The apology you won't be reading ....

Posted: Tue 23 Jun 2009 10 07 am

Conservatives and the EPP: the apology you won't be reading in tomorrow's press
Posted By: Daniel Hannan
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/06/22/conservatives_and_the_epp_the_apology_you_wont_be_reading_in_tomorrows_press

"In recent years, in common with other newspapers, we may have given the impression that, if the Conservatives left the European People's Party, they would end up sitting with far Right, homophobic and possibly anti-Semitic parties. In repeated headlines, we linked them to Italian neo-fascists, Third Reich nostalgics and other assorted crackpots.

Now that they have unveiled their allies, we have to admit that they have brought together a coalition of moderate Centre-Right parties - in many cases parties of government - and that many of the MEPs who have joined them are former ministers. It turns out that the Italian neo-fascists have in fact joined the EPP. Perhaps we should re-examine our automatic assumption that extremism and pro-Europeanism are incompatible.

We apologise for suggesting that the Tories would be part of a tiny, marginal group. It now seems likely that they will begin as the fourth largest group in the European Parliament, and may well attract more members in the near future. They will hold the balance of power during the Commission nominations.

Since the two Continental countries whose presidents have yet to ratify the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty are Poland and the Czech Republic, we concede that David Cameron will have much influence where it most matters.

The Conservatives will in fact be more potent in Europe than ever before. For the first time, they have a trans-continental a mechanism in place to advance their alternative to Euro-federalism. David Cameron was right. We, the pundits, were wrong."

Posted: Tue 23 Jun 2009 10 26 am

It'll be interesting to see how things pan out in practice.

Not that it matters much, since most of EU powers lies with the unelected commission anyway.

The parliament is little more than an (expensive) side-show, only there to give us plebs the illusion of democracy.