I'll probably write a fair bit about the EU constitution: another central issue of the times that no doubt the BBC will get present arse first, so to speak. Here's an initial response:


BBC on EU : 'The show goes on'.

No sooner has Tony Blair on Breakfast with Frostie hailed a battle to allow 'reality' about the EU to be distinguished from 'myth' (obscured, so the story goes, by the narrow europhobic press), the BBC obliges with a helpful Q&A: EU- Myths and Realities.

The overall tone of this report indicates that 'myth'= anything scary about growing EU powers, while 'reality'= everything's right and fairly proper in the EU garden.

So, to each vaguely anxious 'question' about the increase in EU power intrinsic to the constitution the answer is negative.

Asking whether the EU constitution will lead to a 'United States of Europe' (like the US), the response is unequivocally 'no'. If you read the explanation, however, it is clear that while in some areas qualified majority voting is extended (in fact wherever it's not otherwise stated qualified majority voting will be applied)- to immigration for instance- in no cases is it diminished. Thus, the balance described between people wanting more integration and those wanting to preserve national powers is false, since the movement in the Constitution is all one way. Who knows whether it will 'lead to' a USE; what's clear is that it's a step in that direction.

Asking whether having a Foreign Minister means having a common foreign policy the BBC comment with apparent wryness, 'not in the EU'. As the BBC comments, however, without 'agreement' the EU Foreign Minister will be 'powerless'; therefore, unless he or she is an idiot, the Foreign Ministers will spend his/her time weighing and balancing the EU's individual interests to get agreement. From another vantage point this might mean arm-twisting and shoe-horning various national representatives. I was particularly alarmed by the BBC's assumption that the EU were united in their view of the 'Middle East Peace Process'. That may be true, nominally at present, but I would not want under any circumstances to be tied to French foreign policy over Israel.

Coming away from reading the BBC's analysis, I feel that I have had contact with an idealist's vision of how the Constitution will work; one which anticipates nationalistic fears but not the practical concerns (and experiences) on which most fears are grounded.

Anyway, for an example of that apparently hopelessly biased euro-sceptic press, The Times' Financial editor David Smith's EconomicsUK site is a place to bookmark. Currently running an impressive article on intelligent economics-based scepticism, if current trends continue people like him will be a little more critical of the drive for integration than the BBC.