A few extracts from CBI Director General Richard Lambert's speech at an event organised by pro-euro groups Centre for European Reform and Business for New Europe, 18 June:
“After talking to hundreds of companies around the UK in the last twelve months here’s my view on how British business views treaty changes, which are going to be discussed this weekend. The fact is the subject almost never comes up. Most companies I’ve talked to think it’s pretty much irrelevant. The reasons for that are pretty plain – if they think of treaty change at all they think of it more in terms of risks than opportunities. They see few potential benefits for business and some potential hazards.”
“And some business people ask the question: do we need these treaties anyway? The failure of the draft Constitution has not has catastrophic consequences, the eurozone economy has been rising at its briskest pace over the last nine months for the first time in some years… the union continues to function, despite the accession of twelve more countries over the last three years. The institutional framework continues to operate, the European Court has not collapsed into chaos, laws get passed, decisions get made. So the question people ask is: isn’t just this all just a total waste of time, a distraction from the real big issues which the union has to face: the current failing trade round, budget reform, energy security and climate change”
“But being on the margins of the treaty change debate does not mean that business is detached from European debates as a whole – far from it.”
“Until the matter is resolved one way or another, the treaty debate is not going to go away. Europe’s leaders will just go on gazing at their navels, engage in endless - and sometimes irritable – internal debate, ignoring the big issues and opportunities that Europe is facing in the big world.”
“The decisions to be taken over the weekend – if a deal is struck among the member states – those decisions will be intensely political in character and there is no political consensus in British business about what kind of trade offs and compromises might be acceptable next weekend, or about how far Mr Blair and Mr Brown could go without promising a referendum. No consensus – so I’m not going to go down that road this morning.”
“The conclusion is that there is a window of opportunity here – but it’s not as a result of treaty change, but through the shifting courses of European politics. For business I think that means getting more involved in European debates where they matter. Being clear about what would make the single market effective, being clear that its member states who need to raise their game and being clear about where we want Europe to act and not to act.” Focussing on those areas where collective action will do more to further Europe’s position of the global stage than if we just go plodding along in our own merry way. I think it’s these issues that the business community really needs to get stuck into, and let’s hope that this will be possible once the dust that is probably going to be raised in the next few weeks has started to settle.”
This is a major blow to the Government. The CBI previously campaigned for the euro, and the Government were hoping that they could hide behind the CBI on the new version of the constitutional treaty. But it looks like the CBI has wisely decided to steer clear of taking flak for the Government. Given that the new version of the text would still cut Britain’s power to block legislation by 30%, and inevitably mean even more costly EU regulation – it is not surprising that the CBI members have “little zeal” for the new version of the constitutional treaty.
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Showing posts with label pro-euro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pro-euro. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
What a shambles
The pro-euro camp have come up with their case for the new mini-constitution.
It's a joint publication of the Centre for European Reform and "Business for new Europe" - a ludicrous front group set 'inspired' by Peter Mandelson, which operates out of the offices of a lobbying firm called Finsbury.
Its a very amusing read.
After a good deal of beating about the bush, it tries to make the case for the new text.
One arguement is that the mini-Constitution is needed for enlargement. Eh? Didn't Sarkozy just say that Turkey is never coming in? As his aide Alain Lamassoure put it: "EU leaders have been lying to Turks for the past few years and the new French leadership believes we must stop doing so… The sooner we will have the courage to say this openly to Turkey the better."
We don't mean to be harsh but has there ever been, at any point, any suggestion whatsoever from France that they might let in Turkey if we sign up to the mini-Constitution? Or is this 100% pure self-delusion?
Another old argument is then dredged up. If we say no there will be "a loss of British influence". In fact "The Germans would not be amused that Britain had effectively destroyed what they hoped would be the crowning achievement of their EU presidency" (ooh - nasty).
Its difficult to know where to start with this sort of defeatist argument. One basic point is that we have already tried making sacrifices to look communautaire. Where has it got us? Take the EU budget negotiations - we gave away over £7 billion pounds for nothing but the promise of a "review" later.
The reality is that we need to have our own vision and insist on it. If your first priority is never to have an argument then you will never get anywhere.
Another argument is that if we said 'no' then "The more integrationist countries would start talking about ‘variable geometry."
One word: "great".
A flexible Europe (multi-speed is the wrong word because it implies everyone is going in the same direction) is the only way out of the EU's fundamental dilemma: some member states want more integration, other want less.
Lastly and leastly, the supposedly 'clinching' argument for the mini-Constitution is that the Union would become less capable of dealing with the many external challenges it faces". The paper lists Doha, the middle east, and Kyoto 2 as examples.
But the EU has flunked every one of these challenges. It is the main obstacle to a real development round. During the hostage crisis, EU members refused to endorse even the most mild sanctions on Iran (like no more export credits). And the EU's resposne to climate change is a joke: EU Emissions are up, not down, since it signed Kyoto, and the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme is a catastrophic failure which as squandered a fortune while allowing emissions to rise.
If we are ever going to get the EU to take these things seriously, the last thing we should do is legitimise the current EU's failings by giving it more power. The answer instead is to make our continued £10.5 billion a year payments to the EU conditional on progress - for example a meaningful Doha offer.
The bottom line, and the fundamental difference in our approach, is that we believe you don't get what you want in Europe by just going with the flow. Over the last ten years (maybe even the last 35) we have tested that idea to pretty much destruction. Now we need a fresh start, not more of the same.
(PS - you can get our contrasting take on the mini-constitution here)
It's a joint publication of the Centre for European Reform and "Business for new Europe" - a ludicrous front group set 'inspired' by Peter Mandelson, which operates out of the offices of a lobbying firm called Finsbury.
Its a very amusing read.
After a good deal of beating about the bush, it tries to make the case for the new text.
One arguement is that the mini-Constitution is needed for enlargement. Eh? Didn't Sarkozy just say that Turkey is never coming in? As his aide Alain Lamassoure put it: "EU leaders have been lying to Turks for the past few years and the new French leadership believes we must stop doing so… The sooner we will have the courage to say this openly to Turkey the better."
We don't mean to be harsh but has there ever been, at any point, any suggestion whatsoever from France that they might let in Turkey if we sign up to the mini-Constitution? Or is this 100% pure self-delusion?
Another old argument is then dredged up. If we say no there will be "a loss of British influence". In fact "The Germans would not be amused that Britain had effectively destroyed what they hoped would be the crowning achievement of their EU presidency" (ooh - nasty).
Its difficult to know where to start with this sort of defeatist argument. One basic point is that we have already tried making sacrifices to look communautaire. Where has it got us? Take the EU budget negotiations - we gave away over £7 billion pounds for nothing but the promise of a "review" later.
The reality is that we need to have our own vision and insist on it. If your first priority is never to have an argument then you will never get anywhere.
Another argument is that if we said 'no' then "The more integrationist countries would start talking about ‘variable geometry."
One word: "great".
A flexible Europe (multi-speed is the wrong word because it implies everyone is going in the same direction) is the only way out of the EU's fundamental dilemma: some member states want more integration, other want less.
Lastly and leastly, the supposedly 'clinching' argument for the mini-Constitution is that the Union would become less capable of dealing with the many external challenges it faces". The paper lists Doha, the middle east, and Kyoto 2 as examples.
But the EU has flunked every one of these challenges. It is the main obstacle to a real development round. During the hostage crisis, EU members refused to endorse even the most mild sanctions on Iran (like no more export credits). And the EU's resposne to climate change is a joke: EU Emissions are up, not down, since it signed Kyoto, and the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme is a catastrophic failure which as squandered a fortune while allowing emissions to rise.
If we are ever going to get the EU to take these things seriously, the last thing we should do is legitimise the current EU's failings by giving it more power. The answer instead is to make our continued £10.5 billion a year payments to the EU conditional on progress - for example a meaningful Doha offer.
The bottom line, and the fundamental difference in our approach, is that we believe you don't get what you want in Europe by just going with the flow. Over the last ten years (maybe even the last 35) we have tested that idea to pretty much destruction. Now we need a fresh start, not more of the same.
(PS - you can get our contrasting take on the mini-constitution here)
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