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Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt appeared on the Today programme to promote his book the “United States of Europe”.  He said, “I don’t think people have said that they are against a United States of Europe”.  The no votes in France and the Netherlands were, according to Verhofstadt, not “no votes against Europe, but were votes against a certain type of Europe… what people want is a strong Europe, a United States of Europe that can give an answer to their concerns”.  He argued that “even in Britain there are a majority of people in favour of a European defence”.  He said that he hoped that all 25 countries would sign up to a United States of Europe, but that if some were opposed a hard core should go ahead anyway.  Verhofstadt called for common European economic governance, common internal policies, a bigger and deeper Schengen area, a common European defence and European diplomacy.

Today

Guy Verhofstadt is of course right, but that could well be because the people have not been asked,  and that is the major problem with  the "Project" it is not so much undemocratic as anti-democratic.

  Baroness Harris of Richmond asked Her Majesty’s Government:

How many sections enabling Ministers to amend primary legislation by means of secondary legislation have been included in each Home Office Act passed from May 1997 onwards. [HL4543]

 The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): The table below lists sections of (and, in some cases, provisions in schedules to) Acts introduced by the Home Office since May 1997 which enable Ministers to amend primary legislation by means of secondary legislation. The table shows the provisions in the Acts as enacted. Not all are still in force and some have since been amended.

 This list is so long, Link

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