Liberal Democrat Member of the European
Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber
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Diana Wallis Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber |
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| Speech delivered to the Nordic Council 23/08/2000 |
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Delivered by Diana Wallis MEP to a meeting of the Nordic Council on 23rd August 2000 at Jakobstad, Finland.
I am delighted to have been given this opportunity to attend your meeting today and take part in this session about the North in 2050; to share with you some thoughts as a member of the European Parliament from the north of England (Yorkshire) I hope perhaps I can speak with a little more knowledge of northern Europe than some of my fellow countrymen and women. For the last year I have been the Vice-President of the European Parliament's Delegation to Iceland and Norway, both of which I visited in June. I have now just come from Tallinn in Estonia and I am en route to a meeting of the Arctic Council in Rovaniemi. I represent a constituency, Yorkshire, which has a long and extensive history of economic and cultural links with the Nordic region. I should also mention that the majority of the political group, the ELDR to which I belong, comes from Northern European countries and has indeed been instrumental in stressing the Northern Dimension of EU policy-making. But lastly the personal; my husband studied in Finland and we came here some years ago for our honeymoon and have returned on and off since, I wonder how many English people count Sibelius as their favourite composer and Edelfeld as their favourite artist. Today in talking about the North in 2050 from a European Parliament perspective I want to take three themes: the demise of the nation state; trade; and the e-society. But what I can confidently say before I start is that unless there are major advances in medical science, the chances of me being here in 2050 to be held to account for what I say today are small. I sometimes find it rather trying as a pro-European politician in the UK that we cannot openly discuss change in the EU without it being leapt on by the more euro-sceptic and conservative elements in our society and press. There has after all been some very interesting and under-publicised work done by the European Commission's Forward Studies Unit culminating in a working paper entitled 'Scenarios Europe 2010 - Five Possible Futures for Europe,' and in speaking I shall be drawing on some of their ideas. To me these scenarios, whilst some of them would not be my preferred route, give us the possibility to consider what the future might look like - and the steps that we politicians might take to try and shape and mould it a little. Otherwise we sit like rabbits in the glare of the headlights frightened to move or think. In a sense I am underlining the possible political structures to deal with the problem set out by Mr Tuuri. The Commission document starts interestingly with a quote from Borges, 'Every epoch is an epoch of transition, we only know one thing about the future, or rather the futures, it will not look like the present.' Thank you for allowing me to consider with you how the future might look. The first theme I want to deal with that of regionalisation or the fragmentation of larger nation states and the rising importance of smaller states. The Commission document calls this scenario 'A Hundred Flowers' an age or period which sees the rise of vigorous local communities where small member states of the union come out best - the leitmotiv of this scenario is fragmentation; Europe in 2010 as a bizarre patchwork of principalities, city states, fiefdoms and a few small nation states. Whilst I might not follow the scenario the whole way, I think we can safely say that the nation state as it emerged in seventeenth and eighteenth century is in decline, attacked form many sides not least from the EU itself. But I want to consider the bottom-up attacks in respect of which recent UK experience is instructive. Away from Westminster, London and the Southeast there have always been complaints about the centralised nature of British governments. Now Scotland has its own Parliament with tax raising powers and there is an independent Assembly in Wales, the English regions, particularly my own, look on jealously. Yorkshire is a coherent region with defined boundaries, a distinct identity and a common history. It has a population in excess of 5 million, in Leeds England's second financial capital, the steel and coalmining area of South Yorkshire, the Humber ports and the historic city of York - if we could not flourish as an independent region, the seeds are there. This autumn a convention of interested groups will meet to take ideas forward. 5 million people. It made me think as we visited Tallinn this week, the Estonians are rightly proud of their recent re-independence, I also visited the Scottish Parliament few months back and sensed the same unleashing of energy. Yet both these small nations from very different perspectives see their future very much in Europe. You should know that there was a recent report/scenario drawn up by the UK government's Future Unit which caused headlines in some of our national papers. Scotland, it said, would separate from the UK and become part of Scandinavia. I say why not Yorkshire. After all, the historic ties are there. In short I believe there will be a resurgence of local identities, regional or otherwise, which can release potential energy for trade and economic activity, and for the flowering of local culture, such forces need not be destructive and can take place within the framework of the EU. Too much of the debate in Europe about enlargement has raised unnecessary fears in small states; in my view they will gain and indeed in future have the possibility to gang up on the bigger states. But why will I think the EU will survive this bottom-up fragmentation? Quite simply the answer is trade. Trade has always been the unifying element, the linchpin around which the first big idea of Europe was constructed, i.e. the Single or Internal market. Another of the Commission's scenarios for 2010 is entitled 'Triumphant Markets'. The triumph of trade over war, the central raison d'etre of Europe. Let me again turn to my constituency and my hometown, for the last 10 years where I have worked before I was elected, the port of Hull - one of the four Humber ports along with Grimsby, Immingham and Goole. Hull recently celebrated 700 years since the granting of its charter as a city port. It owes its very existence, as well as its economic success to overseas trade, in particular trade with the Baltic Sea region. Its growth in the sixteenth century was encouraged by the break-up of the monopoly by the Hanseatic League the English Russian Co, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the exclusion of the Dutch as trading intermediaries assisted British merchants. Also the naval stores were of importance in order to maintain British naval power, imports from the Baltic of hemp, wood and tar - from Jakobstad. And right up to date with the break-up of the eastern bloc the admission of Finland and Sweden to the EU there has been a huge increase in trade volumes in both directions. In the last 700 years of Hull's history as a northern port it has been either war of monopolistic situations that have entailed trade exclusion and compromised the port of Hull or peace and free trade as guaranteed by the EU having the opposite beneficial effect; and this will only grow in the future. I have mentioned Sweden and Finland, but now there is a similar rise in trade with the Baltic States as their economies are re-orientated towards the west and they resume and develop old trading links. Even with Russia, trade is up over one third more in the first five months of 2000 as compared with 1999, of which 35% is trade with the EU. With the reserves of oil, gas and minerals that Russia possesses as its economy, albeit slowly, restructures over the coming year, we can only expect this trade to increase. By 2050 it should be conceivable to imagine Russia as a member of the EU. If we go up to 28 members in the next few years, why not further? Trade and its benefits should be inclusive not exclusive. The Europe of the future could have a very northerly bias, perhaps not quite as some present-day onlookers imagine, I do not see it as so unlikely that both Norway and Iceland will join the discussion is certainly developing. In fact enlargement which includes these more advanced economies may assist the strengthening and survival of Europe. The last theme I want to consider is also linked to trade and indeed the demise of the nation state as we know it. My first year in the parliament has been taken up with a report on the Internet and trade, on e-commerce and jurisdiction. I am a former lawyer and this was my area of practice. The Internet knows no national boundaries; to some it represents the death of distance - what I can tell you is that the nation state is impotent to legislate in respect of it. We have to act together - and for us the EU provides that forum. The internet can be a very empowering tool for the citizen, for the trader and for the administrator, but in the wrong hands it can also be misused. Communities, smaller businesses may gain, but we will need co-ordinated action to police criminal elements, to provide a structure for our trade and communications. To do this by bilateral agreements would be unthinkable - Europe here is in its element. But effective policing and ordering can also become centralised and overbearing - to succeed, to command respect, Europe forever has to strike the right balance and I suspect in the future a more difficult balance between centralisation and subsidiarity, between legislation and regulation. It will not be easy, however in my view whatever route we take, although we know the future will be different, there will always be recurring themes and particularly I think we are at the reawakening of an era of a possibility of rediscovery of links and ties between the peoples of northern Europe - what would happen if we put together Nordic technology and the English language! A new northern dimension from northern England across Scandinavia to Russia, breathing life into old trading and cultural links, all things are possible - I am excited for the people I represent in Yorkshire. Let me finish with a quote from the poet TS Eliot "Time present and time past are perhaps both present in time future and time future contained in time past." |
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