Brussels, 18/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - In an article appearing in the British daily, The Guardian, on Thursday, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson calls on the United Kingdom to commit itself to a more constructive approach towards the European Union. “With UK membership of the single currency on ice, the realities of globalisation are shifting the debate on to more favourable ground for pro-Europeans because of the lack of national solutions to its challenges”, Mandelson stressed. He went on to say: “The same principle is true in dealing with the economic superpowers of Asia, or for our armed forces to share more and do more together under European defence”. “How, post-Iraq, can we establish a more equal relationship with the US except by putting more effort into building common European positions, as we have done on Iran?”, Mandelson continued, adding that the answer was “not centralised action from Brussels but an understanding that all in the 27-state European Union shared common values”. “A new push for Europe should focus on the need for collective, progressive policy responses, before engaging in a technocratic debate about Europe's institutions”, the European Commission stressed. He added: “It is important to judge the need for institutional change not for its own sake, but on the basis of what changes are necessary to strengthen Europe's capacity to act in meeting shared globalisation challenges”. Mandelson therefore calls on EU supporters to push the case for a more constructive approach to Europe in Britain, and urged Blair's Labour Party to take such a stance at the next election. “Sidelining ourselves from the European agenda, or isolating ourselves from our European friends, would be disastrous”, he concluded.
Speaking along the same lines on Thursday morning on BBC 4, Mandelson deplored the fact that the “the Government as a whole has failed to counter and turn round the anti-Europeanism which I think is still rife in parts of Britain's political culture”. In Strasbourg, Conservative member Kamall Syed (EPP, UK) reacted to this immediately saying: “Mandelson is supposed to be the EU trade commissioner; he is not paid to be a Labour Party policy advisor. He should stop meddling in British politics and focus on his day job of negotiating with our trading partners”. (eh)