Brussels, 07/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - In a New Year message, British Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, MEP, sets out at least fifteen very concrete key benefits to be gained by Britain from EU membership. He noted that Britons living in the south-eastern part of the country will gain more than the others being closer to the continent.
Mr Huhne noted: - cheaper prices and more choice in a wider market, with application of product safety measures (toys, cars and food); - cheaper and more reliable travel with compensation for overbooking; - EU-funded programmes such as Erasmus and Socrates which have benefited more than 95,000 British students since 1995; - a market where, in 2001, 58.3% of all goods exported from South-East England went to the EU, creating 426 000 jobs in the region; - freedom to work and live in any of the 15 Member States, a freedom enjoyed by some 100 000 Britons (450 000 live elsewhere in the EU including more than 200 000 retired persons); - British holiday-makers have the right to free health care in any Member State; - EU structural fund intervention worth £10 billion between 2000 and 2006 in the UK; - programmes financed by the EU to help SMEs compete with bigger firms; - the possibility for EU countries to negotiate as a bloc within the WTO or other international gatherings; - environmental legislation allowing, for example, to curb "sulphur emissions … falling on Britain created by French and Spanish power stations"; - EU laws banning lead in petrol (no single EU country could have taken such measures individually without harming its automobile industry, Mr Huhne noted); - the legislation banning cosmetics testing on animals; - EU rules that have slashed noise pollution from cars by 85% since 1970, and by 70% on heavy vehicles, while ensuring that cars and heavy goods vehicles can still be sold throughout the single market; - operations organised through Europol (which is able to share information and coordinate actions more closely than Interpol, which is particularly important for ports like Southampton, Portsmouth, Dover and Folkestone) against organised crime, terrorism, the trade in people, drug trafficking and money laundering; - and the fact that phone call costs have halved thanks to the EU's liberalisation of the telecommunications market.