You are in:
- Archives » 2006 » June 2006
Inside The EPP
Should Conservatives care about their party's links with the EPP? The glorious leadership, is trying to convince them to look the other way. Tories who voted for leader David Cameron on the basis of his promise to withdraw from the ultra-federalist grouping think otherwise. Trouble is, the European Parliament is so inconsequential that few Brits really know what the EPP is, who it represents and what its values are.
So a big thanks to blogger Iain Dale, who has published an email from a "Brussels insider" with a few thoughts on the EPP. The Tories' links to this group - whether under fiercely Eurosceptic previous leaderships or the current lovin' liberal bunch - look more bizarre every day.
"The EPP is rightly described as the most pro-integration Group", writes the insider, "But it is also very protectionist and poujadist, and this fits very oddly with the former. They are very supportive of the CAP and fisheries policy at a time when the Commission wants to reform them and they have obstructed attempts to liberalise services in Europe. They are also very unhelpful in the fight against fraud, and support export subsidies and trade barriers. Their position on economic issues is often to the left of the Labour Government's...
"As for our influence, claims of such are spurious (...) What influence we do have is a number of meaningless offices - a vice-president here, a coordinator there that satisfies individual members that they have personal influence, despite evidence to the contrary. The conventional wisdom here is supported by lobbyists, who prefer to deal with as few groups as possible and like saying to their clients that they know someone who is a member of the largest group.
"Incidentally, it has been claimed that a number of our potential allies (Ed's note: Should the Tories leave the EPP and form their own party in the parliament) are unsavoury. But they are not more so than those we are set to leave. Berlusconi's recent campaign was openly anti-gay and many in the EPP are very hostile to Islam.
"...The Conservatives need to form an alliance with those whose main focus is on Europe's chronic need for reform; and if some of them are not eurosceptic, so be it. Until then we are stuck in a group dominated by a Rhineland mentality that is as outdated as the Cold War."
