“I grew up in Bavaria, where the European Union and Nato were simply part of my political landscape.” So writes Gisela Stuart, Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, in today’s Sunday Telegraph. Coming from the heartland of Europe and now representing the pro-EU Labour party, Stuart is pleading for broader, deeper, wider integration, right? Very, very, wrong.
“The EU cannot continue with its current structure. Politicians can no longer rely on the electorate’s implied consent or promote deeper political integration by stealth without making the institutions accountable. Trying to create political union, let alone any European identity, from above undermines any tendency for one to grow naturally; and to establish monetary union — now in so much difficulty — without political union was asking for trouble.”
Gisela Stuart’s conclusion is sobering: “Europeans will never view the union as the citizens of California and Texas see the American union. Without this, political union in Europe is impossible. If the potential benefits of co-operation between Europe’s nation states are to be realised, the EU needs to be closer to the vision of the former West German chancellor Ludwig Erhard, a fellow native of Bavaria: a commitment to free trade, but otherwise much less power to the union and much more for member states.”
Stuart’s Telegraph article comes at a time when talk of Brussels bailing out troubled Euro zone members such as Ireland, Greece and Spain is in the air. If any of these countries were to “wobble”, the architecture of the Euro would crack, but “bailing out” would have to go beyond Brussels-dictated fiscal discipline. It would put the “economic” and the “union” into economic and monetary union and these are steps that those (from Bavaria to Birmingham) who treasure national autonomy fear more than almost anything else because it would open the back door to political union. A recipe for disaster, argues Stuart.
(11 votes, average: 3.64 out of 5)
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Looking at Gisela Stuart’s ideas in more depth might be a good project actually - she for sure did not support these sorts of views at the start of the Convention on the Future of Europe. Then something happened, and she now sounds rather bitter in interviews.