Major heads calls for effective EU

Pro-European Tories, led by John Major, challenged the Eurosceptic approach of Iain Duncan Smith yesterday by saying that the EU might need to be given more powers during a review of its governing treaties.

A group of 20 senior Conservatives set out what they called a positive European strategy for the Tories in a submission to the convention on the EU's future chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former French President.

While calling for decisions to be devolved from Brussels to national governments, it did not back Mr Duncan Smith's call for powers to be "repatriated" to member states.

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, the group's chairman and a former European Commissioner, said the report showed that Tory Europhiles were "alive and well."

He said: "The purpose is to show that there are a large number of people within the Conservative Party who think seriously about this issue." Lord Brittan added that Mr Duncan Smith would not agree with the report but would not "rubbish it" either.

Other signatories include Lord Heseltine and Lord Howe of Aberavon, both former deputy prime ministers; Lord Hurd of Westwell, the former Foreign Secretary; Kenneth Clarke, the ex-Chancellor; John Gummer, the former Cabinet minister and Lord Garel-Jones, a former Minister for Europe.

They said: "An effective EU can be even more crucial for Britain's welfare in the future than it has been in the past.

"It is urgently necessary for British Conservatives to provide a constructive input, if we are to influence the character and structure of the Union. Our approach has the support of vast numbers of Conservatives, even though their voice may not have been heard."

The group said it would be a mistake for the EU to become a "fully federal state" and planned measures to halt the "ratchet effect" under which more powers are grabbed by Brussels.