I attended another weekly start up meeting yesterday where we were given a look at the draft policies for reforming the EU. The aim is to get feedback from each of the Libertas national parties before the core policies are finalised.
Obviously this was a slightly tense moment; would they fulfil the promised rebirth of the EU, or would they just be tinkering with the Lisbon Treaty? Well, I am glad to say that they ticked my boxes.
Democracy and national sovereignty were at the core of the policies, while encouraging more willing cooperation between nations, to replace an increasingly centralised system that imposes unnecessary legislation on unwilling member states. Spot on.
Obviously there is still more to do on them, but I am greatly encouraged by what I have seen so far. The next step for us in the UK is to look at how these policies would affect us in practice, and how we can ensure that British interests are looked after.
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4 comments:
The "unique selling point" of Libertas is the fact it's a pan-European party pushing for more decisions to be made at nation state rather than the european level.
Talking of "looking at how these policies affect the UK" and "ensuring British interests are looked after" makes it sound like Libertas is just a confederal coalition of parties - putting its USP at risk. Frankly I doubt if Declan has put all this effort into this party to stand by while it descends into that.
It's certainly not a coalition of parties. I mention the UK end of it because that is where I am involved. It would be remiss of us not to ensure that Britain's interests are looked after, just as we would expect the Libertas groups around Europe to do the same for their countries. That way we ensure that no one is left behind or ignored, and we get to see different perspectives from all around Europe.
There would be no point in Libertas coming up with a new style of European governance if it didn't resolve the problems that the British public have with the current EU.
For a party that is arousing so much interest it would be good if you came clean on your policies. It is still very hazy where you stand on EU security policy. It is EU policies that are leading to a compulsory European biometric identification and surveillance system via the biometric passport. It is EU policy that will allow the sharing of data between police forces; so whilst we may defeat a National Identity Database in the UK, the Govt/Police can feasibly store this 'offshore'. Let's have more discussion of your policies in these pages.
Libertas is very unlikely to have a central policy on this at all for the moment. Libertas is about changing the system to make it more democratic, accountable and transparent. Until we have such a system, the policies of MEPs are mostly irrelevant because it is the unelected commissioners and bureaucrats driving the agenda on issues such a biometrics.
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