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We must get to know the faceless ones
who decide our future
Magnus Linklater
Columnist: Scotland on Sunday
Filed 06 Nov 06
©Magnus Linklater
This article,
which was originally published in the Opinion section of
Scotland on Sunday on 5th November2006, is reproduced on Land-Care
with the kind permission of the author and the newspaper
FOR all the brave pledges made by ministers
about the future of Scotland's fishing industry, one thing is certain:
it will not be decided at Holyrood or at Westminster, but in Brussels.
The future of North Sea cod is to be the subject of an EU fisheries
summit next month, where after years of discussion the fate of Scottish
fishing fleets will be determined.
One possible outcome is that, to save stocks
of cod from extinction, quotas of all species will be drastically
reduced. There could even be a total ban. With it would go thousands
of jobs, and the slow death of fishing communities. Ministers will
bluster, the opposition will fulminate - to no effect. We have signed
a treaty; the Common Fisheries Policy is unbreakable; the fishing
boats will have to go.
We know, however, almost nothing about the
men and women who will take that decision, the information on which
it will be based, or the debates which have led up to it. Because
the European Commission is a closed book to the average Scottish
voter, there are no full-time Scottish correspondents to monitor
the Council of Ministers, and the proceedings of the European Parliament
are available only to determined anoraks. The normal scrutiny that
we expect in a democratic institution will be absent.
Of course, there will be angry debates at
Holyrood, but they will be full of nothing but sound, fury - and
empty rhetoric. The Executive will say that it is making representations
through the UK delegation. The Scottish Tories will announce that
they are pressing for the scrapping of the fisheries policy. The
Scottish Nationalists will announce that an independent Scotland
would renegotiate the Treaty, which is the most absurd idea of all
- the suggestion that a small, newly joined nation is in any position
to shift one of the building blocks of Europe is simply laughable.
We cannot, however, continue to allow European
decisions as fundamental as this to go through without a better
understanding of who is taking them and how they will impact on
our national life. At the last count, some 75% of the legislation
affecting this country originated with European bills and directives.
We knew next to nothing about almost all of them until they were
passed into law. At that stage, protests - however shrill - are
meaningless.
This week, a new think-tank will be launched
to try to close this information gap. ThinkScotland describes itself
as "a new online resource focusing on European affairs from
a Scottish perspective". Chaired by Robert Kilgour, a Scottish
businessman with an international company, it includes Tory Members
of the European Parliament like Struan Stevenson and John Purvis,
the Tory MSP Alex Fergusson and Professor Gavin Don, an Edinburgh
financier.
Kilgour finds the detachment of Scotland
from European politics deeply frustrating. "Despite the plethora
of political representation in Scotland today, we don't get down
to brass tacks enough when it comes to what's happening in Europe
and how it affects our lives here," he says.
"There is currently a lack of opportunity
for Scots to engage in European topics and issues, other than at
the time of the elections to the European Parliament. I don't necessarily
think that reflects the level of potential interest there is amongst
the Scottish public to hear or say more."
Professor Don is more overtly Eurosceptic.
He claims that the UK Parliament is embarrassed by the amount of
power it has ceded to Europe, and points out that the EC is responsible
for a raft of measures, from child car-seats to burdensome health
and safety regulations which have profoundly changed our lives while
offering us no opportunity to challenge them. "I think there
should be a serious debate about whether there is a better alternative
outside Europe altogether," he said.
Stevenson is more pragmatic. "The European
rule-books are growing in size and all of them affect every citizen
on a daily basis," he said. "We ignore that at our great
peril. We must improve relations between European members and their
Scottish counterparts. Other member states enjoy far better contacts
with Brussels."
The time has come to lift our eyes from
the Holyrood goldfish bowl and take in some of the big issues elsewhere
that will change our lives to an extent we have still not begun
to appreciate - like the 25% cut in the Single Farm Payment proposed,
unbelievably, by Tony Blair, which would put hundreds of Scottish
farmers out of business; like the European energy and environment
policies that will govern decisions on nuclear or wind power; like
the plethora of smaller directives which intrude into our daily
life.
The future of the North Sea cod, and the
outcome of the EU's decision about how best to conserve it, will
be critical for the Scottish fishing industry. But the story for
Scotland will not end there. We are part of a much bigger enterprise.
It is high time we began to understand it.
©Magnus Linklater
This article:
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1637512006
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