The Stoat said:
Our suspicion has been that the certain EU members are trying to bring about a federal Europe through greater economic ties. The problem is that we may be better off with closer economic ties but we don't want the political ones that go with them. As you say it's very difficult to seperate fiscal matters from political ones and so we'd rather forego the potential benefits of a fiscal union if it means we keep our sovereignty and national identity intact. What Chirac seems to fail to see is that when he tries to shaft the UK over something like the rebate we think why the F*** should we want to be more closely involved with them. We can't imagine a situation where the French would want to be involved in something that meant they'd have to compromise or lose out and that by default leaves us think we would be the losers.
pretty spot on thestoat - the main problem as i see it is trying to get 13 or 20 or 25 sovereign countries to let unelected (mostly) bureaucrats control the levers of power in a way not conducive to the needs or wants of the individual countries. each country has its own view on what works or what is right in their minds.
for example, the uk is outside of the Euro at the moment for two main reasons:
1) the political significance of ending sterling and adopting the euro - a sure sign that the uk would be more in europe than out of it.
2) the fiscal cycles of the uk and euroland are not aligned - euroland interest rates are now at 2.25% while the uk is at 4.5%. imagine what inflation would be like if we had joined the euro and had european interest rates???
the european union does have its problems (inefficiency, unaccountability, fraud, disparities) but i do believe it is the right way to go, although at our pace and on acceptable terms. I think Blair did all he could to get an acceptable budget - it was right to increase uk contributions to help pay for the new joiners and hopefully the political pressure will now fall on france to wean itself of the CAP.