Sunday Telegraph
6 May 2001

www.sundaytelegraph.com/opinion

Today's rhetoric is 
Tomorrow's European treaty
By Daniel Hannan

THE most striking thing about Gerhard Schroder's plan for a federal Europe is just how uncontroversial it is in the rest of the EU. Many continentals are genuinely bewildered by the fuss in the British press. "We signed up to all this when we joined," says a Spanish MEP. "And so did you, although you always seem to forget it."

Mr Schroder has, quite understandably, based his scheme on the German model. Thus, he sees the Parliament as a kind of European Bundestag (Germany's lower house), the Council of Ministers as a Bundesrat (Germany's upper house) and the European Court as a Bundesverfassungsgericht (Germany's constitutional court). But, allowing for these minor national peculiarities, his proposals could have come
from almost any EU government.

There was a neat demonstration of just how mainstream such ideas have become when the German president, Johannes Rau, addressed our last plenary session. To his audience's delight, Dr Rau called for a European constitution and an elected president of Europe - although, in what I think was meant to be a nod to the sceptics, he conceded that "the nation states will be with us for a good while yet".

Try to imagine the Queen making such a speech - for President Rau, too, is a ceremonial head of state - and you will see how far the British debate is from that on the Continent. To many Europeans, calling for a superstate is now scarcely more contentious than calling for peace or justice.

Of course there are dissenting voices, especially among the EU's peripheral nations. But in the old, Carolingian core, the debate has moved on. The argument is not about whether a federal Europe is desirable, but about how best to implement it. British ministers are trying to claim that Mr Schroder's views are just so much rhetoric. Yet the whole history of the EU tells us that today's rhetoric will be tomorrow's treaty. The other member states could hardly be more explicit about where they are going. Why do we still refuse to listen?

BY equivocating over President Bush's proposed missile defence system, Tony Blair has reignited the debate about whether Britain will ever be truly communautaire. The European Parliament is already agitated about a surveillance network called Echelon, which links Britain's GCHQ to its equivalent bodies in the US and the former Dominions.

In theory, MEPs are concerned about the threat to citizens' privacy; but their real fear is that we Anglo-Saxons are using Echelon to conduct industrial espionage against the Old Continent. Indeed, simply to list the countries involved - Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States - is to wave a red rag at the French.

"You will never be reliable Europeans until you turn away from your former empire," a Gaullist colleague told me. I replied that, as far as I could tell, my constituents had more fellow feeling for Her Majesty's Canadian subjects than for - meaning no offence - the French. He grinned: "Et voila: the British problem."

'WHAT," asked section 30 of the census, "is the business of your employer?" A tricky question if your employer is the European Parliament. You might have thought that our principal activity was passing laws. But, contrary to almost universal belief, we have no right to initiate legislation.

Is it, then, to scrutinise the budget? Not really. Most MEPs see their job as being to spend as much as possible at EU level, thus helping to "build Europe". Are we there, perhaps, to represent the people? If so, we don't seem to have impressed them very much. More people in Britain voted for Craig in Big Brother than participated in the last European election.

After chewing my pen for several minutes, I wrote the only honest answer I could think of: "Mischief, chiefly."

Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for South-East England

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