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		"Two-speed Europe" - threat or opportunity? Lincolnshire Echo - March 8 2004 After the failure of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) in Brussels last December, there has been a lot of press comment on the views of Tony Blair and of other Labour ministers on the EU Constitution. The truth is that a lot of people in the Labour party are profoundly relieved that the draft Constitution has been kicked into the long grass -- perhaps even until after the next General Election. Some ministers have privately criticised Blair for being too "evangelical" about EU integration and the Constitution. There was an enormous head of steam building up in the UK behind demands for a referendum, and cooler heads in the Labour Party knew they could never win that referendum. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, and the British people don't vote to be governed by Brussels. But what is really driving Blair on Europe? He knows he's out-of-step with the public opinion, yet he keeps pushing the issue. According to the papers, he's very worried that if he isn't "at the heart of Europe", and at the forefront of integration, then a "two-speed Europe" will develop, with some states including France and Germany pressing ahead with deeper integration, and others (as he would say) "left on the sidelines". He fears we'll be "isolated and excluded". He thinks that this will damage both our "influence" and our prosperity. Of course he's wrong on both counts. The "influence" we're supposed to get if we tug our forelocks and behave like good Europeans, is illusory. The moment we try to cash it in -- for example, as Blair tried to do last year on CAP reform -- we find it turns to dust and ashes in our hands. Anyone who watches the French knows that you get more out of Europe by being defiant than by trying to be a good European. He's equally wrong on prosperity. As we move towards global free trade, the benefits of the Single Market become relatively less important, while the appalling regulatory costs of the European Social Model continue to mount. The last thing we want for our economy is to be "at the heart of Europe". We're much better off on the periphery -- which is where we seem to be on most maps I've looked at! To tell the truth, I hate that phrase "A two speed Europe". It suggests that we're all going the same way, but some will arrive later than others. But we're not all going the same way. Some, especially France and Germany, are hell-bent on creating a political union in a unitary state called Europe. But most people in Britain, and in Denmark and Sweden and many of the new accession states, want no such thing. We have quite different destinations. We want a Europe of nations, not a Nation called Europe. Rather than trying to force many different states into the same centralised model, why can't we respect the opinions and aspirations of the people? Let those countries that want to, form their political union. And let the remainder have an associated status based on free trade and intergovernmental co-operation. We in the Conservative Party see this as the way forward. We call it not two-speed, but "variable geometry". We want a flexible Europe that responds to the identity and aspirations of its people. We believe this offers all the benefits of EU membership, in terms of jobs and trade, without the massive costs. As for influence, we believe we shall have more influence as a great, independent, global trading nation, a member of the UN Security Council, the OECD, the World Bank, the G8, NATO, and the Commonwealth, than we could ever have as an off-shore province in the People's Republic of Europe.