UK's clout in EU will fall under Tories
Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Stumble Upon
Fark
Newsvine
YahooBuzz
Bebo
Twitter
Independent Minds
EPA
Labour will seize on Mr Barroso's remarks as evidence that the Conservatives would be isolated if they win the election
enlarge
Britain will lose influence in Europe if the Conservatives win the general election, the president of the European Commission has warned.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the conservative former prime minister of Portugal, delved into party politics to criticise David Cameron's decision to pull his MEPs out of the main centre-right bloc, the European People's Party (EPP), in the European Parliament after elections for it are held in June. The move is effectively a divorce from the parties of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Mr Barroso, who met Mr Cameron in London yesterday, said: "I regret that decision. My party is a member of the EPP and I regret this decision because in Europe [it is] the main political parties and the main political families that really shape the European agenda... Of course these are the most influential families in Europe."
Labour will seize on Mr Barroso's remarks as evidence that the Conservatives would be isolated if they win the election. Ministers have already claimed Mr Cameron is out of step with world opinion on the economy because he opposes a fiscal stimulus to combat the recession.
Mr Cameron promised to leave the EPP, which many Tories regard as too federalist, during his 2005 campaign for the Tory leadership. His party formally served notice of his decision in Strasbourg last week. The Tories will form a new group in the European Parliament along with Eurosceptic parties from the Czech Republic and Poland.
Yesterday the Tory leader said: "I believe profoundly that we have got to have in politics a sense that if you say something in Westminster you say the same thing in Strasbourg and Brussels. I believe we should be in the EU but we don't want to see further transfers of power from Westminster to Brussels. We think that process of integration has gone too far already."
Mr Cameron insisted he had had a "very good" meeting with Mr Barroso and was "a big supporter" of the Commission's president, who was backed by Gordon Brown yesterday for a second spell in the job when his five-year term expires in October.
Mr Cameron was speaking at his monthly press conference, where he signalled that an incoming Tory government would freeze the BBC licence fee in a drive to force public bodies to "deliver more for less". The fee for a home with at least one colour television will rise from £139.50 to £142.50 next month as part of a six-year deal agreed by the Government in 2007.
Mr Cameron said he opposed the latest increase – which will raise an extra £68m for the corporation – and hinted the party would veto further rises if it wins the election expected next year.
The BBC Trust said: "Funding stability is important to the BBC's creative and editorial independence."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
why did we even to bother fighting off the nazi`s in WWII if we`re just going to hand over our country to people like this idiot.
im sorry to say Mr Barroso but its not your decision which party runs our country. its the peoples choice not yours. and i would thank you kindly if you would stay out of our inland affairs.
we need cheap credit and public work projects, that alone will jumpstart our economy.
some dodgy plan thats going to result in our country being in huge debt is just not going to work.
Outside the main conservative grouping in the European Parliament, the Tories are likely to be ignored, especially if they form a group with some of the serial nutters they have been trying to court. People should ask quite seriously whether electing Tory MEPs on June 4th is a serious waste of the expenses and salaries they will draw over the next 5 years. The 12 UKIP members elected last time ahve hardly covered themselves in glory since.
It's all about credibility. No nation state is "independent" in today's world. Countries must cooperate to survive. The EU is far to important and established to ignore. Either we engage properly with it, and fight Britain's corner from within, or we risk making ourselves a laughing stock. For the Tories to leave the EPP is a short-sighted decision which I feel they will live to regret.
Personally as a UKIP supporter I would prefer for them to stay in the EPP because it would destroy any pretensions they have to be ,even , mildly Eurosceptic . However as someone who is a UK patriot any move away from total subservience to the EU has to be good news.
They are desperate to get back into power and will say anything. Huge donations from big business will flow to their party come the elction along with arm twisting to ensure offshore tax havens carry on as before.
Roger Farmer.
Alicante.
Can someone also explain to me HOW not belonging to this chic and cosy little club of conservative thinking parties will lose us influence, this EU chappie has in one hit exposed that the EU is one heck of a corrupt place if you follow his meaning and inference.
We have have gone to war for generations to be independent.
Any Plc here would be crucified without it, and they can gat away with it for 10+ years!
Wake up man, nobody is forcing Little England or Little Britain to stay in the EU but Little England or Little Britain itself, who votes anti-EU parties for the EU parliament, where they are powerless, absolutely powerless, to progress their agenda, but not for the British parliament, which is the only entity that is SOVEREIGN (do you know what this means, surely not....) to enact legislation to withdraw the UK from the EU.
2 - The BBC is funded by the government, which implies it is partly dependent on it, which also dwindles its chances of criticizing the governement, whatever its political colour. Ponder that carefully.
If the EU parliament and Commissioners believe they are so superior that they need not consult the electorate or listen when it speaks, then they have no valuable role to play in governing my life. I am content that we should continue close trading ties with Europe, but this country never agreed to cultural integration and, whilst that may happen naturally in time, attempts by politicians to impose it are unacceptable. Cameron must pledge to put the Lisbon Treaty to the country for acceptance, irrespective of when he may form a government, and it should be rejected for the duplicitous work it is. The EU has a valuable role to perform, but not in the corrupt form it is at the moment.
That would be different from UK domestic politics how exactly? How many marched against the Iraq war, only to see it start anyway? The list is endless.
Most major reform, such as workers' rights, in the UK has come from Brussels, not the UK's own "representatives" in Westminster.
We want a referendum on The Lisbon Treaty and then decide what further action is needed to redress the cancerous creep of the EU stealing our sovereignty.
Time to leave the EU - it is even more overbearing and authoritarian than our government, and that is saying something.
But - must be careful - I believe that it is now an offence under EU law to criticise the EU.
As to that piece of tosh put out by the BBC Trust: 'Funding stability is important to the BBC's creative and editorial independence', I'd laugh if it wasn't so serious. They stopped being creative or independent years ago!
How dare this former Communist tell the British people how to vote. The British people want a change of Government and a changed approach to this corrupt entity called the EU.
As for the Tories decision, this is only the first of what I feel may be a number of decisions (assuming they gain power) that will isolate us in Europe. Pulling out of this will put the Tories on the sidelines in Europe.