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THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL and
THE EUROPEAN FOUNDATION, chairman Bill Cash, MP

ECB - European Central Bank

Opposition to the euro has been widespread, particularly in the UK. Among the most vocal have been right-leaning elements in the Conservative Party. Eurocritic, http://www.euro-emu.co.uk a webzine closely linked to the Thatcherite Bruges group, includes eurosceptic articles from a wide range of sources including the European research group and the Sun.

Conservatives against a federal Europe http://www.cafe.org.uk is a Conservative pressure group which boasts a raft of leading Tories including Norman Lamont, Angela Browning, Nick Budgen and Lord Pearson of Rannoch.

The group wants the UK to rule out joining the euro, withdraw from the Common Agricultural Policy and oppose joint policy decisions on defence and foreign affairs. The organisation believes Britain should withdraw from the EU if its demands are not met.

Referendum Movement, http://www.referendum.org.uk founded by Sir James Goldsmith has a well designed web site, but does not offer links to other sites. Notable features include 'evil captain Bureau - how the EU are feeding our children with their propaganda'.

The left has euroscpetics of its own. The Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign opposes stage III of monetary and political union and the single currency.

RE: Se also THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL - JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN FOUNDATION at http://www.internetional.se/eurojournal.htm

Jacques Santer, President of the European Commission

EU:s Infeuro, May 1988

... The euro is also a powerful factor in forging a European identity. Countries which share a common currency are countries ready to unite their destinies as part of an integrated community. The euro will bring citizens closer together, and will provide a physical manifestation of the growing rapprochement between European citizens which has been taking place for the past forty years or more.

This symbolic aspect of the euro will also be evident in relations with the outside world: in view of the strength and solidity of the economies on which it will be based, it has the potential to become a major international reserve and transaction currency. The Union will finally be endowed with the currency which its position in the world requires, and which its partners expect as a factor contributing to the stability of the international monetary system. ................... more

David Smith, Economics Editor of The Sunday Times, author of i.e. The Rise and Fall of Monetarism and From Boom to Bust, has written a new book "Eurofutures - Five scenarios for the next Millenium", Capstone, Oxford. From that book I quote:

Stephen King in Emu, Four Endings and a Funeral James Capel, p. 50

Some argue that most of the 'major' asymmetric shocks for Europe have already happened - the collapse of Communism, German unification. But this view is surely naive. There are plenty of potential upsets with important economic - and, particularly, fiscal ramifications. Civil war in Russia would raise the risk of a massive influx of refugees into Germany.

A rise in Islamic fundamentalism in North Africa could lead to a surge of refugees into France, Spain and Italy France or the UK might be forced to defend territories outside Europe, implying a one-off surge in military spending. Italy or Belgium could split in two. Parts of the Netherlands could be destroyed via a tidal wave from the North Sea.

A nuclear reactor accident could, potentially, wipe out thousands of square miles of one particular country. A sharp rise in oil prices would have a significant differential effect on the UK.

An exchange rate shift would not necessarily be the most appropriate response in all of these circumstances. However, the possibility of asymmetric shocks does suggest that exchange rate shifts can still serve a useful purpose.

In their absence, other mecharisms will be required. And here, serious problems arise.

David Smith: We come back to a familiar problem, that of the need for massive resource transfers within Europe once Emu is in operation, and the near impossibility, under present arrangements, of providing them.

Mica Panic: ... Given the limited volume of resource transfers that the Community can realistically be expected to mobilise, their /the weak countries/ long-term chances of remaining in the complete union are likely to be even smaller than those of the countries that found the much less demanding arrangements under the classical gold standard too costly.

Mica Panic: European Monetary Union, Lessons from the Classical Gold StandardSt Martins Press, p. 158)

In a study published by UBS, 'Labour Markets and Emu', George Magnus and Paul Donovan found that labour mobility within Europe had declined in the two decades from the mid-1970s. /They/ cited four principal reasons for declining labour mobility in Europe:

• Lirguistic and cultural barriers. Even in the United States, there are problems of mobility for populafion groups where language is perceived as a barrier, for example Hispanics in California. In Europe, with so many different languages, the constraints are that much bigger.
• A lack of cross-border job information. Although there is some limited information, for example for jobs with the EU institutions themselves, or withir mulfinational companies operafirg across Europe, the emphasis, particularly for governmert-sponsored employmert services, remains strongly national in character.
• The problem of diverse state berefit systems. High social costs in the EU have been idertified as a cause of competitive problems for the region as a whole. For individual employees, variations in benefit and tax systems also form a significant barrier to mobility.
• A perceived lack of opportunity elsewhere. Although there are substantial variatiors in unemployment rates between countries and regions, the fact that unemployment is generally high throughout Europe severely limits the incentive to move to other countries in search of work.

Those hardest hit by rising unemployment, the unskilled, will tend to find that opportunities are as limited in other countries as at home.

Anthony Jay: However much money and power the Commission have, it is improbable that they will be able to have any significant impact on the competitiveness imbalance problem which a single currency will pose.

This will leave the problem to nature's remedy - the migration of population. It seems hard to believe that the political, economic and social success of Europe, whether one approves or disapproves the objecfive, will be promoted by establishing at the heart of its economic fundioring a mecharism which depends for equilibrium on the enforced migration, on pain of destitution, of its population in the tens of millions:

• Away from the places to which they are fied by natural affection, by family relationships, by social capital and by individual will.
• Across frontiers of language, culture, historical experience and law.
• To places of which they know little, which they like less and where they are so far from welcome that they are likely on arrival to be violently assaulted.

If this is the character of monetary urion, conceived by politicians who saw it as little more than a trite gesture of nationhood, to go with a blue flag and a jolly anthem, then we can say that it is not in the long-term interests of Europe and very far from being a sensible economic sacrifice even for the sake of a large political goal.

Indeed, one may wonder that anyone who professes to hope for the success of political union in Europe could wish to implant in its foundations such an engine of mass destruction.

Anthony Jay in The Darlington Economics Lecture, November 17, 1995

Henry Kissinger

SvD 1998-05-07 Janerik Larsson SVENSKT EMU-MEDLEMSKAP Visst sköt vi på frågan 1994
I vissa delar av den borgerliga pressen och från en del borgerliga politiker förespråkas EMU med en intensitet som förvånar. Det är dock ett faktum att EMU är ett djärvt, omstritt experiment som man kan önska ska gå väl men som är allt annat än en garant för europeisk harmoni och välstånd.
Mats Svegfors har nyligen belyst den svenska EMU-problematiken väl, men ungefär samma ekonomiska kritik kan användas i andra EU-länder.
... Det finns en bred liberal europeisk skepsis mot EMU. Den finns inom EMU-länderna och den finns utanför. Ett gott exempel på denna EMU-skepsis finns i senaste The Spectator där den tidigare finansministern Nigel Lawson intervjuas. I korthet säger Lawson:
1. Starkt europeiskt samarbete är viktigt. Det är dock en skandal att EMU fått överskugga östutvidgningen.
2. Jämförelsen med USA/ dollarn håller inte. I USA finns ett gemensamt språk, stor mobilitet på arbetsmarknaden samt mycket betydande federala transfereringar.
3. Maastrichtkriterierna är feltänkta. Flexibla marknadslösningar är viktigare än rigida kriterier som man kan fuska sig förbi. Efter EMU kommer länder att återgå till sina gamla dåliga vanor eftersom de inte längre löper en valutarisk. Trycket för transnationella transfereringar och för skattehöjningar ökar.
4. EMU är ett i grunden franskt politiskt projekt avsett att förminska den tyska ekonomiska styrkan och avskära Europa från det anglosaxiska inflytandet. Avskaffandet av DM-marken och Bundesbank är en stor seger för den franska politiken. Många i den europeiska eliten anser utvecklingen god eftersom den ger centrum - EU-kommissionen - större makt.
5. Storbritannien förlorar inflytande i EU genom att stanna utanför EMU. Det är ingen stor förlust eftersom det brittiska inflytandet ändå är minimalt.
6. Det finns två diametralt motsatta bilder av ett framtida Europa. I den ena drar sig Europa tillbaka inom sina murar och lever enligt mottot ''reglera och beskydda''. I den andra river Europa murarna, river sönder regelböckerna och låter de fria marknaderna ge medborgarna makten.
Lawson förespråkar liksom många svenska liberaler den senare framtidsbilden. Lawson menar att EMU är dagens europeiska socialistiska projekt - det nya Utopia.
Uppenbart är att både de som argumenterar för och emot EMU gör så med högst olika bilder av nuläget och framtiden. Att förenkla EMU till en fråga i svensk politik där sympatier eller antipatier fördelas längs de gamla blockgränserna tror jag inte kommer att lyckas, även om försöken görs. I Carl Bildts senaste veckobrev finns en sådan retorisk, stark förenkling där all skuld för det svenska utanförskapet tilldelas regeringen Persson och där Bildt - som ju förespråkat en EMU-folkomröstning 1999 - hävdar att EMU avgjordes i samband med folkomröstningen 1994.
Om EMU tydligt funnits med på ja-sidans agenda då är jag övertygad om att vi som arbetade för det svenska EU-medlemskapet inte skulle ha lyckats. Men nu valde vi mycket medvetet och systematiskt att vifta EMU-frågan åt sidan och hänvisa till att frågan skulle avgöras i separat, svensk parlamentarisk ordning längre fram.
Detta var både sakligt och politiskt korrekt, men argumentet att svenska folket sa ja till EMU 1994 kan ingen framföra som minns hur ja-kampanjen var upplagd.
Jag minns väl hur det var den gången.
Janerik Larsson tidigare styrelseledamot i Näringslivets EU-fakta

Mer av Janerik Larsson om EMU

Sv D 1998-04-30 Knut Carlqvist EMU är rutschkanan in i ett federalt Europa

Att valutaunionen, EMU, i grunden är ett politiskt projekt förnekas av dess mest hängivna svenska anhängare. De enskilda staterna kommer inte att förlora sin suveränitet vad gäller beskattning och bevillningar. Samtidigt hävdar de att nationalstaten har överlevt sig själv och att vi oåterkalleligen är på väg in i ett gränslöst, multikulturellt Europa. Nationalstatens ändalykt, är det inte en politisk fråga?

Det senaste decenniet talar inte för att nationalstaten är ett passerat stadium. Tvärtom har vi sett rader av nya stater födas och återfödas: Slovakien, Georgien, Ukraina, Bosnien för att ta några exempel. 1918 års försök att rida spärr mot nationalismen genom att bygga artificiella, tillräckligt stora stater har havererat. Inte nog med det: samma krafter som anklagar Norge för chauvinism håller de baltiska folkens frihetskamp för helig. De har rätt till självbestämmande. Och när serberna beter sig illa mot albanerna är det en stor sak, men när den unga staten Kroatien verkställt en etnisk rensning, öppet hyllar ustasjaledaren Ante Pavelic och antar fascistiska drag passerar det i stort opåtalt......... mer

Gunilla Carlsson (m): Dyrt stå utanför EMU

Affärsvärlden om ECB

Margit Gennser i riksdagen om Amsterdamfördragets ratificering

Carl A Hamilton i Aftonbladet 98-05-06

EU warned of jobs chaos under single currency - Sunday Times 98-04-26 by Peter Conradi

Democratic Values and the Currency Rt. Hon., Michael Portillo

Spännande Hearing om EMU?

Inledning av Per Unckel och Lotta Edholm, stiftelsen Sverige i Europas ordförande respektive verkställande ledamot.

Kurt Ove Johansson (s,) vice ordförande i KU i Aftonbladet 98-04-20

Regeringen har i en proposition till riksdagen redovisat sina bedömningar av de förhandlingar som ledde fram till Asterdamfördraget. Den 29 april förväntas Sveriges Riksdag med bred majoritet ratificera detsamma.

Det är inget oviktigt beslut som Riksdagen ska ta. Fördraget handlar delvis om vårt lands suveränitet. ...................... mer

Marianne Samuelsson och

Birger Schlaug om EMU och Lennart Daléus

Lennart Daléus reserverade sig mot centerpartiets partistyrelses beslut, han drev aktivt frågan om EMU. Med Daléus vid rodret skulle centern således kunna bli ett av de partier som hårdast driver en EU-positiv linje med ett EMU-medlemskap inom räckhåll.

Daléus kan kosta på sig att med rak rygg säga att det var hans eget verk ­ hans egen inför folkomröstningen bildade organisation Grönt Europa ­ som lyckades dra tillräckligt många osäkra väljare till ja-sidan för att det skulle bli ett knappt ja till EU på valdagen.................... mer.

Aftonbladet Torsdag 26 mars 1998 EU glömmer fråga folket

Sverige kommer inte att vara med när EMU blir verklighet nästa år. Skälen för utanförskapet är starka. EMU är ekonomiskt riskabelt och saknar verklig demokratisk förankring.

EMU-bygget, rest på ett fundament av tysk ekonomisk politik och fransk ängslan för tysk överhöghet, lider av grundläggande demokratiska brister. Med EMU upphör de demokratiskt valda nationella regeringarnas möjlighet att själva bestämma avgörande delar av den ekonomiska politiken........ mer

Magnus Blomström i DN 98-02-02

... Även om dessa gynnsamma effekter kan bli betydande finns det få professionella ekonomer som ser dem som tillräckliga för att man ska motivera att dagens växelkurssystem avskaffas. De flesta nationalekonomer framhåller att Europa inte är något optimalt valutaområde. Det beror främst på att regionens arbetsmarknad är alltför stel och därigenom oförmögen att hantera externa chocker.

Den europeiska arbetskraften är extremt orörlig och fackföreningarna mycket konservativa. Om till exempel en region eller ett land i ett framtida europeiskt valutaområde skulle drabbas av ett kraftigt relativprisfall i priset för exporten och arbetskraften vägrar att flytta till ställen där det finns jobb eller att anpassa (sänka) sina löner i enlighet med den nya situationen, i så fall är en ökad arbetslöshet ofrånkomlig.

Som det förhåller sig i dag kan EMU därmed jämföras med en tryckkokare utan säkerhetsventil.

Det finns utan tvivel överhängande risk för att arbetslösheten kommer att öka i kölvattnet på det monetära enandet, särskilt om man tar hänsyn till att arbetslösheten i de flesta europeiska länder redan är hög. Så med tanke på att många regeringar är svaga är sannolikheten för att hela EMU-projektet ska kollapsa mycket stor.

En snabb blick på Europas sentida historia bekräftar farhågorna. Två tidigare försök att få till stånd ett intimare monetärt samarbete mellan Europas stater - med Werner-planen 1971 och EMS (det europeiska monetära samarbetet) 1979 - har båda misslyckats. Sannolikheten för ännu ett, större, misslyckande har inte minskat: inga egentliga säkerhetsventiler har skapats.

Trots detta tror jag att EMU är bra för Europa............ mer

Motion av Margit Gennser om Amsterdamfördraget

Massarbetslösheten kickstartades 1991-92 i Sverige när regering och riksbank med höga räntor försvarade en övervärderad krona i en kraftig internationell konjunkturnedgång.
Sten Johansson, chef för Fackföreningsrörelsens institut för ekonomisk forskning
DN Debatt 1998-02-28

Uppslutningen kring EU:s konvergensprogram långt in i partierna till vänster om mitten har lett till att en keynesiansk analys av det ekonomiska läget med tillhörande stimulansåtgärder knappast alls förekommer i debatten. Det tredje lägrets analys och program är effektivt blockerat av konvergenspolitiken för EMU och dess fortsättning i stabilitetspakten.

Massarbetslösheten kickstartades 1991-92 i Sverige när regering och riksbank med höga räntor försvarade en övervärderad krona i en kraftig internationell konjunkturnedgång. Snabbt fallande inflation och hög ränta i kombination med 1990-91 års skattereform ändrade realräntan för hushållen från den absurda nivån minus 2-3 procent (man tjänade på att låna) till plus 10-12 procent (skulder blev ohyggligt dyra).

Resultatet blev ett fall i inhemsk efterfrågan motsvarande mer än 10 procentenheter av BNP när hushållen började spara och amortera sina lån ovanpå fallet i utlandets efterfrågan.

Effekterna på sysselsättningen av det inhemska efterfrågebortfallet är fortfarande i stort sett kvar, eftersom den offentliga sektorn tvingades börja spara när budgetunderskottet ökade till fantastiska 13 procent av BNP.

Den måttliga privata konsumtionsökningen sedan bottenläget på sommaren 1993 motbalanseras av neddragningarna i den offentliga konsumtionen.

Det överstora sparandet i den svenska ekonomin syns i de senaste årens bytesbalansöverskott på 2-3 procent av BNP och i det underutnyttjande av arbetskraften som drygt 10 procent utan riktiga jobb utgör.

I detta perspektiv klingar det falskt när regeringen berömmer sig av att statsbudgeten visar överskott, inflationsmålet överträffas och bytesbalansen går med stort överskott, när vi samtidigt har massarbetslöshet.

Det är inte tecken på klok hushållning utan på grovt slöseri med landets största tillgång: folks vilja och förmåga till produktivt arbete.

De sista 2-3 procenten sparade på budgetsaldot, de sista tiondelarna på inflationsmålet, miljarderna i bytesbalansöverskott leder till samhällsekonomiskt slöseri.

Mot den bakgrunden menar jag att det finns utrymme för en 2-3 procent lägre skattekvot än den regeringen nu siktar på.

Sten Johansson, chef för Fackföreningsrörelsens institut för ekonomisk forskning.

http://www.dn.se/DNet/articles/38000-38099/38061/deb28.html

Mats Svegfors svarar 98-02-2?

Charlotte Cederschiölds brev till ledarsidan är, på samma sätt som Staffan Burenstam Linders tidigare inlägg, av betydande intresse.

Båda är uppenbarligen helt fångade av den konstitutionella parallellen mellan å ena sidan EU:s parlament och å den andra de nationella parlamenten.

Charlotte Cederschiöld säger att EU-parlamentet är "ungt". Det är bara fråga om tid innan historien har lett fram till att EU-parlamentet har en samhällsställning som de nationella parlamenten. "Då har beslutsprocesserna krympt ihop till en".

Detsamma gäller EU:s så kallade tre pelare. Charlotte Cederschiöld talar också om "majoritetsbeslut" i rådet. Parlamentet har, i hennes föreställning, därmed blivit Europas riksdag och rådet har blivit dess regering.

Moderaterna företräder uppenbarligen en fullt utvecklad Europafederalism i EU- parlamentet. Det är åtminstone för mig en stor nyhet.

Charlotte Cederschiöld har fel när hon framställer min och SvD:s skepsis till denna Europafederalism som en avvikande röst i en europeisk kör.

I Europa, om än inte i EU- parlamentet, är det denna långt drivna Europafederalism som är extremståndpunkten.

mer av Svegfors om EMU

Staffan Burenstam-Linder är aktuell i EMU-debatten. Läs här vad han sagt och gjort tidigare.

Kjell-Olof Feldt varnar för ekonomisk och monetär union

Är det rätt väg?

Men för ställningstagandet till EEC:s program för ekonomisk-politiskt samarbete är ändå svaret på följande fråga avgörande: är den typ av samarbete, som EEC-staterna nu inlett och stakat ut den framtida färdriktningen för verkligen ägnat att nå de syften som vi eftersträvar? Är det den väg som Västeuropa ska beträda för att bl a minska konjunktursvängningarna och närma sig det hittills ouppnådda målet att förena full sysselsättning med en rimlig grad av prisstabilitet?

För det första innebär samordningen att vissa medel, t ex på skatte- och kreditområdet, blir helt obrukbara på nationell nivå utan att de ersätts av motsvarande resurser på gemenskapsplanet.

Såvitt jag förstår går detta rakt emot den utveckling som man under årtionden sökt åstadkomma, nämligen att bygga ut antalet medel i den ekonomiska politiken och göra dem till så precisa instrument som möjligt. Det har framkallats av insikten att den höga ambitionsnivån och de smala marginalerna i det expanderande fullsysselsättningssamhället kräver punktinsatser som till sin art och tidsdimension växlar inte bara mellan länder utan också mellan regioner, branscher och företag.

En europeisk stormarknad skulle i ännu högre grad än dagens nationella marknader ha behov av sådana variationer i den ekonomiska politiken.

Mardrömslik konstruktion

Teoretiskt sett skulle det finnas en lösning på detta problem. Det är att beslutsbefogenheterna flyttas över till starka och välutrustade centrala organ - ett europeiskt finansdepartement och en europeisk centralbank - som har möjlighet att spela med alla ekonomisk-politiska medel för att få tillräckliga variationer och nyanser Men det lär inte behövas någon längre utläggning för att visa det mardrömslika i denna konstruktion.

Att av en halv kontinent, omfattande 10-12 länder och med omkring 300 miljoner invånare, göra en enda stat reser demokratiska, politiska och administrativa problem av enorma mått.

Det man har skapat är en federativ statsbildning, där federationen har alltför få och alltför trubbiga instrument och där delstaterna ur samordningssynpunkt är alltför starka men ändå berövats möjligheterna att bedriva en självständig politik.

Det finns faktiska exempel i vår värld på sådana federativa statsbildningar som varken är tillräckligt centraliserade eller tillräckligt decentraliserade för att kunna föra en effektiv ekonomisk politik.

Hela artikeln av Kjell-Olof Feldt

Inger Ohlsson om obefintlig EMU-diskussion

German economics professors call for delay of EMU

David Owen: "Yes to Europe, No to federalism"

The Economist 98-01-24, utdrag

David Owen explains how he reconciles his pro-Europeanism with opposition to British membership of a single European currency.

Lord Owen was Britain’s foreign secretary from 1977-79 and EU co-chairman of the international conference on the former Yugoslavia from 1992-95.

MY POLITICAL career has been dominated by the question of British membership of the European Community. I have resigned three times, with the EU as the most important issue each time. On the first two occasions, I was protesting against the Labour Party’s negative attitude to Europe. In 1972 I resigned with Roy Jenkins from my position as a junior defence spokesman for the Labour Party; and in 1980 I stood down from the Labour shadow cabinet when the implacably anti-European Michael Foot was elected leader.

Despite my commitment to the European Community I have never been at any stage a federalist, or a believer in a United States of Europe.

When I campaigned for Britain to join the EC in general elections from 1964 to 1970, I believed that it was not inevitable that the European Union would become a single state. I believe that even more today, with at least 11 nations due to join. But even if, regrettably, it does become such a state I hope it would be without the participation of the United Kingdom.

For Britain to join a single European currency would represent a quantum leap in the pooling of sovereignty. It is not just economic sovereignty which can be forgone by adopting the euro, but political sovereignty as well.

Much is written about the changing nature of the nation-state. Most people accept that change here is inevitable, but while they may not be able to define the nature of the state in which they want to live, they know they will recognise when that state no longer exists.

Some of Britain’s ambivalence about the euro is rooted in a sense of unease about where we are heading if we just acquiesce in another move towards integration, and appear to be becoming a mere province of Europa.

I want to believe that the British people will not allow their government to give up the pound and join a single European currency if they sense that to do so is to forgo some of the essential sinews of nationhood, which are still worth preserving in the 21st century.

Such policies will be very different from British foreign policy over the last 1,000 years. More relevantly, it will be very different from that practised over the last 25 years.

Remember the Gulf

The EU was not ready to act in concert in November 1997 when there was clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was circumventing the UN inspectors charged with stopping him developing all three weapons of mass destruction—biological, chemical and nuclear.

The French and Germans had their own interests to protect and they too as member states must be free to take independent action. The British government made its own decision and Britain on this occasion would have acted militarily with America. Had we been locked into qualified majority voting as part of an EU Middle East policy, we would not have been able to block an EU policy that would not have supported military action. It is worth reflecting on this incident, for it encapsulates most of the deeper questions about continuing on the path of integration and eroding national independence within the EU.

For continental european politicians a single currency is above all a political not an economic issue. It is a return in history to the Empire of Charlemagne Charles the Great from 768 to 814 which stretched from the Atlantic to the Danube, from the South of France to Holland. That had a central silver coinage and some historians have termed it the ‘first Europe’ with its own international executive class.

Since the Second WorId War there has been a less dramatic but determined drive to build on the back of the European Coal and Steel Community a democratic or third Europe. This deliberately concentrated on a continental Common Market core of six nations. Winston Churchill advocated it for Europe but not for Britain. General de Gaulle openly opposed widening it to include the UK but did talk of a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.

In 1973 the Channel was crossed and the UK included in an enlargement to nine. This ‘third Europe’ has always had amongst its leaders people who aspire, often only in private, to a United States of Europe. They see the USA as the most successful continental size federation and they want to achieve over time the same degree of integration.

This is, even though I believe profoundly misguided, a legitimate objective. But it is only honourable if it is openly and democratically espoused.

Unfortunately in some countries and for the most part in the UK those who want such an outcome operate by stealth, denying this is their ambition while edging constantly towards it.

There have also been failures particularly when attempting to realise the ambitions of its federalists. The most ambitious federalist project was the Pleven Plan for creating a European Defence Community, but this was eventually rejected by the French Assembly in August 1954.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the federalists made their first attempt at monetary union with the Werner plan. This was for the total and irreversible convertability of currencies, the elimination of margins of fluctuations in exchange rates, the irrevocable fixing of parity rates and the complete liberation of movements of capital. The Werner plan for the Common Market was to include all members and was supported by Edward Heath’s government but never put to the test in the British Parliament being quickly consigned to the wastepaper basket after the oil price shock of 1973.

It is salutary to reflect that had it been established it would have been blown to smithereens by the after effects of the Arab Israeli war.

Chancellor Kohl’s refusal to champion further integration during the 1997 negotiations prior to and during the Amsterdam negotiations may be a pointer. As is the fact that he has stopped referring in speeches to the goal of a United States of Europe. What is now emerging is a multifaceted Europe.

How should the UK handle this new EU? Where lies the true destiny of Britain? I believe it is to say ‘Yes’ to Europe but No to Federalism.

A Political Currency

The political origins of the euro are that after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 a pact was formed initially between the Chancellor of Germany and the President of France early in 1990 well before the formal reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990.

The motivation of Helmut Kohl was to demonstrate to his friend Francois Mitterrand that France had nothing to fear from a much larger Germany for they would put their Deutschmark with the French franc into a single currency to forge out of the ‘third Europe’ the historic ‘first Europe’.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was the manifestation of that Franco-German political deal but its detail had within it compromises of a deeper significance. For while the Ministry of Finance in France conceded to the Bundesbank on the design of an independent European Central Bank so Germany conceded to the Elysee and Quai d’Orsay the crucial three intergovernmental pillars:

I. Economic; II. Common Foreign and Security Policy; and III. Justice and Home Affairs Policy, which are written into the Treaty. Thereby, Maastricht, for the first time, put Treaty parameters to the extent of European integration. It also left Britain and Denmark free to decide, as they have both done, not to give up in 1999 their own currencies.

Since Maastricht Sweden has taken the position that they are not obliged to put their Kroner into the Euro in 1999 and this flexible interpretation of the Treaty will in practice be on offer to all new entrants even ifnot offered formally by the EU. Because the motivation for a single currency is political the criteria for entry spelt out in the Maastricht Treaty will continue to be stretched for these political leaders have vested too much of their own personal credibility, for the 1999 start date to be postponed. In fairness the criticism is not that they lack vision but that they are taking an immense risk with the political, as well as the economic, stability of Europe.

By the mid 1980s I had begun to argue that ERM entry would be advantageous. Margaret Thatcher did not allow the then Conservative Government to join but acquiesced as Nigel Lawson shadowed the Deutschmark for far too long when the government should have introduced higher interest rates to cool the economic boom. Margaret Thatcher’s government then compounded this error by entering the ERM at a too high a rate.

It was John Major’s government which then defended the pound at an absurd cost rather than seeking the very currency readjustment which was allowed under the rules. The ERM was by design a flexible system for stabilising rates but the politicians saw maintaining the rate as a national virility symbol.

That same vice was followed by British governments, Labour and Conservative, after the Second World War under the Bretton Woods fixed rate system most damagingly by Labour before the devaluation of 1949 and again in 1967.

Although this rigidity about exchange rate policy was deeply unfortunate at least we were able to adjust the value of the pound or as we did in 1992 leave the ERM. To give up the pound and to join the euro means that there is no way out short of breaking the Treaty and recreating one’s own currency.

My political career since 1962 has been dominated by the question of British membership of the European Community but only since 1992 has a single currency been seen as the test of one’s Europeanism. In the early 1960s the leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell, was someone I greatly admired. He had a passionate pride in the British nation’s capacity to lead but also the intellectual rigour of mind to warn against the political risks of joining a common market which had federalist ambitions, He dismayed friends like Roy Jenkins but he demonstrated a statesmanship that led millions to mourn his premature death a few months later. On 21 September 1962, I watched Hugh Gaitskell on television reply to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s broadcast of the night before. He asked if Macmillan wanted to enter a European federation. If so it ‘means the end of Britain as an independent nation; we become no more than Texas or California in the United States of Europe. It means the end of a thousand years of history it means the end of the Commonwealth to become just a province of Europe.’

The need for convergence

A country in the single currency facing a political crisis because of high unemployment and falling living standards has no currency of its own to adjust, no interest rates of its own to change —there is no safety valve. Many independent economists do not believe the necessary economic convergence in Italy, Spain or Portugal exists for a stable euro. The EU collectively will be hard pressed to help for it is barely able to face the redistribution costs inevitable in the process of enlargement over the next seven years.

For the single currency to survive not just interest rates will have to be the same. Much of the anxiety about the sustainability of the single currency relates to the fear that some participating countries will in an economic downturn balk at the discipline required. Also their electorates will not understand why other member states still outside the euro, have a far greater measure of national economic decision making, for example in letting their currency float downwards or upwards or to decide to run larger or smaller deficit.

There is a need for cool, clear minds to focus on the issues of substance and disentangle the propaganda.

The British people will need convincing before they will endorse such a massive economic and politica1 commitment. Particularly when they register that a single currency by its very nature cannot be put up for periodic review. No country can step out of the euro without appalling and largely unforeseen consequences for itself and for Europe in general. It is effectively an irrevocable decision.

European Defence

All that really separates the 1995 Dayton Accords from the EU Action Plan was two years of continued war, massive further ethnic cleansing and loss of life, Both plans gave the Bosnian Serbs 49% of contiguous territory. By contrast the so-called Vance Owen Plan gave the Serbs only 43% of territory in three unconnected provinces.

A Common not a Single Foreign and Security Policy

In European parlance ‘common’ means a concensus policy, ‘single’ means a majority policy. The majority coming from either delegated power stemming from an institution like the Commission, the Central Bank or from a qualified majority vote of the Council.

The worst peace or war decision taken in British foreign policy since Suez was the decision not to veto in December 1991 EU recognition of Croatia and Slovenia because it triggered the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Under the Maastricht Treaty, which had not even been ratified at that time, there was no obligation on Britain to agree, only to try to find common ground; this France and Britain had already done.

On 8 November 1991 the EC issued a Declaration in Rome which stated that the prospect of recognition of the independence of those Republics wishing it, can only be envisaged in the framework of an overall settlement. Given the German government’s strong views it would have been legitimate for Germany within the EC to invoke an overriding national interest and to recognise unilaterally.

It was perhaps not surprising, in view of the Franco-German alliance, that it was the French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas who first gave in to the Germans but it was surprising when he was followed by Douglas Hurd who had eloquently argues for months against recognition. It was a deeply damaging face-saving EC consensus taken despite the opposition of Lord Carrington, Chairman of the EC Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, Perez de Cueller, the UN Secretary General and Cyrus Vance, peace negotiator for the UN.

here is no ground for believing, as some claim, that the French would have acted differently if qualified majority voting had existed on the Foreign Affairs Council. France would not only have been unable to isolate Germany on the Council, It had become by then a French national interest to accommodate the German viewpoint. The UK also felt grateful to Chancellor Kohl for his understanding over the Maastricht negotiation and his readiness to support our euro opt out. There was probably no explicit bargain struck just an understanding reached that we would be more flexible over matters of real concern to Germany.

Given the negotiated ceasefire between the Croats and the Serbs at the end of the year the problems created by recognition could have been overcome if it had not been compounded by going forward with the recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina

The US, who had opposed recognition of Croatla in December 1991, became very active in pushing for recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the spring of 1992 but the situation was very different. This was the one internal republic of Yugoslavia that contained three large constituent peoples -Muslim, Serbs and Croats -with very different views on independence. Recognition wIthout the prior presence of a substantial UN Prevention Force was a recipe for war.

The Yugoslavian 1991 recognition debates within the EC are a sombre warning of how dangerous decisions, with the predicted consequence of an even bloodier war, can be made in an atmosphere where maintaining unity among the member states becomes an end in itself.

hela artikeln

BBC Thursday, January 22, 1998

CBI puts the brakes on EMU

The Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, Adair Turner, has criticised the rush towards European Economic and Monetary Union (Emu).

Addressing business leaders and politicians in Berlin, he said there were strong arguments for delaying the introduction of a single European currency.

The CBI has in the past been strongly supportive of Emu and Mr Turner himself insists he is a pro-European.

However, he told his German audience that he was not willing to sign up for a blank cheque called "ever closer union".

He insisted that the CBI had not changed its position. He said Europe should integrate certain things that made sense, but not necessarily everything.

In particular he said there was no need to integrate social and fiscal policy. Although Emu did imply some form of economic co-operation, he said it was not necessary to fully integrate the tax-and-spend policies of different governments.

Mr Turner criticised those European Union governments who are pressing for the early introduction of the single currency. He said Emu was going ahead in less than ideal conditions and therefore carried risks.

He argued that high unemployment and the poor state of public sector finances in many EU countries were reasons for delaying the project.

He accused governments of ignoring such problems in their desire to rush ahead and called for them to get away from "grand slogans".

He said there had been inadequate debate of the pros and cons of monetary union and said Europe's leaders should listen to public opinion. He believed many others across the continent shared his view.

He said the whole of Europe should discuss which aspects of economic policy should be integrated as part of Emu, instead of leaving individual countries to pick and choose.

Fortsättning - Continued

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