"Tell it How It Is"

Written by Andrew Duff MEP and published in Liberal Democrat News on Tue 28th Sep 1999

Several debates at Harrogate exposed anxiety in the party about how we should pitch our pro-European beliefs within a climate of sceptical public opinion. I share that anxiety, but am sure there will be no way forward for Britain in Europe unless we Liberal Democrats take the lead in combating Euro-fatalism and defeating nationalism.

To do this we must radically improve the quality of policy for the citizen flowing out of Brussels and Strasbourg. One essential ingredient is a single monetary policy to consolidate the single market and to reduce prices. Another, fresh element in the European UnionÕs agenda, of special relevance to Liberals, is the proposal for a new Charter of Rights.

Citizens' first

Last June, the European Council stumbled upon this idea as a panic reaction to the low turnouts everywhere, but our august leaders left it unclear whether they intended this Charter to be simply a codification of the status quo of Bills of Rights in different member states (Royaume-Uni nuls points), or whether it should seek to define a new European citizenship for a post-modern, post-national Europe.

Messrs Blair and Straw apparently want the former - another public relations exercise for the millennium, gaudy but empty. Lib Dems must push for the latter - a recasting and entrenchment of civil, social and economic rights, binding on all member states, part of a constitutional settlement for an enlarged and enriched European Union.

The struggle to fashion and to control this Citizens' Charter is between the Parliament and Council, and it is a struggle of intense significance, besides which this year's contest between Parliament and Commission could look rather tame.

You can be sure that European Liberals and Democrats will be leading this struggle. Graham Watson chairs the Civil Liberties Committee; and from my position on the Constitutional Affairs Committee, I have been elected co-rapporteur for the Charter itself. This is pioneering politics. It is the right place to be and the right struggle to have.

And in the East ...

I'm beginning to discover what is a typical constituency day. Earliest flight from Brussels to Stansted; drive to opening of Ford's new research plant near Brentwood; on to tour brilliant Anglo-European School at Ingatestone; on to a CPRE farm walk near Lavenham; home to Cambridge; half open pile of mail; nip to the local tandoori where owner spoils Ceylon Chicken by complaining about parking and students. Must get local Focus team to publish article on subsidiarity...