PM supports EU in Poland

Friday, 30 May 2003 12:00 AM

Tony Blair is continuing his tour of the world with a stay in Poland designed to bolster its campaign to join the European Union.

The Prime Minister spoke in Warsaw this morning about the importance of membership, Britain's role in Europe and the prosperity the Union creates.

Poland will go to the polls on the 7th of June to decide on whether to join the EU, and although it is expected that they will vote in favour, there are concerns that the turnout will be too low to permit ratification.

Tony Blair is appealing to people to get out and vote so that the Polish government does not have to find a two-thirds majority in parliament to back accession.

Speaking today, Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that the majority of Europe viewed the EU as a union of nations rather than a federal superstate.

"In particular as Europe co-operates more, indeed as the whole world moves closer together, there is all the more need to root the European vision in the identity of the nations that make up Europe."

"I believe in Europe because I believe membership of the European strategic alliance is a crucial part of the British national interest," said Mr Blair.

"For Poland as with Britain, our strategy should be: get in it, make the most of it, have the confidence to win the debate not be frightened by it."

In respect of calls for a referendum on the forthcoming European constitution, Mr Blair said that such a move was unnecessary, as it did not represent a fundamental change to British parliamentary democracy.

The idea that British patriotism meant being anti-Europe was an "out of date delusion", he insisted.

Mr Blair alluded to what he described as 'the frights and terrors about Europe designed to spook us - the end of a thousand years of British history, absurd stories that we'll lose the proceeds of North Sea oil, we'll lose our seat on the United Nations Security Council, we'll lose two million jobs, we'll be forced to drive on the right'.

'These are just the latest in a long and undistinguished line of such propaganda, trotted out at every step of European integration and whose real purpose is to provide the basis for British withdrawal from Europe', he claimed.

The Conservative Party continues to insist that the constitution treaty is of significant import to warrant a national vote on its provisions.

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