To: Electronic Telegraph <et.letters@telegraph.co.uk>

Re: A constitution for a European Federation: German President's speech to the European Parliament

Date: Fri, 6 April 2001

 

 

 

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Dear Sir/Madam,

 

So where was your German or Europe correspondent the other day when the German President, Johannes Rau, made his historic speech to the European Parliament? I didn’t find a single mention of it in the Telegraph.

 

Was this because your correspondents were asleep, or because President Rau’s ideas on a constitution for a European Federation were so reasonable, attractive and contrary to how you like to portray German intentions, that they undermine your paper’s policy of rubbishing anything that could strengthen Britain’s ties with the Continent?

 

You seem to think that the more involved Britain gets with Europe, the more it will weaken our ties with America. I disagree entirely: with Britain firmly in Europe we will be in the best possible position to keep Europe and America together – where they belong.

 

Allow me to quote a few of the things he said (expect for the first quote and what I have otherwise placed in square brackets, I have simply copied the translation I found on the German President’s homepage: http://www.bundespraesident.de

 

“The diversity of our cultural wealth must not become a play thing or victim of uniformisation by global media interests.”

 

“[A] European constitution [would not be] the "final touch" of the European structure, it must become its foundation. The European constitution should prescribe that Europe will not become a cen­tralized super state but, rather, that we are building a federation of nation states.”

 

According to one argument against a constitution which is frequently put forward, every ad­ditional step in the integration process is a further step towards a European "super state" and towards the abolition of nation states.  But those, like me, who support a federation of nation states, want quite the opposite!”

 

“No-one wants to do away with the nation states and their sovereignty. On the contrary, we will need them and their distinctness for a good while yet, as guardians of diversity in Europe.”

”. . . .The systems of government of our European countries have grown historically, . . . they are different democratic responses of equal value to certain developments in history. And it is precisely because Europe is not moving towards a single centralized state, nor should it, that we must find a basic political principle which is in keeping with this desire, preserves our different traditions and which takes into account the situation in Europe today. This basic political principle is the federation.”

”A federation is characterized by the fact that every member state makes its own sovereign decisions on its constitution and system of government. I do not want Europe to decide on the Federal Republic of Germany's system of government any more than I want to prescribe to others how they organize their own countries. . . . . We therefore need a constitution for the very reason that we do not want to become a single centralized state.”

 

“We should endeavour to anchor the principle of subsidiarity on a broader basis: only those matters should be decided at European level which the member states cannot better deal with themselves. That must be our guiding principle!”

 

The principle of “subsidiarity” (i.e. of devolving decisions to the lowest practical level) is very important, not only within Europe, but also with Britain itself.