by Paul Lines

Created on: January 18, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

I will try and shed some light on the events currently happening in the European Union. First of all I should point out that England, as an individual country does not have independent membership. It is the United Kingdom that is a member state. The United Kingdom comprises of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It should be said here that there have been rumblings in Scotland about having independent membership for some time. Nevertheless, at the moment we are in the globally unique position of being a union within a union.

EURO CURRENCY
Prior to the new states joining the EU at the beginning of 2007, of whom most are planning to join the Euro currency within the next three years, UK and Sweden were the only countries that had not joined, basically because the public don't want it. At present the UK pound is worth about 1.48. Although the government are saying publicly that they are in favour of joining the Euro, most people in the UK see the currency change as giving away another part of our sovereignty.

UK VETO
The UK has the ability to Veto the affect of a number of actions that could be taken by the EU. This includes such areas as tax, defence, and foreign policy. It has been used several times during the course of our membership, sometimes quite effectively. However, at the same time, particularly in cases of tax, the government has given up certain elements of our veto where they consider it to be "in the nations interest." At no time have these relinquishing of veto elements been put to the public vote. It is like everything that you give up of course; it is then impossible to get it back. These actions have been harshly criticised in Parliament, as you can see from the response to the European Tax Harmonisation (Veto) Bill [H.L.] back in 1999.

The UK veto, which is more extensive than any other member state, does not of course add to our popularity with the French and Germans.

EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION DRAFT
Back in 2003, the EU drew up a draft constitution. If you have the patience to read a 265-page document, it can be found here. This is the proposal that has caused so much controversy, and which France, although it was their idea in the first place, the Dutch, UK and others have rejected so far. The basic intention of the constitution was, in effect, to create a single country, similar to the USA. The result would be that the EU would become a legal entity in its own right. Had it been achieved, international representation would have been at EU

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