Opinion

EU scare stories are based on misunderstanding

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Newton Emerson
Newton Emerson Newton Emerson

Do you believe you have the right to live in another EU country? Chances are you do, as we have all been given that impression (complete with an ‘EU citizenship’ treaty, signed in 1992.)

However, the impression is mistaken. You merely have the right to work or study somewhere else. Otherwise, you must show you can support yourself if you wish to stay for more than three months. Failure to do so means you can be deported. There is absolutely no right to rock up in another country and sign on.

This fundamental misunderstanding reveals why the EU referendum will be an uphill struggle for David Cameron once campaigning gets under way. The awkward fact is that the UK’s problems with Europe are mainly caused by British attitudes to Europe - and that is going to be tough to explain, let alone to solve and sell to the electorate.

The myth of EU benefit tourism is the classic example. A Survation poll this week revealed it to be the top referendum concern, yet people can only rock up in the UK and claim benefits because this country allows them to do so. Europe has nothing to do with it. The UK also has a lazy liberal consensus that questioning a foreigner’s access to benefits is racist - but that is not Europe’s fault either.

Despite its undoubted federalising mission, the EU and its court the European Court of Justice continue to recognise the freedom of member states to set their own benefit rules. Scare stories to the contrary are either wholly wrong or as misleading as makes no difference. We send child benefit payments to Poland, for example, not because the EU makes us but because we have reciprocal welfare arrangements with countries across Europe - both inside and outside the EU - primarily aimed at allowing each other’s pensioners to retire abroad without getting deported three months later. Poland’s obligation to pay us its equivalent of child benefit may not be worth much in return (yet) but if that is politically unacceptable we can just drop the arrangement.

There is an EU issue with so-called ‘in-work benefits’, such as tax credits, which Brussels insists are paid to everyone. But that is because these are not benefits at all. They are effectively a component of salaries and it really would be racist to pay people different rates according to their country of origin. It would also breach one of the founding ‘common market’ principles of EU - principles the Tories say they want to return us to with their renegotiation and referendum.

The strongest objection to Europe in the Survation poll was to laws being made in Brussels, with 64 per cent of the 5,000 people questioned demanding that Westminster be able to override EU legislation. None of those surveyed - or those surveying them - appeared to realise that Westminster remains sovereign and can already override any EU law it likes. Better still, it can follow Germany’s example and pass a law declaring that all domestic legislation takes precedence over all EU legislation. Or it can just not enact EU legislation to begin with.

Like benefits tourism, the process of European ‘lawmaking’ is absurdly misunderstood. What Brussels actually makes, via its commission and parliament, are European directives. Member states are expected to work towards the aims of directives but they can implement them (or, frankly, not implement them) in any way they see fit.

The way the UK sees fit to implement European directives is to put every last word of them into domestic law. Nobody else does this and everyone else is amazed that we bother. The fault appears to lie with the professional culture of Whitehall, where civil servants take great pride in implementing the best damn directives in the EU (a process they obnoxiously refer to as “gold plating”.)

The result is the worst of both worlds in our Brussels relationships. While other counties nod politely through meetings then go home and do whatever they want, our representatives scheme and argue through meetings because they know they have to go home and do what is agreed.

How can any of this be confronted by a pro-EU campaign without sounding cynical or ridiculous? Is any side in Westminster prepared to say ‘oops, sorry, our fault all along’?

Our attitude to Europe should always have been: when in the Treaty of Rome, do what the Romans do. But it is far too late to start saying that now.

newton@irishnews.com