• The original 6 members have become 15 (so far so good)
• The Common Agricultural Policy has succeeded in adding £1000 annually to each family's shopping basket
• The Common Fisheries Policy has almost wiped out all fish in the North Sea and the entire British fishing industry
• EU membership entails an intolerable interference in the decision-making powers of the British Parliament, and, by extension, of the British people. These range from the absurd (such as the regulations on the size and straightness of cucumbers and bananas) to the culturally offensive (such as the banning of pounds and ounces as legal measures). Note that both these examples involve a reduction in consumer choice. Note, further, that laws made by the European Union take precedence over laws passed by Westminster.
• The single currency, the euro, was launched on Jan 1st 1999. In the short time since, it lost 25% of its value, and then regained it. Some stable currency, that! Well, Germany & France, you wanted a strong currency, insisted on strict rules so that the less "prudent" members of EMU couldn't debauch the new currency, and now you're both hoist by your own petard. Is that "Come on in, Britain, the water's lovely!" so high-pitched and strained because a crocodile's got hold of your bollocks?
• The EU is run by a bureaucratic elite for a bureaucratic elite, and the result is a Kafka-esque impersonal monolithic structure which is utterly immune to democratic control because it is so complex that not one man in the street in a hundred understands it.

Do I gather, Edain, that your town is no longer twinned with an equivalent in Germany?

PS: Just to illustrate that my animosity is directed against the European Union, not Europe, I'm off on a twinning visit to our German twin-town next week. I'm wholly in favour of grass-roots twinning, and through it have met lots of fine Europeans, many of whom I still consider friends; it's when the politicians and bureaucrats, elitists to a man ("These eurosceptics, who know not the Nice Treaty, are but dogs") and seeing a gravy-train and a chance for self-preferment, join the act & force it upon us from above, that I get worried.

I think that the reason there's been no war in Europe since 1945 has more to do with the Cold War than with the EU (note that I'm not denying that the EU had any effect). An even stronger reason is that wars cost money. That's why the so-called Rapid Reaction Force is unlikely to get off the ground (or if it does to do much rapid reacting): no European government is prepared to spend on defence more than the merest token. For too long they've been relying on America to protect them; and the current anti-American milieu is the thanks that America gets.

Another moan: a story reported in today's newspapers is that the The European Commission has started legal proceedings against the British government for permitting a 150 ft high white horse to be carved on a protected area of downland. What the folk has that got to do with Europe? If Europe stuck to being a common market (which is what we voted for in 1975, despite Schuman's idealistic claptrap and the lies of most British politicians past and present) and forgot all about poking its nose into issues that are none of its business it would have a better press here. But it's getting worse: Giscard d'Estaing's convention has come up with a European Constitution which is even more meddlesome, specifically stating that European Law overrides national law. Well, at least that's out in the open now.

We'd be better off out.

You give me the history of why the CAP & CFP are as they are, admitting their deficiencies. But if, for many years, it has been admitted that they are deficient and they are still unreformed, then I must conclude there's something very wrong with the institutions that control them.

And you say, "...once they've agreed to free trade, countries try to give their own producers an unfair advantage". I agree, it happens all the time. But that supports my point of view: the EU is a collection of nations all of which are rooting for their own selfish interests, therefore no "United States of Europe" will ever work because of such factionalism.

And again, you tell me why currencies fluctuate. I couldn't really care less about the reasons, but merely point out that those who advocate Britain's entry into EMU for reasons of currency stability are talking through their hats. They might have a point if the euro were a global currency, but it ain't! It's another local currency and going in we'd merely swap fluctuations against the euro for fluctuations against the dollar (and a large proportion of our trade with euroland is denominated in dollars, even now!).

And, with respect, "unelected bureaucrats" is not bullshit, as you so colourfully express it. Yes, I have heard of the European Parliament, and were that the supreme body of the EU I'd have less problem with it; but the EP cannot even propose its own measures, it has to dispose only of proposals put up by the Commission. And to claim that the EU is "a fairly standard bicameral democratic model quite like the US system" is more than a little disingenuous. Remind me: when last did Ireland go to the polls to elect its commissioners? When next can I go to the polls to eject Neil "the Welsh Windbag" Kinnock and Chris "the Buffoon" Patton? Commissioners are (whisper it) appointed rather than elected. And remind me (again) when we elected Wim Duisenberg, president of the European Central Bank, or how we get rid of him if we wish to. Some democracy! Some bullshit.

Finally, your comments about the deficiencies of democracy in Britain are a red herring, having nothing to do with Europe.

Can I just leave my EUsceptic hat off a moment and make a couple of comments about the EUcontent of that site? I recognise that all government sites will use similar techniques (although, having a life, I tend to avoid government websites), so I don't hold the EU uniquely at fault.

1. On the subject of nickel content in the euro coins, a point that has been raised in this forum before, here's a direct quote from the site you linked: the nickel used in one and two euro coins is essentially contained inside the alloy and not on the surface, thus limiting skin contact. Two points, the first linguistic, the second metallurgical:
   • Note that weasel word, "essentially". What does it mean? It is of the essence of an alloy that it have at least two components, so do they merely mean that nickel is one of the constituents of the coins' alloy? Or do they mean "approximately", as we might use the word thus, "4 litres is essentially the same volume as 7 pints"? Or is the sense of the sentence unchanged if it is omitted entirely? And, again, what does "inside" mean? Most alloys have their constituents distributed homogenously (at the macro level, if not the micro) throughout; is this what is implied? I submit that the words of the quoted sentence have been carefully chosen for what they connote (soothing, "care has been taken to minimise thge risks", implications) when the bare bones of the sentence make explicit nothing of the sort.
   • Something implied by the sentence quoted above is that the nickel alloy is differentailly rich in nickel at the centre, differentially lean at the surface, so that skin contact with nickel is reduced (that's not made explicit, as my previous bullet-point explains). Now, I'm only an amateur metallurgist, but this sounds like nonsense to me. An alloy is used because it is harder than either nickel or copper alone, so alloy coins last longer than copper ones; nickel is expensive, so its proportion will be kept to a minimum. But the area of the coin where the hardness yielded by the alloy's properties is most necessary is at the surface, which receives all the wear & tear. So even if they could differentially adjust the proportion of nickel at the surface, I suggest that they wouldn't want to for the effect it would have in shortening coins' lives. (Is there someone out there with a better knowledge of metallurgy who could comment?)
   So I rather think the whole sentence is meaningless. It's the one that caught my eye, so I've taken it to pieces in some detail -- is the remainder of the content similarly misleading? I'm afraid I really can't be bothered to find out.
2. In the section about the colour of ambulances, the quote from the Daily Mail continues longer than absolutely necessary, to include references to regulations concerning the straightness of cucumbers and bananas. These are not addressed in the EU's follow up, which is confined to the colour of ambulences. I suspect that by raising two euromyths and demolishing one they hope that the second will be demolished by association. How much of the rest is like that? Again, I really can't be bothered.