PR threat by Brussels

A SLOW-BURNING fuse on yet another Euro timebomb was lit yesterday with a demand that the UK make more effort to march in step with the rest of Europe and adopt a limited form of proportional representation to elect MEPs, writes Sarah Lambert.

'This proposition is a big step towards enabling the UK to move towards PR without jettisoning their own political and institutional structures,' the French Christian-Democrat MEP, Jean- Louis Bourlanges, said.

Karel de Gucht, the Belgian Liberal who has piloted the Bill, said it would be on the agenda at the Copenhagen heads-of-government summit in June and, if not satisfactorily resolved, a priority of the Belgian presidency thereafter. He admitted it might be difficult to have the changes in place for the 1994 European elections but suggested that if the British did not alter their system soon, other member states could take them to the European Court of Justice for breaching the founding Treaty of Rome. Under that treaty, the European Parliament was mandated to propose a uniform rule for Euro-elections.