letter to the editor from Richard Corbett MEP

17 September 2007

The Independent

Dear Editor,

Anthony Pick (letters, 13th September) asks pro-Europeans to explain clearly "what is the EU for" and, implicitly, why is Britain in it. Allow me to have a go at providing a short answer.

We want Britain to be a leading player in a well-functioning EU for idealistic, pragmatic and selfish reasons. The idealistic reason is that the EU has helped create, in a continent previously torn apart by warfare, an area of peace and stability, where we can have our arguments around a negotiating table or across a debating chamber rather than on the battlefields of Europe. The pragmatic reason is that we are a set of highly interdependent countries with a need to find common solutions to common problems in a whole range of areas. The selfish reason is that it is vital for the British economy and British jobs, when the overwhelming majority of our exports  are going to countries in the common market, that we have a voice in the institutions that set the rules for that market.

Yours,

Richard Corbett

Labour MEP for Yorkshire & Humber
Blenheim Terrace, Leeds