Comment by David Howell in Daily.Telegraph letter column, 16.4.01 

The notion of the EU as a superpower is again being promoted both by the Commission and in the European Parliament. (Your report, 12th April).
When will the proponents of these Napoleonic fantasies realize that not only are interdependence and diversity better for Europe than centralization and bloc-building but that the whole idea of a European superpower throwing its alleged ‘weight’ around on the global stage is absurdly dated and takes no account of the network world in which we now live?
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament apparently wants a European Foreign Office to further this superpower ambition, with the national veto on foreign policy removed.
This would not only involve an unhealthy concentration of power in dangerously few hands, and therefore be highly illiberal and undemocratic. It would also be the most cumbersome and least efficient way conceivable of addressing major global issues.
Behind the superpower dream lies the yearning either to be like America or to rival America. Both ambitions are backward looking, fail to understand the more flexible and interactive way in which international relations are developing and are deeply hostile to the prosperity, stability, dynamism and genuine unity of tomorrow’s enlarged Europe. 

Yours faithfully




David Howell