Strasbourg, 10/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - Among the MEPs in Wednesday's vote who voted against the accession treaty or abstained (see EUROPE yesterday p 41) were Belgian Socialist Jean-Maurice Dehousse, who only voted "yes" for Cyprus, justifying his "no" vote by the following, "We wanted to build a cathedral and we found ourselves in a large shop", the structures of the EU, "have not been modified to allow the future functioning at 25 let alone the distant future with 40" and the funding of enlargement is not guaranteed, he claimed. He also stressed that, "the Community that we have wanted to build over the last fifty years will not survive this enlargement and will give way to a weak and ill defined Union".
Members of SOS Democracy (Eurosceptics or like certain who describe themselves as "'Eurocritics") voted both yes and no ("to allow the electorate in candidate countries to freely decide, even if the conditions are not equitable". Some of them abstained and criticised the way in which enlargement was being carried out. They consider that the EU should have offered candidates: "geometrically variable" formulas, with comprehensive derogations that take into account the differences in economic development; agricultural funding in the shape of "lump sums" instead of obliging them to "use this money in a stupid, spendthrift and inefficient way that is practices by us"; instead of having to straight away pay a budgetary contribution, "at least the reduction offered to the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark or free membership of the EU as long as they have reached a certain income"; the opportunity to raise taxes from their own citizens who work in the European institutions and who have salaries that are above those of their Prime Ministers; participation at the Convention and the future Intergovernmental Conference as full members; all treaties should be translated into the languages of all these countries and be available for citizens and libraries and the internet "in good time before the referendums; the yes and no sides should have equal funding and the EU institutions and governments should "not be allowed to interfere with biases information before the referendums".