Brussels, 04/08/2005 (Agence Europe) - The ninth edition of the Guide to the European Union - The definitive guide to all aspects of the EU by Dick Leonard and updated with the help of Leo Cendrowicz has just been published by The Economist (a first Pocket Guide to the European Community was published in 1988). After a brief history of the origins of Europe, the EU's institutional meanderings and policies are analysed by Dick Leonard, who has written on the subject of Europe for over twenty-five years now (mainly for The Economist and The Observer). He served as a Labour member of the House of Commons (very pro-European at a time when Labour was very much the opposite) and his recent publications include: A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair, the first part of a trilogy on the British prime ministers. (Profile Books Ltd, 3A Exmouth House, Pine Street, London EC1ROJH; http://www.profilebooks.com ; http://www.economist.com . ISBN 1 86197 930 4).
Furthermore, in about ten information-packed pages on The UK and the Union, Dick Leonard recounts the “long history of distrust” between the British and the Continent, while noting that, with the prestige that it had gained at the end of the Second World War, “there was little doubt that had the UK taken the lead in the movement for closer integration it would have had a predominant influence on the shape and form of any association that was formed”. Dick Leonard recalls how, thanks to his revolt and that of 68 other Labour MPs, the House of Commons had finally approved the terms of UK membership to the European Community, and also how Labour had finally proposed British withdrawal from the Community during the 1983 electoral campaign. The Labour Party did not begin to see “the EC in a positive light” until 1988 after a visit to trade unions by Jacques Delors who “fired the delegates” with his vision of Europe, Dick Leonard recalls. Giving way to criticism of his own side, Dick Leonard is also deprecating of the Tories - “Mrs Thatcher substantially reduced UK influence within the EC (…) and John Major did not do any better” - as well as disparaging of Tony Blair, noting that, although he has often been described as the most pro-European prime minister since Edward Heath, results do not substantiate this. Dick Leonard reproaches him with the fact that “instead of trying to confront an increasingly sceptical public opinion and attempting to convert it, he has run scared “. He goes on to regret the “grudging and minimalist attitude often adopted by British ministers in their dealings with the EU”. Such an attitude, he believes, reduces British influence in the EU but, he warns, apparently the ministers under Tony Blair have not yet learnt the lesson.
A brief chapter on The Future allows Dick Leonard to measure the distance covered since European construction began. Foreseeing the likelihood of a special meeting of the European Council in Rome on 25th March 2007 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the treaty to set up the European Economic Community (EEC), Dick Leonard comments: “This will be a very different gathering from the one 50 years earlier” between the six founding countries, a gathering that will probably be attended by at least twenty-seven Member States.