ASLEF - the train drivers' trade union - has voted to oppose the EU Constitution when a referendum is held in the UK. Meeting in Scarborough last week for their annual conference, union delegates condemned the Constitution for harming democratic accountability and undermining public services. ASLEF, which is affiliated to the Labour party, joins several other unions which have already decided to oppose the Constitution.
Trade unions which supported UK membership of the euro have decided to withhold their support for the Constitution. Amicus, which is Britain's largest private sector union, and which has funded the pro-euro lobby in the past, recently voted at its conference to withhold support for the Constitution. Delegates supported a statement critical of the current text, in a move that is a blow for the yes campaign. The leaders of two of Britain's other large unions, the Transport and General and the GMB, have also criticised the Constitution, and Britain's biggest trade union, UNISON, is expected to vote to oppose the Constitution at its conference at the end of June.
When the Government was in favour of euro membership, it hoped that trade unions would help deliver grass roots support. But the Constitution is not receiving support from trade unions, and it looks increasingly like the Constitution may not even receive the support of the TUC.
The European Court of Justice has ruled that companies are free to claim back VAT they have paid on costs relating to the issuing of shares. The case was brought by an Austrian firm over tax it paid on costs accrued in Germany. According to city lawyers, the ruling could cost national governments "hundreds of millions" in refunds to businesses.
The case is similar to that brought in March to allow businesses to write off losses of subsidiaries in other member states, which will cost "billions" according to tax law specialists Lovells.
The European Court of Justice is already making far reaching, and costly, decisions on important issues of public policy, despite being unelected. The Constitution would see massive swathes of powers transferred to European judges totally distant from people in this country.
This week Tony Blair criticised the EU's "unnecessary interference" in the affairs of member states. He particularly criticised the Brussels tendency to churn out regulations which hurt businesses and public services.
He argued that, "Europe has done itself more damage through what is perceived as unnecessary interference than all the pamphlets by Eurosceptics could ever do. About 50 percent of regulations with a significant impact on business emanate from the EU."
"Today, a lot of this is reinforced by what arises from Europe. About 50% of regulations with a significant impact on business now emanate from the EU. And it often seems to want to regulate too heavily without sufficient cause. The EU vitamins directive is a good example. There may be a case for ensuring the public are properly informed and that some rules and order are brought to what is today a major industry. But the way it has been done is wholly out of proportion to the risks run."
He said, "A village in the Cotswolds was required to pull up a seesaw because it was judged a danger under an EU Directive on Playground Equipment for Outside Use. This was despite the fact that no accidents had occurred on it."
He pledged to use the UK's presidency of the EU later this year to "start to roll back the tide of regulation in specific areas: here, in Europe, in respect of the regulatory bodies themselves."
The Prime Minister's rhetoric is to be welcomed. However, the Government has made the same promises many times before. Since 1997 alone the EU has passed 11,500 regulations, directives and decisions, and there is no sign that what Tony Blair calls "unnecessary interference" is being reduced.
One of the main authors of the EU Constitution has admitted that the process of drafting the Constitution "got out of control" and that it is now unwieldy. Sir John Kerr, a former senior civil servant in the Foreign Office, served as "Secretary General" of the Convention which was tasked with drafting the Constitution. Kerr now says that the Constitution lacks clarity because the Convention "tried to do it all".
In an interview, Kerr also suggested that section I of the Constitution could be taken out of the existing text and reintroduced if France or the Netherlands vote no over the next few days. He said, "Looking back, it was a mistake to take on ourselves the task of producing the whole constitution. We should have stuck to part I and handed the rest of the task to the Council [of Ministers], saying, 'now you apply this across policies'" (Times, 27 May 2005).
Looking back over the whole exercise, he concludes: "I don't think we did it incompetently. But it would have been easier to sell to the public as a short, 60-article, institutional treaty."
As polls in France, Holland and the UK have all shown rising opposition to the Constitution, the EU's leaders have begun exaggerating the effects of a no vote in order to scare people into voting yes.
In a speech at a remembrance service for holocaust victims, Margot Wallstrom, the EU's communications commissioner, said, "There are those who want to scrap the supranational idea. They want the European Union to go back to the old purely inter-governmental way of doing things. I say those people should come to Terezin and see where that old road leads." (Telegraph, 9 May 2005)
Four Dutch MEPs this week released adverts calling for a yes vote on the Constitution. The adverts run images of the Holocaust, the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia in 1995, and the Madrid train bombings of March 11 2004, over a soundtrack of screams. The MEPs argued over the images that Europe needs a "future of peace, security and prosperity" with "one European constitution".
On Question Time this week former Europe Minister Denis MacShane also tried deploy similar arguments. He implied that the war in Rwanda might have been averted by a common EU Foreign Policy. He argued, "Ten years ago we [the EU] didn't do much in foreign policy and we had things like Srebrenica and Rwanda." He also tried to use the Second World War as an argument. He claimed that a no vote would threaten the EU, which he said, "started profoundly in response to what happened sixty years ago, the end of World War Two, to allow countries to live together in peace... I just say to anybody - we tear that up then believe me - the clock of history can also turn backwards." MacShane's comment was the only point made in the whole programme which the Paris audience booed.
Trying to use implied threats of war to score points in the EU Constitution debate is absurd and distasteful. However, such over the top rhetoric is unlikely to help the yes camp win the argument about the future direction of the EU.
Now we have similar charismatic leaders who say they know what is best for us when all they want is to have absolute rule over us ,so we can be arrested or put in jail just because a politician dislikes us and without any judge and jury determining if any law has been broken.
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Page started 27 May 2005, Amended 27 May 2005