President de Gaulle vetoed Britain’s first application to join on the
grounds that Britain would be an American Trojan horse under-
mining European unity. Jacques Chirac, de Gaulle’s successor during
the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, may well feel these
fears to have been justified.
Since joining, Britain has played a somewhat ambivalent role.
Under Mrs Thatcher’s leadership, despite expressions of reservation
on the political front, Britain did show some enthusiasm for the
creation of a ‘Single European Market’ (1992). The removal of
obstacles to trade in order to create a ‘level playing field’ throughout
Europe fitted the free-market economic policies of the Thatcher
government that permitted a temporarily strengthened legislative
procedure to be introduced for the purpose. An exchange rate policy
of maintaining a stable relationship with the mark and the franc
eventually within the ERM (European Exchange Rate Mechanism)
seemed to be the precursor of closer financial unity – despite some
disavowals of any idea of dropping the pound.
The Maastricht agreement of 1991 reinforced the ambivalence
of British government policies. There was a renewed nominal
commitment to greater European unity and the creation of a single
European currency, the strengthening of the powers of the European
Parliament and of European institutions vis-à-vis domestic ones. But
this was combined with a UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and
single currency provisions, and the securing of general assent to the
principle of subsidiarity. The New Labour government has brought
about a considerable change in the tone of UK participation in Europe
but a degree of scepticism and pragmatism remains in the UK’s
attitude to the single European currency, attempts to legislate on
welfare issues and the need for a European constitution.
The most distinctive features of the European Community include
the existence of a dual executive, its complicated system of legislation
by delegation and the coexistence of features characteristic of both
federal states and of intergovernmental organisations.
The ‘dual executive’ consists of the Council of Ministers and the
European Commission. The Council of Ministers consists of mini-
sters from the member states’ national governments voting by votes
normally weighted roughly according to the population of each state
(but with smaller independent states over-represented). Ministers
vote as representatives of their governments. In the end they make
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