we shall not have the Chancellor on our side. At present the Cabinet is under instruction to fight as one body for the “yes” vote. Whether that will change or not, is unclear. It did in 1975. Nevertheless, if some ministers decide to fight for a “no” vote either while they remain ministers or after an enforced resignation, they will be fighting as individuals not as heads of ministries or great officers of the state. There is a basic difference there.

We shall, also, and this ought to go without saying but seems to have been forgotten, not have the great resources of the government, certain influential sections of the media and institutions of the EU, as well as leading politicians and personalities from other member states lining up, trying to convince the population that a “no” vote is harmful, retrogressive, nationalistic, xenophobic, evil, what-have-you. Will the “no” side be able to counter all that rapidly and accurately? Will it have the resources to spread its message far and wide as fast as possible?

Then there is the question of alternatives. When opposing the euro, alternatives are unnecessary. We already have an alternative, it has worked for many centuries and appears to be working well still – sterling. That is not a killer argument, as witness the destruction of imperial weights and measures but, coupled, with the economic problems in the eurozone and the very obvious inability to overcome these, single currency or no single currency, it worked. With the EU pushing ahead to a different level of integration, those who oppose it will be asked what alternatives they have and how viable these are.

A corollary of that will be the “in/out” argument. It is clear that the government is simply scaremongering by presenting the choice in those terms but scaremongering can work. The actual “No campaign” may say that its job is merely to tell people to reject the constitution because that does not mean we shall be out of the EU or even marginalized. But the wider “no” campaign has to work on alternative strategies for reforming the EU or, given that reforms do not seem to be on the agenda, for renegotiating agreements. (When talking of renegotiation it is important to ignore shrieks of horror on both sides of the divide. “Would you break a treaty?” is not a valid discussion point, as treaties are, be definition, renegotiable and doing so is not a crime like ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, those who get the vapours when they hear the word “renegotiation” and call all those advocating it traitors to the cause of Euroscepticism do not really know what they are talking about. Even announcing that you are pulling out of the EU involves renegotiation.)

Simply to say that we do not like what we have and want something else is not enough. We do need to clarify what we want and how we are going to get there. In other words, we need to work on what we should like to see as Britain’s foreign policy, defence policy, trade policy and so on. Then we, that is the wider “no” campaign need to put forward strategies of how we get from here to there. What methods do we use to repatriate the fisheries or agricultural policies, for instance. The Conservative Party has announced that it would do so. How? And what will it put in its place? If we do not want to be part of the common foreign and security policy, what do we want? And how are we going to achieve it?

Many in the “no” campaign will insist that all these points are irrelevant. I do not think so. The actual referendum battle, as opposed to the battle to avoid a referendum, will involve these and many other issues. We had better start preparing ourselves. And that is, of course, what this blog is doing in its own way.

Despite yesterday’s rant from Polly Toynbee in the pages of the Guardian, the self-same Guardian today offers a leader which observes that “Britain is not the only country whose objections are causing the current final drafting process to take longer than expected”.

But its main theme is to ask whether this government serious about fighting - and winning - a referendum on the constitution. “If it is”, observes the Guardian, “then it seems to be going a very peculiar way about it”.

It confirms that Blair “wants and expects to win a referendum campaign on a ‘Europe - In or Out?’ platform”, but it is plain that “the vote will only be won if the government gives a lead to all those others”… who need to be mobilised if the current Eurosceptic majority in the country is to be turned around”.

Yet, in the view of the Guardian, “not only is the government failing to provide a lead to the Yes forces in this country; it is also playing directly into the hands of the No campaign”. The main cause of its displeasure, though, is Jack Straw, who is charged with being “be happier for the current talks to fail and for there to be no constitution”.

“How else can one explain Mr Straw's present combination of tactics?”, it wails. “When he is in Brussels he digs in on an ever more detailed list of ‘red line’ issues, making too many mountains out of too many molehills. Then, coming home, he makes a Eurosceptic speech about the need to protect Thatcher-era employment laws…that can only play into the hands of the anti-European forces within British business and dismay British trade unions”.

“The official answer, of course, is that Mr Straw is in there fighting for British interests so that voters can have confidence that the constitution is a good deal for Britain. But this is surely a failed policy. The tactic of turning everything into a David and Goliath fight to preserve British interests, rattling the sword at home against the threat from dastardly foreigners, while wielding it against them abroad, is the tactic that has brought the pro-European cause in Britain to its current low ebb”.

Here the Guardian refers to the battle over the adoption of the convention of human rights, about which much mischief is being made between Labour and Tories. But, as always, the arguments have been reduced to soap opera level and focused on whether this will affect “employment rights”.

Ignoring the more fundamental issue of the implications of the Charter on the body of UK law, the Guardian pitches in to argue that, “To exaggerate the threat is to make the task of winning the European argument harder not easier. To do this on the issue of employment law, of all things, over provisions in part two of the constitution which not even the mildest left-of-centre voter would regard as anything other than reasonable, is particularly tragic”.

“What could have been an opportunity to put the case for Europe as the natural home for the reformed social democratic model pursued by Labour is turned instead into a misguided attempt to appease the unappeasable Eurosceptic press while at the same time pandering to the worst aspects of British business's infatuation with the American model”.

So speaks the Guardian – Anglo-centric, misinformed and anti-American. Whatever happens, Labour must not “attempt to appease the unappeasable Eurosceptic press”. Presumably, it should be attempting to appease the appeasable Eurosceptic press?

Sources: AFP and Datamonitor

The French government-owned electricity giant, Electricité de France (EDF) is currently appealing against a decision by the EU Commission that it must repay money obtained from the French state, by way of tax breaks, regarded as illegal state aid. The sum, including interest, comes to 1.2 billion euros.

Undeterred by this rap on the knuckles, however, the French government is now organising a partial privatisation of the company – in response to EU demands for "liberalisation" of the non-residential electricity market – which in fact is anything but.

The government, in a draft law before parliament, is seeking to change EDF's legal status from a nationalised industry to a joint-stock company, aiming to offer shares to the public next year. But the law setting up the deal prohibits more than fifty percent of the stock being released, although the government is likely to retain 60-65 percent.

As a welcome by-product, the sale of stock in the company – which is valued at 100 billion euros – will add 10-15 billion euros to its coffers, in addition to which it is being permitted to dump its crippling pension liabilities on the state. Even more bizarrely, under the draft law, existing EDF employees will retain their current civil servant status, with all the associated perks and, presumably, work practices restrictions.

The EU commission will probably take a dim view of these arrangements, and may consider yet another action against what is almost certainly another example of illegal state aid.

With the current fines as yet unpaid, however, and the French reputation for Houdini-like escapes from EU sanctions – not least Air France, the Bull computer company and, shortly, Alstrom - no one is prepared to bet that, in the end, EDF will not continue with its sham privatisation. And these are the people with whom Mr Blair wants to share our government?

She hasn’t been in the EU a full month yet and already Poland is in the EU’s bad books – and not because of the way it wrecked the constitutional summit. On two counts, its government is under investigation for breaking Single Market rules.

The first relates to the restructuring of the steel company Huta Czestochowa SA, where the commission has its "doubts" that this was being "achieved without state aid." Huta is Poland's second biggest steel producer but has been plagued by financial difficulties and the Polish government is planning financial measures to restore the company. It is suspected of illegally writing off some of the company’s debts.

The other investigation concerns the government’s plans to sell 300,000 tons of wheat from internal security stocks to cut high grain prices. This breaches EU rules that require sales of more than 2,000 tons of grain from public stores to be agreed by the cereals management committee.

Poland is the first of the new accession states to receive such treatment from the commission, but there will undoubtedly be many more. The peoples of Central and Eastern Europe member states are fast getting a reality check on the ways of the EU. It can hardly add to the popularity of the organisation they have just joined.

Source: AFP

Following the initiative by Poland to have a reference to Europe’s Christian traditions included in the preamble to the constitution, six more countries have now formally opted for God. They have joined Poland on the list of signatories to a letter demanding inclusion of a reference to Christianity. The countries are: Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Even now, this list is not complete, and Poland is hoping that other countries will join the initiative. Spokesman Boguslaw Majewski (with a Christian name like that, he really ought to be an EU commissioner - ed) stated that the letter stressed that "the governments of those countries view as a priority mention of the Christian tradition in the preamble so as to begin discussion on the issue during the next meetings of the IGC."

Noticeably absent from the list is Ireland but, as long as his country holds the presidency, Ahern could not support this demand.

That was the title of an e-mail circulating a copy of Poly Toynbee’s latest column in The Guardian. Headed, "The yob of Europe", her thesis is that "The yobs of Europe are wrecking the new constitution, British hooligans breaking up the EU negotiating table again".

According to Toynbee, who of course writes from the comfort of her office many miles from Belgium, "after two days of talks this week, Jack Straw left a trail of fury. The Germans accused him of reopening resolved issues and ‘salami-slicing’ the whole document. The French were so angry they called for the process to be halted with a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Perfidious Albion looked pretty pleased. Jack Straw hurried back to speak at a CBI banquet smirking with satisfaction…".

Yet, one does not have to be there to know this is wholly wrong. A review of the copious agency and media reports from the scene, with the help of a little insider information, would tell any dispassionate observer that Toynbee’s "take" on the situation was a crude invention.

But this is not another rant at journalists who, as has been pointed out to me, are a far too easy target (not that Toynbee is a journalist). Toynbee represents a strand of thinking in the Europhile establishment – typified by Stephen George’s book, "The Awkward Partner" - that always wants to present Britain in the worst possible light. She, like the others of her ilk, then projects her prejudices whenever the opportunity affords – this being a case in point.

The point at issue is that Mz Toynbee’s approach – as has been pointed out in previous blogs - is determinedly Ango-centric. The great Europhile is in fact a "little Englander" at heart, trapped in her tiny little world, unable, unwilling or – as the e-mail would have it – too stupid to see the bigger picture. That is what we are dealing with.

Nevertheless, a glimpse of that bigger picture comes with the latest communication from the Irish presidency, which in its own way, EU Observer is also determined to get wrong. Its headline is: "Tentative solutions on controversial voting system proposed", yet scrutiny of the Irish document reveals otherwise. Far from offering "solutions" the Irish presidency specifically states, yet again, that it "is not making a proposal at this time". It merely intends that "Ministers will have a general political discussion on the overall state of the negotiations".

And as to the detail, far from clarifying the situation, the document refers to yet more options for dealing with the vexed issue of voting rights, including the status of abstentions, and intriguingly, "the definition and operation of a blocking majority". These issues, as our readers will need no reminding, lie at the heart of the current round of negotiations – in which Britain is not a central player. And it is on their resolution that the constitution will survive or fall.

But it is worth re-emphasising that this current round of foreign ministers’ talks is the penultimate stage in the IGC process, when the issues should have been clarified, with the agenda being set for the final round of talks at the summit. If, at this stage, all the presidency is proposing are "general political discussions", then it is very clear that agreement on the crucial issues is a long way away.

There may be more huffing and puffing at the ministers’ meeting on Monday, and Toynbee or one of her Europhile clones may have another rant about "British hooligans", but the evidence is there in black and white. The summit is headed for the rocks, and it is nothing to do with the "Yobs of Europe".

Comment

Question Time on BBC 1 last night, dedicated to EU issues, had Patricia Hewitt, Blair’s trade and industry minister and chief groupie for the EU constitution. Offering what is clearly the "government line" on the constitution, she stated very clearly that the "basic issue" in the referendum (if we actually get one) is whether we are "in or out" of Europe. "In or out is the fundamental question".

This was picked up by Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, with a revealing analysis by Andrew Marr. He readily admitted that the government feels it must "scare" people into voting for the constitution by presenting a picture of the dire consequences of leaving. "If they (the voters) look at the detail of the constitution… the government feel they have very little chance of winning the referendum", quothe Marr.

Therein lies the fundamental dishonesty behind the government’s case. It boldly proclaims that it wants a debate on "Europe" but, in truth, the last thing Blair and his cronies want is that debate. The last thing the government wants is an informed populace, knowledgeable on the issues, and aware of the detail. Instead, they want a cowed, ignorant, mass, scared into submission by the thought of a Britain "isolated" on the fringes, running for succour to the comforting embrace of "Mother Europe".

Clearly, information is the antidote to this cloying, negative, patronising view of the British people, a nation of wimps who must be cosseted and comforted, and above all protected from the realities of that frightening world outside "Europe".

So saying, in the Question Time discussion last night, the possible alternatives to the EU were raised, and Hewitt got in first by dismissing the Norway option, this nation receiving its laws "by fax" from the EU, over which it had no part in making.

Hewitt does, in fact, have a point. As part of the EEA, Norway is obliged to obey single market rules, and is automatically required to implement laws from the EU, about which she is consulted, but has no vote. Frankly though, with only 13 percent of the vote in the Council, UK is not in a much better position, as it can easily be over-ruled under qualified majority voting, but that is not the point. In many respects, Norway out of the EU is not that much different from being in.

Nevertheless, Eurosceptics are fond of quoting the Norway option – as indeed they are the Swiss option – as an alternative to full EU membership. But neither are ideal and while they might suit those countries, are unlikely to be entirely suitable for the UK.

There are other options, such as walking away from any specific relationship with the EU and relying on the general rules of GATT to ensure fair trading. In the meantime, we could forge closer relationships with the Commonwealth, non-aligned LDC and perhaps the Cairns group, to form a powerful trading block, as a wedge between the protectionist forces of both the EU and the USA.

In other words, there are more options available than swapping the "pram" of EU membership for the "reins" of associate membership. If the issue is really a question of "in or out", then the options available must be explored more fully. The Eurosceptics must raise their game. While Marr reminded us at the end of his piece, "officially" the issue is not "in or out", the Hewitt comments clearly point to the government’s intended tactics. The "no" campaign must be prepared for them.

While at the same time as pushing for a higher voting threshold to be written into the constitution, Spain's new socialist government is also first in line in a bid for its own man to fill the post of the all-powerful European Union foreign minister. It has fronted Javier Solana, currently "high representative" for the Union's common foreign and security policy.

As current arrangements stand, however, foreign affairs are run jointly by Solana, who reports to the European Council, and the external relations commissioner, Christopher Patten.

Should the current draft of the constitution be approved, the two jobs will be combined, with a vice-president of the commission presiding over the General Affairs and External Relations Council and running the EU’s diplomatic service. He (or she) will have the sole power to propose foreign policy initiatives, which will then be approved by qualified majority voting.

However, there will be a gap between the Patten standing down as extenral affairs commissioner – in October – and the new post coming available – which will not be until after the constitution is ratified. Therefore, a temporary replacement will have to be appointed to fill Patten’s job, while Solana will continue in his present post. The Spanish now want assurances that, when (if) the constitution is ratified, he will be able to step immediately into the combined job, and the external affairs commissioner will be dumped.

Meanwhile, recoiling from the latest demonstration of Spanish diplomacy – the refusal of Spain to allow cruise ships that have docked in Gibraltar then to visit Spain – Straw has issued a robust statement: "We regard the disruption of the cruise ships as completely unacceptable," he told a news conference held jointly with his Spanish counterpart, Miguel Angel Moratinos. "The solution is for the disruption to end," he added.

Nevertheless, there is no indication that Spain is going to back down or, having done so, will not continue harassing Gibraltarians in its attempt to take over the British colony. While its tactics to date have been unsuccessful, however, Spain’s hand will undoubtedly be strengthened if it has its man in charge of EU foreign policy, decided by QMV. No wonder it is so keen to pave the way for Solana to take the foreign minister post.

Another EU-Russia Summit is due to open tomorrow (Friday, May 21) in Moscow. This will be number 13 but, for some reason, there is marginally more optimism about this one than any of the previous ones.

Russia wants the EU to back its application for the WTO. The EU may well do so if Russia agrees to various demands to liberalize its internal energy pricing system and to reconstruct some of the natural resource monopolies such as Gazprom. Is that likely to happen? Well, one highly placed Kremlin source was heard to mutter that agreeing to the EU demands would be like death to Russia.

Then there is the Kyoto Protocol. For reasons best known to itself the EU is very keen on it, even though no reputable scientist thinks anything very much will come of it and a number of environmentalists, such as Björn Lomborg, have said that the money spent on it would be better spent on some genuinely useful project, such as trying to get clean water in many parts of the world.

The original aim was to set controls on the American economy. As the United States Congress refused to ratify the treaty, that idea went by the board. Russia, too, has so far refused to ratify it and two days ago a number of Russian scientists have made a statement decrying Kyoto as scientifically unsupported and harmful to the Russian economy. Of course, if the EU, in this case Prodi and Ahern, both on their way out as EU representatives for different reasons, supports Russia’s application to the WTO, who knows what might happen. Putin may well change his mind on Kyoto and, surprisingly enough, the Duma will probably follow.

However, Kyoto is on the sidelines and many observers think that the real dispute will be about the new members of the EU, specifically the Baltic states. Readers of the blog will remember that last time round, on April 27, Russia and the EU did come to an agreement and the friendship pact was extended to the new members.

It is expected that this time Russia will be less accomodating and will raise the issue of the Russian speakers in the Baltic states, having previously accepted that the EU protects the rights of linguistic, as well as other minorities.

Some Russian officials, in a clearly waggish mood have been heard to express the view that the Baltic states will now be a headache for the Brussels as well as Moscow – another thing they will have in common.

Speaking as someone who knows a little about Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, I’d say that, when it comes to problems, the EU “ain’t seen nothing yet”.

Take the vexed question of former KGB agents still around and very active in the Baltic states, as well as some East European ones. What is to be done with them? Putting them on trial is tricky and the evidence is often lacking for obvious reasons. On the other hand, restricting their human rights would go counter to EU laws.

In the Latvian Seimas (Parliament) the right-wing majority has voted to publish the names of all the former Russian and Latvian agents. The left-wing and Russian opposition parties voted against, arguing that this would divide the nation. Possibly, though most observers feel that post-Communist societies could do with a spot of lustration to come to terms and then to overcome the past.

The Seimas also extended for another ten years a ban on former KGB employees running for elected national or local positions or other public appointments. However, they also had a look at the EU legislation and decided not to ban them for running for the European Parliament as the European Union might not allow such restrictions. This could be interesting

As soon as it can be used to watch films or TV shows, which is increasingly often. Is that a problem? Well, yes, say customs officials. The EU imposes a 14 per cent import duty on consumer electronics in order to protect European TV manufacturers.

Computing equipment is shipped around the world without a duty. But the Dutch customs officials, together with the German and British ones, have decided that digital computer monitors that can be used as TV screens should have that import duty on them, as well. In fact, the Dutch have gone ahead and slapped it on. This caused shaking of heads and sucking of teeth, not because it is another tax – goodness me, no, but because the Dutch went alone, which is “simply unacceptable”, according to the director general of the European Information and Communication Technology Association, a lobbying group.

Alas, the obvious solution as far as the EU is concerned is to harmonize upwards. If the Dutch, or anyone else, want import duty on digital TV monitors, then everyone else should have one.

If passed, the rule will say that only those monitors that can be proved to be nothing but computer monitors will escape the duty. Once again, the EU, while spending much time and energy talking about the knowledge economy, is actually taking a step backwards in technology. As Bob Raikes, co-ordinator of a business group fighting the proposed duty, said to the International Herald Tribune: “Europe runs the risk of becoming an analog island, hanging on to kludgy technology while the rest of the world goes digital.” But, at least, it will be harmonized kludgy technology.