Robert Oulds

As the Convention on the future of Europe completes the draft EU Constitution it must be considered that there is a positive alternative to EU centralisation.

The European Union, as a result of its own policies and structures, is an organisation in terminal economic decline. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's Constitution will accelerate that process. This will inevitably lead to its political collapse - excessive integration will be the end of the European project.

Britain should work with those New European states and other nations like Portugal, which, once the EU Constitution comes into force, have unfortunately tied themselves into an arrangement that is wholly unacceptable to them. Together we must disentangle Europe from the EU.

Britain needs to form new relationships with countries in Europe and beyond - coalitions of the willing - where the UK can co-operate without compromising our democracy and for mutual benefit with like-minded sovereign states. Instead of the United Kingdom following in the wake of the Franco-German axis, future British Governments must become leaders in the quest for a European and global free-trade association. Positive alternatives to the EU exist and must be vigorously pursued.
A new Europe must be sought where the European Union is just one small part, comprising of those states that want to be governed by a single Unitary Government. A re-alignment of European politics must be sought. The consequences of not doing so will be economically and politically disastrous.

EU centralisation is the product of yesteryears outmoded supranational thinking. The EU is a thing of the past, Britain and like minded allies should make it that way.

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- NOTES TO EDITORS -
Bruges Group representatives are available for interviews and quotes on the implications of the proposed EU Constitution and other topical EU related issues. The positive alternatives to EU centralisation can also be outlined.