EU illegitimacy

sir – Richard Corbett’s defence of the legal limits of the EU’S competence (Letter, January 10) neglects the overall objective stated in all EU treaties since the Treaty of Rome – that of achieving an “ever closer union”, without stating what that amounts to.

The Treaty of Lisbon is, by its own wording, merely the current stage in that process. It specifies about 24 competences that are either exclusive to the EU or shared with member states, and it is wholly implausible that it would have been approved in any test of British public opinion when it was signed in 2008. It is this failure to address the legitimacy of the EU as a transnational project that is the central weakness of the pro-eu argument.

This situation is aggravated by the fact that EU institutions, such as the European Council, Commission and Parliament, are expected to promote common policies wherever possible. Moreover, the central objective shows no sign of being achieved. If a common European identity had been created to any extent, it would have manifested itself in common media, political activity and social organisations. That has not happened. The EU is in fact, though not in theory, still the one thing it can manage to be – an international organisation of European states. Anthony Pick

Newbury, Berkshire