http://www.voxpolis.com/2005/we-must-have-the-mussolini%e2%80%99s-round-to-dinner/ Politics, culture, surrealism... Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:32:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 http://www.voxpolis.com/2005/we-must-have-the-mussolini%e2%80%99s-round-to-dinner/#comment-37 Vox Polis » Blog Archive » William Hague on the Conservative’s EU policy Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:54:16 +0000 http://joseki.redirectme.net/wordpress/?p=12#comment-37 [...] William Hague is to outline the Tory policy on the EU tonight. This is what he’s going to say. Looks like they’ve decided to move away from their “hardline” approach on the EU towards New Labour’s “heart of Europe” policy. Vox Polis will be there tonight to ask some difficult questions about the removal from the EPP. We were originally favourable to the idea but when we see who they’d have to team up with (fascists, populists and homophobics) it looks like the idea isn’t going to work. It looks like the Tories agree (Telegraph article today). This is an important time for Europe. One year ago the EU Constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters, in an unprecedented shock to the process of European integration. Treaties have been rejected in referendums before, but never by two countries, let alone by Member States from the founding Six.The impact of the shock was matched by the importance of the document the referendums rejected. It was not the first Treaty to signify a great change to the European Union, but it was intended to be a turning point. Quite apart from the changes to voting or EU competences, the attributes it would have given the EU - legal personality, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a foreign minister, the fact that it was a Constitution, not a simply a Treaty – would have revolutionised the EU. As the German Europe minister at the time described it, it was ‘the birth certificate of the United States of Europe’, or, in the Belgian Prime Minister’s words, the ‘capstone’ of a ‘federal state’. [...] [...] William Hague is to outline the Tory policy on the EU tonight. This is what he’s going to say. Looks like they’ve decided to move away from their “hardline” approach on the EU towards New Labour’s “heart of Europe” policy. Vox Polis will be there tonight to ask some difficult questions about the removal from the EPP. We were originally favourable to the idea but when we see who they’d have to team up with (fascists, populists and homophobics) it looks like the idea isn’t going to work. It looks like the Tories agree (Telegraph article today). This is an important time for Europe. One year ago the EU Constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters, in an unprecedented shock to the process of European integration. Treaties have been rejected in referendums before, but never by two countries, let alone by Member States from the founding Six.The impact of the shock was matched by the importance of the document the referendums rejected. It was not the first Treaty to signify a great change to the European Union, but it was intended to be a turning point. Quite apart from the changes to voting or EU competences, the attributes it would have given the EU - legal personality, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a foreign minister, the fact that it was a Constitution, not a simply a Treaty – would have revolutionised the EU. As the German Europe minister at the time described it, it was ‘the birth certificate of the United States of Europe’, or, in the Belgian Prime Minister’s words, the ‘capstone’ of a ‘federal state’. [...]

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