Friday, November 03, 2006
COST OF EU MEMBERSHIP - HERALD LETTER
A letter in the Herald today about the EU. The first for a long time. The edited out < > the reference to Jim Mather's letter yesterday about Scotland needing more & better economic statistics which was the hookm I was hanging my somewhat different anti-EU point on. I am thus quite surprised that, with the hook gone, they were still interested:
Dear Editor,
[Most] estimates of the cost to the UK of our membership of the EU have been around £50 billion a year but have been derided by the government as coming form opponents of membership.
< Paradoxically > the EU's Enterprise Commissioner Günter Verheugen recently said that EU regulations cost the entire community £405 billion annually which dovetails < very well > with the sceptics estimates for the UK.
< The government's objection that the estimates of the cost of EU membership emanate from their opponents is weakened by the fact that they > [ The government }have repeatedly refused to publish their own estimates.
Holyrood, which governe 8% of the UK population could usefully produce our own statistics. Whether one supports EU membership or not there should be no dispute that in a democracy we are entitled to the figures on which to make up our minds.
Dear Editor,
< Paradoxically > the EU's Enterprise Commissioner Günter Verheugen recently said that EU regulations cost the entire community £405 billion annually which dovetails < very well > with the sceptics estimates for the UK.
< The government's objection that the estimates of the cost of EU membership emanate from their opponents is weakened by the fact that they > [ The government }have repeatedly refused to publish their own estimates.
Holyrood, which governe 8% of the UK population could usefully produce our own statistics. Whether one supports EU membership or not there should be no dispute that in a democracy we are entitled to the figures on which to make up our minds.
