Tories echo call for stronger voice in Brussels

Series Title
Series Details Vol 7, No.19, 10.5.01, p6
Publication Date 10/05/2001
Content Type

Date: 10/05/01

Conservatives in the UK have revived a French Socialist call for member states to have a full-time minister in Brussels and to reduce the power of European Commissioners.

Francis Maude, the Tory foreign affairs spokesman, said a cabinet minister answering regularly to his national parliament would be prevented from "going native" in Brussels. "Relentless integration is less likely to be pursued if the agenda is set by those who know they will be called properly to account for their actions."

Maude wants the Commission transformed into a civil service. French Minister for Europe Pierre Moscovici made similar calls in his 1999 book Au Coeur de l' Europe, according to the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Conservatives in the UK have revived a French Socialist call for Member States to have a full-time minister in Brussels and to reduce the power of European Commissioners.

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Record URL https://www.europeansources.info/record/?p=257186