Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague accused Germany of alienating many from European ideas by pushing too hard for too much integration. “Sometimes less is more,” he said at a policy forum in Berlin.
He said the push for ever-greater coordination in areas like the banking sector and national budgets to fight the euro crisis risked in fact driving a wedge through the EU – creating mistrust particularly in his own Conservative Party, currently in an ill-tempered coalition with the British Liberal Democrats.
“The coalition government is committed to Britain playing a leading role in the EU but I must also be frank: public disillusionment with the EU in our country is the deepest it has ever been,” Hague said.
“People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say… People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided at that level.”
He added: “These points may be felt most acutely in Britain but they’re not felt only in Britain.”
As Europe faces a growing gulf between the 17 countries of the eurozone which have the euro currency, and the remaining 10 EU member states, Germany Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle insisted all 27, including Britain, should encourage a sustainable end to the euro crisis………………………………..
full article at source:http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20121023-45727.html
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