Altiero Spinelli fonds - European University Institute

unitary Europe. That is a dream which I do not
share and which those who elected me to this
House do not, and never will, share.
We have a different dream and aspiration, a
dream whereby a nation such as my own, the
United Kingdom, would take back to itself the
sovereignty and essential independence which it
lost when it joined the EEC. We aspire to being
once again able as a nation to be masters of our
own destiny, to determine and pass our own laws,
free from the indignity of abject subjection to the
whim of external powers, able to decide and follow
our own policy without having to scrape or
bow to faceless bureaucrats in Brussels. That is the
dream and aspiration which I and my people hold.
Therefore this resolution and report ·is one to
which we can give no encouragement or support.
Our experience as a nation and Northern Ireland's
experience as a region in the EEC has, I believe,
strengthened the desire of my people to be no part
of the organic European unity which this report
would lead us to. A much-lauded European dream
has even, though still in its early stages, proved to
us more of a nightmare, and an expensive nightmare
at that.
However, forthright opposition to European unity
in the form of a United States of Europe does not
make one an isolationist. There is all the difference
in the world between sensible and considered
cooperation between neighbouring states for their
mutual benefit and blind, contrived cooperation
for the sole purpose of enforced fusion between
the states concerned. My objection is only to the
latter, and that is why I am happy to encourage
the essential cooperation which exists within the
Council of Europe and NATO and also that which
we previously enjoyed through EFT A. This type
of mutually beneficia! cooperation between equal
and soverei.giJ. nations is possible and desirable
and can be obtained without prejudice to what to
me is all important, the sovereign independence of
those cooperating.
The collective economie and security needs of the
nations of Europe can be more than adequately
catered for through associations which do not
prejudice our sovereignty. For example, it does
not take a Unjted States of Europe to give security
and protection to Europe. The security of Europe
is catered for through NATO, not the EEC, and
therefore this argument that the security of Europe
demands politica! unity is utterly spurious. It
is cooperation ,without surrender of national
sovereignty that is, I believe, the right way forward
for us all today.
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De Voorzitter.- Het woord is aan de heer Rogers.
Mr Rogers. - Mr President, I am very glad I am
speaking at this point in the debate in order to
follow the remarks of the British nationalist that
we have just heard. If ever there was an argument
for European union, it would be clear from listening
to the blind dogma that Mr Paisley preaches in
this Chamber and outside. That blind nationalism
which unfortunately comes into many people's
minds ançl into their arguments is the mentality of
the cavemen, a ghetto mentality which prevents
evolution. It prevents development. Whereas I
may well land up on the sarne side of the fence in
voting with Mr Paisley, I certainly would not
want it to be assumed that I am there for the same
motives. I have not fought the nationalists in
Wales, which, perhaps more than Northern
Ireland, has claim to be a separate country with its
own customs, traditions and language, to come to
Europe and preach British nationalism.
Having said that, Mr President, I would now like
to address myself to Mr Spinelli's report and to
state my reservations about it. The Spinelli report
is an important document, and I congratulate him
on the work he has clone in committee with his
many revisions of the original draft that he was
forced to make. It was indeed a complete and total
revision of his new testament, and unfortunately
the last version is just as pious as the first.
The chairman, Mr Ferri, referred to me in committee
as the Devil's advocate, and quite rightly
so, because I think I was often the only one to
question the basic assumptions made by other
members of the committee. But may I suggest
very humbly that there is a slight possibility that I
may be right and everybody else on the committee
was wrong?
I found the composition of the committee very
interesting in that I often felt that members were
talking to their mirror images, talking to the
converted. As Mrs Boserup said quite rightly a
little earlier, there was this underlying presumption
of inevitability that wènt through all discussions,
that European union was inevitable anq,
indeed, the only step forward. Underlying most
contributions was an assumption - may I say
kindly, an arrogant assumption - that the people
of Europe were crying out for European union.
Indeed, the report in one of its paragraphs states
that public opinion is crying out f9r progress
towards politica! union. My feeling, from the contracts
which I have with people, is that the people
of Europe are probably thinking the opposite, that
they want government to come closer to them, to
become more relevant jo them, that they want to
HAEU AHUE HAEU AHUE
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