Europhiles confuse to by-pass democracy

AS is common with europhiles, Don Burslam (Yorkshire Post, July 30) seeks to confuse Europe with the EU, in order to promote his own political agenda.

The reality is that Europe is a centuries old geographical and cultural area, whereas the EU is merely a recent, temporary political arrangement to deprive us of our democratic right to hold our governments to account.

In the same way, he tries to justify the EU by confusing limited, voluntary co-operation between sovereign nations, especially during World War Two, with centralised, top down, political diktats devised and imposed from Brussels. They are not the same, either.

And then there is Mr Burslam’s pet project, the euro. Given the crisis in the eurozone it is hardly surprising that he is unable to defend it.

However since many writers to the Yorkshire Post letters pages accurately predicted the problems with EU monetary union, it is disappointing that he has still failed to catch up.

There is a possible saviour for the euro in the shape of fiscal union. But whether “citizens” of the EU, especially Germans, are willing to be taxed directly from Brussels in order to support the “club med” economies remains to be seen.

Of course, the EU politicians could always by-pass democratic consent once again, no doubt to a chorus of approval by the europhiles.