References are indicated in the text by an asterix. Click on the asterix to view the reference.
For a chronology of dates relating the the development of the EU, see a Brief History of European Integration
Cypriot membership extends only to the Republic of Cyprus and excludes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is not internationally recognized
Reported in the Sun, 14 November 2000
The main institutions of the European Union are:
The Council of Ministers
The Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER)
The European Council
The European Parliament.
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg
Economic and Social Committee
Letter in Daily Telegraph, 4 January 2000
A dictionary of political thought Roger Scruton, Pan Reference, 1982
Inaugural address to the Bundestag, 10 November 1998
It should be stressed that the merits of the metric system over imperial (or vis-versa) is not the key issue. That being said, it is clear from numerous opinion polls that Britons of all ages have a preference for the traditional imperial system. See the British Weights and Measures Association for more information on this subject.
Commission Regulation (EEC) No. 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 states (article 2B) that 'Extra' and Class 1 cucumbers must "be well shaped and practically straight (maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber)."
The minimum acceptable banana should be 5.5 inches long and 1 inch wide. Commission Regulation Number 2257/94 detailing the regulations covering the quality standards for bananas, includes the provision that they be free from "abnormal curvature".
For an analysis of the process of deception used in dealing with 'Euromyths' see The European Community: Facts and Fairy Tales - A Review
Lord Tonypandy of Rhondda, Speaker of the House of Commons 1976-1983, Video address to the Referendum Party Conference, Brighton, 19 October 1996.
In Scotland, constitutionalists point out that the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath vests sovereignty in "the people." While there is a valid debate over whether the English concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty is applicable in Scotland, it is clear that neither the Scots nor the English constitutional tradition allows for the transfer of sovereignty to a supranational body such as the EU.
This commonly accepted definition of the Doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty is that given by Professor A.V. Dicey in 1885. See Dicey, The Law of the Constitution, 10th ed.(1959) at 67-8
Section II, Chapter 8, heading (d): "Measures for countering fraud against the financial interests of the Community"
The proposals are being drawn up by EU Commission (XX DG) which details an EU criminal code and code of procedure. Article 26.1 explicitly provides for cases (where the sentence can be up to seven years) to be heard by Courts "consisting of professional judges, excluding simple jurors and lay magistrates."
Winston Churchill, minute to the Home Secretary, 21 November 1943
Only 3% of EU citizens feel that they are European solely, 7% feel that they are primarily Europeans, while 47% feel they are firstly citizens of their own country and only then citizens of Europe. Eurobarometer No. 60, 2004
Statement to House of Commons, 21st June 2004
Interview in the Daily Telegraph, 26 April 2004
Reported in the Observer, 15 October 1995
Ernst & Young press release, 30 June 1999
Code of Practice adopted on 1 December 1997 to counter 'harmful tax competition' between the member states. Reported in Taxation 19 November 1998, p.189
Treaty of Rome Articles 87 and 88 (new numbering; Arts. 92 and 93 old numbering)
For example, the Inland Revenue has confirmed that the plans announced in the 1999 Budget for extending Capital Allowances in Northern Ireland (a measure planned to boost business investment in the Province following the Good Friday Agreement) fell foul of EU competition law. 'Tax harmonisation causes more headaches for Treasury' AccountingWeb, 17 June 1999. Similarly, the centrepiece of Gordon Brown's £16m initiative to boost inner cities (announced in his November 2000 Pre-Budget Report) is being held up by the European Commission while they are 'investigated' by the Competition Commissioner.
The institutional implications of enlargement. Report to the European Commission - 18 October 1999
House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report issued 25 August 1999.
Westminster press conference organised by Conservative MEPs, 3 August 2002
Reported in the Guardian, 3 August 2002
Based on figures from the International Monetary Fund
The added bureaucracy entailed by the Single Market is described in The Castle of Lies, Christopher Booker and Richard North, Duckworth, 1997. ISBN 0 7156 2693 0.
1993 OECD report Agricultural Policies, Markets and Trade
Daily Telegraph, 7 February 2001
HM Government, Central Statistics Office - The Pink Book 2004, United Kingdom Balance of Payments
Reported in the Guardian, 26 November 1997
HM Government, Central Statistics Office - The Pink Book 2004, United Kingdom Balance of Payments
Office of National Statistics, 11 March 2002.
Both investment and trade figures with the EU are distorted by the 'Rotterdam effect' whereby goods passing through Dutch ports en route to world destinations are classed as exports to the Netherlands and thus to the EU. Similarly, many multinational corporations are headquartered in Amsterdam. Investment into the Netherlands accounts for 49% of our investments into the EU. (Source: Office for National Statistics, December 1997)
Eurostat (the European Commission's statistical office) 1998
HM Government, Central Statistics Office - Annual Abstract of Statistics, 1999
HM Government, Central Statistics Office - The Pink Book 2004, United Kingdom Balance of Payments
Eurostat (the European Commission's statistical office) 1998
HM Government, Central Statistics Office - The Pink Book 2004, United Kingdom Balance of Payments
Developments in the EU, Jan-June 1996, HMSO 3469
Professor Sir Alan Walters, speech to the Referendum Party conference, 19 October 1996
Burkitt, Baimbridge & Whyman; the European Economies Research Unit at the University of Bradford
Andrew Brigden (Bank of England's monetary analysis unit), and Charles Nolan (University of Reading), Bank of England Working Paper, November 1999
Addressing the European-Atlantic Group in the House of Commons and later at the St. Ermin's Hotel, St James, London, 28 January 1999
Chronic Unemployment in the Euro Area: Causes and Cures, International Monetary Fund, 1999
Lombard Street Research Survey, August 1999
United Nations World Investment Report, September 2002
Eurostat (the European Commission's statistical office) 1998
Survey of 7,100 firms by the German Industry and Trade Association, December 1999
In its lead story of 28 January 1999, the Daily Express ran an article claiming that Bank of America Corporation was abandoning the City of London because of uncertainty over the euro. The bank emphatically denied the story. On 24 November 1999 the Daily Telegraph ran a story based on information from the 'Britain in Europe' group claiming that Rover, Fiat and Nissan were threatening to quit Britain unless the UK joined the euro. All three companies immediately repudiated the suggestion; Fiat stating it to be a 'total fabrication'. Confronted with these denials, 'Britain in Europe' claimed that "there may have been a genuine error". (Daily Mail 25 November, 1999)
See UK Membership of the Single Currency: an Assessment of the Five Economic Tests, HM Treasury, October 1997
The Treasury accepts that there has been little convergence between the UK and continental economies since 1997. Reported in the Financial Times, 1 January 2000
Eurostat (the European Commissionıs statistical office) 1998
Office of National Statistics, 6 July 2000
Reported in the Financial Times, 6 July 2000
Reported in the Daily Telegraph, 1 July 1999
Eurostat (the European Commission's statistical office) 1998
The economists published their manifesto for delaying the introduction of the euro in February 1998. An open letter was published simultaneously in the Financial Times and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Reported in the Daily Telegraph, 14 July 1999. Prof Hankel was one of the group of leading academics who attempted through the German courts to stop the launch of the euro. The possibility of Germany restoring the Mark has been seriously canvassed in the German press - see, for example, Focus 27 September 1999.
European Commission figures, issued on 4 January 2000, show that the euro was denominated in only 1.9% of transactions in 1999 - and only 0.5% and 0.37% of transactions in Germany and France respectively.
Poll by Dimap Polling Institute, reported in the Daily Telegraph, 7 June 1999.
Eurostat (the European Commission's statistical office) August 1999
Announcing the change in policy, Digby Jones, then director-general designate of the CBI, said that entry should be opposed unless euro-zone members agree to far-reaching labour market reforms. Reported in the Guardian, 3 December 1999
ICM survey of 1000 company chief executives, April 2004
British Retail Consortium evidence to the parliamentary Trade and Industry committee of MPs, 25 July 2000
Speaking at the British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Basel, Switzerland, 12 September 2000
See Report of The Commission on the £ Sterling, September 1999, 'The politics of EMU'
Inaugural address to the Bundestag, 10 November 1998
Dr. Willem F. Duisenberg 'The Past and Future of European Integration: A Central Banker's Perspective' The 1999 Per Jacobsson Lecture, Washington 26 September 1999.
Irish Independent, 3 December 1999
Reported in the Daily Telegraph, 30 March 2000
Daily Telegraph, 7 January 1999
Figures published in September 1996 by the OECD in Paris and subsequently confirmed by the Senior Economist at Merrill Lynch.
Reported in Frankfurtergemeine, 29 June 1998
Interview on Sky News, 10 November 1999
This tactic has been likened to the method used by the EU to seize control of another British maritime resource, fishing. The Common Fisheries Policy, which has proven disastrous both to the British fishing industry and to fish stocks, was slipped into the final terms of Britain's accession to the EU in 1973.
Article 104c of the Maastricht Treaty.
For example, The Times, Leading Article, 18 January 2001
Quoted in The Times 26 March 1999
Reflections on European Policy, CDU/CSU-Fraktion des Deutschen Bundestages, 8 September 1994
For an analysis of the complex German psychology with regards to Europe see German guilt; French phobias
Eurobarometer, Standard Report, 49, (1998), p41
Mori poll, 1-5 February 2001. 50% would vote to leave the European Union if they could be assured that our free trade with the EU would continue even if we left it. 13% were "don't knows" and only 37% would vote to stay in.
Harris Group polls for Le Monde, January 2001. An average of 56% of those polled in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Britain and Greece were dissatisfied. Only 38% thought movement towards EU unity was going well.
Runnymede Trust/Commission for Racial Equality survey, March 1998
ICM poll, 1998. Only 17% of 15-24 year olds and 16% of women supported the proposition that "Britain should join the European single currency as soon as possible". The figure for men was 25% and, over all groups, 20%.
Reported in The Times, 8 July 1998
Address to members of Germanyıs ruling Social Democratic Party, 9 December 1998
Britain's New Deal in Europe , HM Government, 1975
The Common Market's Werner Plan of the late 1960s proposed the total and irreversible convertibility of currencies; the elimination of exchange rate fluctuations and the complete liberalization of capital movements. The plan would have included all Common Market members and was supported by Heathıs government. It collapsed in the aftermath of the oil price shocks of 1973, following the Arab-Israeli war.
Cabinet papers released under the 30 Year Rule, 1 January 1993
BBC UK Confidential, 1 January 2001
Interview in Le Figaro, 7 May 1994.
In view of the euro's weakness, Germans unsurprisingly continue to be highly sceptical about the currency. A poll conducted by Stern magazine in June 2005 showed that 56% of Germans wished to see the return of the Deutschmark. Former German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl believes his support for the abolishing the Mark cost him the 1998 election. It was, he recalls an 'unreasonable demand' upon the electorate: "At no time ... was a common European currency a popular project." Helmut Kohl, My Diary 1998-2000.
Interview in NRC Handelsblad, 31 January 1998
Report of Commission on the Legislative Process 1993
The 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference: The Agenda, Democracy and Efficiency and the Role of National Parliaments, House of Commons Select Committee on European Law, 1996
The Baltic Times 26 November-2 December 1998
Reported in the Daily Telegraph, 27 September 1999
In military terms, Britain is authoritatively regarded as the fourth most powerful nation in the world, after the US, China and Russia. (Index of Martial Potency Royal United Service Institute, 1998)
Sir John Coles, British Influence and the euro, New Europe, November 1999
United Nations Statistical Yearbook, published annually
HM Government, Central Statistics Office - The Pink Book 2004, United Kingdom Balance of Payments
United Nations Human Development Index, Published annually
Reader's Digest survey of 4,000 people in 19 EU states. June 2004
Survey from business consultants KPMG
World Economic Forum report, July 1999. Singapore is top of the competition league, followed by the USA and Hong Kong.
Key Facts, Department of Trade and Industry, 2004
Better off Out? The Benefits or Costs of EU Membership, Brian Hindley and Martin Howe, Institute of Economic Affairs, 1996