Amazon.co.uk Review
Poor Leon Brittan, or Lord Brittan as he has just become. All these years we thought Margaret Thatcher's former cabinet minister was enjoying himself in Brussels as an EU Commissioner. Now he tells us he's got both sides on his back: the pro-Europeans regarding him as a totem of Anglo-Saxon free-trading liberalism looking to closer links with America; the Euro-sceptics believing him to have gone native and joined the continental, socialist conspiracy intent on undoing all that Thatcher achieved. His purpose here is to tell Conservatives that it is all right to be in favour of Europe: "The real question...is can you be a pro-European centre-right Conservative? When you look at what is happening in Europe you have to ask 'how can you not be?'" So in describing his role at Brussels he asserts that the EU has moved in favour of free trade, that the Single Market is a mighty achievement and that the sooner we have Economic and Monetary Union, the better. Given his job, it would be remarkable if he did not.
Unfortunately, and as ever in the polarised debate on Europe, we are invited to accept such assertions as fact. Certainly his opponents would agree neither with his claim that Britain has already largely shaped the Union, nor with his belief that the Union follows the agenda of the centre right. Pro-European Conservatives will find comfort in his words, Euro-sceptics further ammunition. They are likely to agree only that Lord Brittan and his publishers should have chosen a less nauseating pun for the title. --Kim Fletcher
Book Description
Over the last ten years Europe has changed beyond recognition. The decision-makers in the European Commission have had to shape their responses to the opening-up of Eastern Europe, the controversy over the Maastricht Treaty and the creation of the euro, among many other problems and opportunities. All of these issues will continue to shape Europe's future long into the next century.
Looking back at his own participation in these developments, Leon Brittan also looks forward to the kind of Europe he feels we should be aiming for: neither a doomsday scenario nor a Utopia, but a Europe which can be created if current trends continue and if sensible but attainable policies are pushed forward with vigour. Perceptive and balanced, A DIET OF BRUSSELS is a thought-provoking account of what's been happening at the centre of the EU in the last ten years, and where we might be ten years from now.
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