Letter from Geoffrey Martin EU Commission London in the Sunday Telegraph 10/12/00
Click on the blue text for amplification.
Five years ago the prominent Conservative Adrian Ferguson published a pamphlet called the Fiction prize for Booker'. It was based on Christopher Booker's weekly notebook in the Sunday Telegraph. On the evidence of his recycled offerings in his Notebook where your headline depicted me as "Europe's myth commissioner" (Nov 26) little seems to have changed. However, rather than attempting to correct some of this, I would like
to broaden the argument.
From my point of view, the term Euromyth is used to describe a wilful twist, rather than an
amusing put down.
Some are sheer invention.
But the more corrosive Euromyths are those which give an impression of EU decision making by un-elected bureaucrats rather
than government ministers.
This process leads people to forget that the single market
was not only created by national governments but ratified in Westminster as in the other national parliaments.
The result is
that we lose sight of a Europe (EU)
where voters elect MPs who monitor ministers who drive European (EU) policy.
Of course, British ministers
do not always get their own way. But the fact that the United Kingdom has been on the losing side of a vote only five times out of 85 in
the last two years
scarcely suggests a nation whose interests are trampled upon.
An atmosphere
has now been created, however, where it comes as no surprise that many people question why Britain is a
member of the EU.
How could they do
anything else, given the barrage of hostility they face every time they open their newspapers?
But one of the more
curious aspects of the EU debate in Britain is how few people are prepared to put the case for UK withdrawal.
Contempt for Britain's
partner governments and facile caricatures of ossified continental economies are the staple of the sceptic press.
But few seem
to have the courage to think publicly through to the logic of their positions. "In Europe but wishing that we were out of Europe" seems to sum up this trend.
There is an urgent need to
try to agree some common ground about the realities of Europe. Otherwise the country will be stuck in the groove of futile shadow boxing.
I believe that the
Eurosceptic press is causing great unease by virtue of its lack of honesty about the EU
and Britain's place within it.
In a democracy which respects freedom of expression, The Sunday Telegraph is of course entitled to hold strong anti-European
opinions. But to base
them on false claims on a regular basis can only undermine your position of influence.
Geoffrey Martin
European Commission
London SW1.