Mar 24 2007
Any Questions and the debate over the EU
Any Questions last night came from Dublin. We discussed several aspects of the European problem in front of an invited Irish audience hosted by the European Commission’s staff in Ireland.
If you judged by the audience reaction they were strongly in favour of European integration, clapping the Euro and booing some of my comments in favour of more member state decision making and democracy.
However, after the show there were some dissenting Irish voices. One 35 year told me he blamed the Euro for his inability to buy a home in Dublin. He pointed out that interest rates set by a German based central bank were too low for Ireland, driving house prices out of many people’s reach. Another told me they wanted to see powers returned to a government they could kick out if they did not do things in the public interest.
The latest poll of people in all of the member states shows there is now a majority for preventing the EU getting any more powers, and the largest voting block wants powers back from Brussels. The EU Commission may try to organise debates to give the impression that more political union is the future, but the peoples of Europe are determined that the future will be based on more national democracy and less centralised power. The rejection of the Constitution in both France and the Netherlands, founder members of the EEC, should be accepted and understood by the European elite. If they carry on ignoring it, they will find there is no consent
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
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Sounds like you were stitched-up! Ambushed on the Today programme about global warming and now this. The BBC is out to get you
Why do the Conservatives not Boycott the BBC then threaten to break up the BBC and privatize the rump, and make it flog its anti conservative bias in the open market place? Instead we are forced to watch the Conservative party toeing the BBC line.
“One 35 year told me he blamed the Euro for his inability to buy a home in Dublin.”
I first went to Dublin in 1983, the road from the airport was lined with boarded up derelict houses. I think you could have bought one for