EU superstate fears over ‘Chancellor of Europe’ plan

BRUSSELS was accused last night of ‘hurtling at breakneck speed’ towards becoming a post-Brexit superstate after the EU set out plans for its own Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s European Commission has signed off a new ‘agenda for a more united and stronger’ Europe.

It includes a new European Union finance supremo able to go into member states and make ‘structural reforms’ to their domestic budgets – and accelerates the Brussels timetable for closer integration. The decision was last night greeted by Brexiteers as vindication for the UK’s Leave vote.

But Remainers argue that Britain’s exit leaves it unable to slow the creation of an EU powerhouse on our doorstep. The Commission agreed on Tuesday to build on the ‘current momentum of confidence’ to accelerate integration by tabling the reforms in the European Parliament. They could be completed by the time of Brexit in March 2019.

The plans, set out in a paper called The Future Of Europe, also call for a banking union across all member states, an EU army by 2025, an EU-wide work permit, a new pan-EU cyber-security agency and EU expansion to include Serbia and Montenegro. The plans rubberstamp the ‘vision of Europe’ set out by Mr Juncker in a speech last month.

Last night, Pro-Brexit Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘This is what many of us thought was the plan all along. Now we have the evidence.’

Pro-Remain Tory MP Anna Soubry said: ‘Brussels can do these things more easily now that we aren’t there to make the sensible case and work with those countries who also don’t want the EU to move in this direction.’