EU Constitution Coverage

and you can tell that, even though i haven't passed comment on the "europe situation"? how very patronising of you.

With the greatest of respect, I think it might be you who misunderstands ''the Europe situation''.

Whilst I would agree that - sooner or later - with China, Russia, and to a lesser extent the US, all expanding, there will have to be even more economic co-operation than there is now. The UK will not have a great deal of choice other than to involve itself with the Euro... or the Euro will not have a great deal of choice other than to involve itself in the UK.

However, the problem that a great number of people feel is that what was once an economic bloc, dealing with only coal and steel, has now become an all encompassing body, trying to impose the social and governmental values of a few unelected people on to 25 highly individual countries.

The Economist put it pretty well this week when they said that Europe's slogan should be the reverse of that on the Seal of the United States. Not ''Out of Many, One'', but ''Out of One, Many''.

The only thing that unites European countries is that we are all entirely different and fighting for different things. It should be telling those in Brussels something about trying to unite Europe when two countries (UK and France) are against the Constitution for diametrically opposite reasons.

I've spent the past three years studying the European Union, and whilst I started out positively, the further you look the more you see just how dangerously managed and undemocratically run the thing is. I wouldn't want us to pull out of Europe, that would be economic suicide, but politically we have benefited in relatively few areas from membership.

Blimey, your position has changed over the last three years - I remember when you were one of the forum's leading europhiles.

I agree with your assessment that there have been a few political and social benefits from being in Europe, but total withdrawal from the EU (I position I don't yet support but have been moving gradually towards for years) would not likely cause an economic catastrophe. It would be a disaster if we moved away from the trade area though. (I'm not sure on the true situation on EU membership and its relationship to trading agreeements - perhaps you could clarify for me, cat?)

Britain historically runs a trading deficit with Europe (meaning we buy more from Europe than they buy from us), and, other than sanctions, there are no examples in history of one country's businesses not doing business with those in another company because there was not an international political agreement like this between the two.

As someone who's always personally liked the French, it's nice and surprising that they have seen through this rather transparent attempt to impose more supranational structure over independent nations.

Perfectly feasible that we could leave the EU and rejoin EFTA (http://www.efta.int/) and the EEA, thereby giving some European co-operation and EU trade without tariffs.

The reason we left EFTA was because of problems with trade with the EU - we traded more with them than EFTA, so it made sense at the time. There was no EEA at the time, so they couldn't trade with the EU freely without joining it.

I imagine if the EEA had been around 50 years ago, then the UK wouldn't have been in the EU. More complicated than that, obviously, but still.

The fact is that we were sold EU membership... well, EEC membership, on the basis of trade, and we've ended up with political reform. There are areas - i'm thinking the environment, competition rules (in some cases, not others), and suchlike - where we've benefited hugely, and the EU has rightly forced us to clean up our act.

But it's the arrogance that gets me; comments like those from Brussels yesterday that France could re-vote until it makes the ''right decision''. Right for whom, exactly?

The Constitution would unquestionably make it easier for legislators. Anyone whose ever had to find info about EU laws will know that having to look through Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice treaties, etc. is a pain in the arse, and that it should be concentrated in one document. But they tried to sneak in more powers to the EU by the back door, and thought that the people were too thick to realise it. They've been found out, and that's why people are voting no.

But that is exactly the point.

You admit that there is no way we can avoid closer econmic union and that we will have the euro sonner or later.

So in that case let us be in there from the start so we can mould the organisation in the way we want. If we end up on the sidelines again we will eventually have to agree entry on the terms of the rest of the union, as happened with the origional EEC in the 70's. Let us be in there from the start running the place.

Although I disagree with many of the principles of the EU (and the fact that it's riddled with corruption), I do believe that if Britain was as keen on Europe as France & Germany were, then I think by now Britain would probably be running the whole thing.

There isn't enough Britishness in Europe, and I think that's what people in this country don't like. They hate the idea of being run my egotistical smelly Frenchmen (and the French do smell - Try living with 2 of the cretins for 12 months!) and self-important Germans.

The progression of the EU is inevitable, but it really doesn't make much difference to me as I am emigrating to the other side of the planet in a few short years. I'll return one day, and find Tony Blair as President of the United States of Europe!

God help you all, then!

In my experience, people who can make that statement have usually moved from a neutral or mainly "pro" stand to mainly "anti", for all the reasons detailed by Mr Moggy.

Absolutely.

But if you want to explain to me what the introduction of the Euro has to do with the tonnes of directives coming out of Brussels - from disposing of your fridge, dishwasher, TV, etc, which is going to cause absolute chaos later this year (WEEE Directive), to the desire of a few in Europe to kill of member states' armies and create a common foreign and security policy, which we've actually already signed up to - I'd be very happy indeed to hear your explanation.

Economic co-operation should not come at the price of political independence. It narks me now when people say ''let's get involved with the Euro from the start, so we can really influence things''. We're a) not involved in the Euro from the start, so that boat has sailed and b) we've spent the past 30 years or so trying to get our own way in Europe, and more often than not we are unsuccessful.

I'd be more than happy for the 25 member states to abandon national governments, send their politicians to a European Parliament instead, which makes rules democratically and has the power to legislate from the start, rather than being told what to do by an unelected band of gits in the Commission. Is that going to happen? No, of course not.

Until it does, however, we're just going to carry on fighting each other at an almost constant rate. We either go for it fully, and if those in Brussels had any balls they'd have put that in the Constitution, or we stop the meddling in our political affairs and return the EU/EC/EEC to its original purpose - an economic trading area that would facilitate greater co-operation between states that happened to be close to each other on a map, but often a world apart socially.

Bloody Yurpeens.

Holland say no as well.

Can anyone explain why a BBC News Special on a referendum held in Holland is being presented from Washington? It just strikes me as odd that with World & News 24 presenters in London and Holland, that a programme is being presented from a location which is basically unaffected by the story.

Genuinely fascinating and educational as that all was, it was good of scottish to grab the remote and switch from EuroTradeForum back to TVForum...