Sir Leon: Amsterdam Traty is not an "assault on British sovereignty"

Sir Leon's interview with the Today programme - Dur: 2'55"

Europe Issue Haunts Tories Again

Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Sir Leon, a vice-president of the European Commission, said euroscepticism had lost the party the last election, and it would be wrong to assume that the British people had become more eurosceptic.

Later, Sir Leon addressed a conference of Conservative Euro-constituency chairmen and agents in Warwick, telling them: "I believe the Conservative Party should move away from its almost exclusive preoccupation with Europe."

He argued that William Hague's demand for a referendum on the EU Treaty signed at the recent Amsterdam Summit made no sense. "If there was no referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, a treay of much greater significance then the one agreed at Amsterdam, why should we put this latest text to a referendum?" he asked. Sir Leon also said that claims that "the present Amsterdam Treaty is a dramatic assault on British sovereignty do not seem to me to stand up to scrutiny."

Sir Leon urged the conference to recognise the "likelihood" that there will be a single currency in "some shape or form" by the time of the next Euro elections in 1999. "There is no merit, and never has been, in undermining or ignoring the European Monetary Union project when it will in any event have such an overwhelming effect on the welfare of British citizens," he declared.

The task for the Tories, Sir Leon continued, was to alert the electorate to the "dangerous drift" towards over-regulation. By signing the Social Chapter, he said, Labout had opened the door to a regulatory approach that would block the development of free markets.

Sir Leon also offered Mr Hague some political advice about functioning in opposition. He said the Tories did not have to be "unremittingly hostile" to everything the Labour government does. "To learn when to agree and give support to the Government is as much a sign of political maturity as is the ability to set out a different course," he counselled.