Samuel Brittan: A liberal case for scepticism of the EU

Financial Times, September 27, 2012

Since anything that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood, I must start with some disclaimers. 

I am not urging the EU should end. Like the Holy Roman Empire, it may spend many years in gentle decline doing little good and little harm. Nor am I urging that the UK or any other member state should leave the EU. 

What I am saying is that the EU no longer deserves the devotion of practical idealists. When voices in Paris or Berlin say the answer to any problem is “more Europe”, by which they mean more centralised power to EU institutions, we should turn a deaf ear. 

And when some leaders say that “without the euro there is no Europe” we should shrug our shoulders and look at an atlas to reassure ourselves.

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Federalism

Samuel Brittan