Last week, the Financial Times ran an article telling us that the popularity of the European Union in the UK was on the rise – by nearly twenty percent! Of course, it is easy to get carried away when one is immersed in EU-sceptic arguments all day every day, but surely the EU hasn’t really been doing much to encourage the growing ardour of the Brits.
But then it dawned on me that that is exactly the point – it is not doing anything that makes the EU seem more popular. When the Euro and the Constitution are out of the headlines then people stop making the immediate connection between the EU and loss of sovereignty. Instead, they think of the nice, fluffy parts of the EU – joining hands across Europe, helping each other out and all being chums together. I, personally, would be very worried if fewer than forty percent of my fellow countrymen wanted us to have friendly relations with out neighbouring countries. And when you think that it is Summer, that everyone is about to set off to the continent for their hols and that Germany has just hosted a hugely successful world football championship, then perhaps it is not so surprising.
This does not mean however that we should rest on our laurels. The real challenge for EU sceptics is to make the nice fluffy reasons for EU membership seem less pressing than the serious economic and political reasons for a change.
In other business, a recent paper from the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) has set out some pretty good, solid reasons for Britain not joining the Euro. It argues that the benefits to trade of the single currency are much less than claimed by the government. Indeed, although it is a bit early to tell, their figures suggest that the main benefit to trade so far has not come from lowering transaction costs, but from companies that previously traded only in part of the EU being able to expand to sell in all 12 Eurozone states. If this is so, then the boost would be a one off, while the limitations that result from not having control of interest rates are a permanent burden.