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- Wednesday 11 November 2009
REF Letter on European Energy Policy
Sir, In the UK much public anxiety about the European Union mistakenly revolves around its supposed intrusive and unbridled strength. On the contrary, the fundamental cause for concern is that the EU is in practice far too weak to protect the interests of its member states (leading article, Nov 4).
Indeed, the EU bureaucracy, for all its bluster, cannot effectively exercise even a small part of the power currently sought by the executive. The contrast with the United States is sharp and instructive, but this weakness cannot be remedied through any Lisbon or other treaty fiat. Power of a federal kind can only be built incrementally, and with the consent and approval of the member states, who will cede actual authority when it is justified by an increase of security and wellbeing, and not otherwise.
Until the EU deserves respect and has earned the right to rule, we will need national governments to order and defend our societies.
In practice this is precisely what is occurring: witness the gulf between the increasingly pragmatic national approaches to energy and climate change, and the unfeasible and counterproductive mess that passes for EU policy on these matters.
Dr John Constable
Director of Policy and Research, The Renewable Energy Foundation