Posted on 04/29/2002 9:17:17 PM PDT by Timesink
EU leader attacks Britain over links with United States
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels and George Jones, Political Editor
(Filed: 30/04/2002)
ROMANO PRODI, the president of the European Commission, rebuked Britain yesterday for lacking the courage to embrace the euro and play a full part in Europe.
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He angered the Government and Opposition politicians by claiming that Britain's attachment to the United States was built on wishful thinking and twisted notions of Europe.
"I wonder what makes this great nation so confident when dealing with a vastly more powerful nation over 3,000 miles away, but afraid to play a full part in shaping the future of the continent to which it belongs," he told the Said Business School in Oxford.
Mr Prodi dismissed suggestions that Britain's "special relationship" with the US gave it extra leverage in the world.
Downing Street rejected his criticism, arguing that Tony Blair had done a "huge amount" to ensure Britain played a leading role in Europe.
Mr Blair believed that Britain should have strong relations with America in addition to Europe - which was of mutual benefit to both the EU and the US.
Michael Ancram, the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman, said it was "quite unacceptable" that an unelected official of the Union should choose to lecture an elected European government on its international relations.
"But it is totally incredible that he should launch an attack on our close and historical relations with the US while promoting international trade," he said.
Mr Prodi said the British had missed their chance to shape Europe's fledgling institutions after the Second World War when the country enjoyed immense prestige, retreating instead defensively behind the English Channel.
Mr Prodi, who has become increasingly frustrated by the Government's foot-dragging on the euro, urged Mr Blair to champion the single currency as a transforming political commitment.
"Deep down it is a matter of deciding where one's future lies. It is a matter of political will and courage," he said.
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, who was the treasurer of the pro-Europe campaign in 1975, told the same meeting that he had become "increasingly disillusioned" with the EU.
He said the European ideal had become "distorted and changed" and called on Mr Prodi to take seriously the concerns of business over the "constant flood of interventionist regulations".
If he's looking for political will and courage, he's on the wrong continent. The Eurocommunist Union is beginning to lose it's appeal to the masses, I would say - better late than never.
"Europe as a whole is fundamentally unreformable...Europe's plans for a single currency to rival the dollar, its furtive but rapid moves to create its own armed forces to substitute those of NATO, its ambition to create a common judicial area which will intrude upon national legal systems, and the current project of devising a European Constitution, all betoken one of the most ambitious political projects of modern times."
Thatcher says that the attempt to form a United Europe is fatally flawed because, unlike the United States -- after which the shapers of Europe claim to be patterning their plan -- Europe does not have a common language, culture and values.
"It is also flawed because the United States was forged in the 18th century and transformed into a truly federal system in the 19th century through events, above all through the necessities and outcomes of war," Thatcher writes. "By contrast, Europe is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic Utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme (cq) whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage is in doubt."
Enough Said?
I'ma tellin a you, dose Brits dey gotta da balls disa beeg!
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