Straw calls for EU constitution to appease sceptics
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Your support makes all the difference.Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, will launch a campaign today to convince Britons of the benefits of the EU by calling for a written European constitution and fresh checks on the power of Brussels.
Mr Straw will begin a mini-tour of the United Kingdom with a speech in Edinburgh urging the creation of an EU constitution "for the people and communities of Europe, not the political elites". He will also call for a new "Subsidiarity Watchdog", a body of MPs from all nation states that would monitor "unnecessary" Brussels directives.
After Edinburgh, Mr Straw will fly to Belfast to meet David Trimble, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, to repeat his message. Similar trips will be made to Cardiff next month. He will stress that Labour's commitment to devolution should form a model for the whole of the European Union, with nation states forming the core of any new settlement in an enlarged EU.
Downing Street and the Foreign Office have been wary of the "federal superstate" implications of a written constitution but Mr Straw has warmed to the idea over the past year. An overarching statement of the EU's governing principles is a feature of the current negotiations by the Convention on the Future of Europe, a discussion body headed by Valery Giscard D'Estaing, former French president.
In his speech, Mr Straw will say the EU "must be something for its people, not its governments" and reverse its top-down approach developed in the 1950s. "Decision-making is transparent only to those in the upper echelons of government. It means most voters have never felt the EU has a direct impact on their lives," he will say.
"We have to make the EU better understood. We must explain what Europe does and doesn't, what should be at European level and what is best left to member states at national, regional or local level. The lack of clarity creates the impression power is draining away from national governments to Brussels."
The Foreign Secretary will point out that many in the Convention favour greater powers for the EU in Brussels, but Britain supports that only in cases of fighting crime and immigration. "There is a case for a constitution which enshrines a simple set of principles, sets out in plain language what the EU is for and how it can add value, and reassures the public that national governments will remain the primary source of political legitimacy."
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