Reform, not divorce, is the best way for Britain in Europe

Patience Wheatcroft

ALL me a Eurosceptic but who wouldn’t be sceptical about the EU? This is an organisation which is regularly rapped by its auditors for “a persistently high level of payment errors”.

For the last three years, these have been put at 4.4% of its budget and, if you are spending £115 billion, as the EU plans to this year, that amounts to an expensive set of mistakes.

What sane individual wouldn’t have qualms about a bureaucracy which seems set on intervening in all manner of things where it is not required? A quick glance at the EU Commission’s website is guaranteed to yield numerous examples of unnecessary activity. The “school scheme for milk, fruits and vegetables” is set to gobble up €250 million (£199 million) this year but overseeing children’s fruit consumption is surely not the rightful preserve of Brussels.

Neither can there be a need for The European Border Breakers Awards, a scheme “to honour the musical stars of tomorrow”. In an industry rife with awards, to have an EU Commissioner handing out gongs to Christine and the Queens, Oscar and the Wolf, and Soak seems an unnecessary diversion for the first vice-president of the Commission, but that is just what Tibor Navracsics was doing in January.

There is no doubting that the EU is flawed. What commercially minded person could be anything other than appalled by a club that sees its members all having to make swingeing cuts and then blithely submits a significantly increased budget for itself ? This, however, is not the time to tear up our membership card and stalk out. Instead, it is the opportunity to lead the radical reform of the organisation that is long overdue.

We live in a world plagued with more uncertainties than I’ve known in my lifetime. Whether it be economics, politics, climate change or terrorism, there are reasons to be fearful. The post-crash recovery is fizzling out and there are rumblings of another global slump. The issue of leadership of the world’s largest economy, the US, fluctuates between fantastical, farcical and just plain frightening. Weather “events” are increasingly drastic and the terrorist threat is all-pervasive.

Against that background, it does not make sense to plunge into the extra uncertainties that Brexit would inevitably bring.

In contrast, remaining in the EU does not have to be seen as “hanging onto nurse for fear of something worse” but a positive decision to build a stronger unit in which to confront the difficulties ahead. That the latter case is not being made more loudly is largely a matter of politics. Only once the UK has demonstrated that it is committed to the principle of the EU will it be in a position to lead the demands for much-needed reforms. There will be allies, not least Vitor Caldeira, the president of the European Court of Auditors, who, presenting his report last November, called for “a wholly new approach” to the way EU funds are managed.

That approach might begin by cutting out the ludicrous procession from Brussels to Strasbourg every month, at a cost which even the EU itself admitted to being close to £100 million each time.

Once the UK has voted in, it can campaign for a more cost-conscious EU with a more limited agenda. There will be other national governments prepared to join us in reining in the extravagant interventionists of the Commission.

In the meantime, the Remain camp must point out the real benefits that flow from being a member of such a large trading block, albeit the free market in goods and services is still not fully complete. The Out lobby’s suggestion that the UK could quickly negotiate its own trade deals and not suffer any detriment from Brexit is just wishful thinking.

Elizabeth Corley, vice-chairman of Allianz Global Investors, showed a more realistic view of relationships when she said last week that, were the UK to walk out on the EU, it would result in “an annoying divorce” in which the renegotiation of trade deals would take between five and 10 years.

During that period, jobs would be at risk. Already there is anecdotal evidence of investment decisions by UK firms being delayed until the country’s future is clearer.

And while the UK has many attractions for overseas investors, ranging from its corporate-tax rates to its language and time zone, a No vote would give those looking for a route into the Single Market sound reason to look elsewhere.

The EU is a work in progress. Its sub-plot, the single currency, is unlikely to survive more than a few years in its current form. The difficulties of corralling 19 disparate countries into a single fiscal straitjacket are now clear. In the UK, the stresses being caused by migration cannot be ignored but the Government has now won the right to call a halt. This shows reform is possible. There are benefits to be had from being part of an evolving EU, and the UK now has the chance to maximise them.