My letter was published this morning in the Times:
Sir,
The claim by John Neimer (June 29) that the EU is centralised “just like the old USSR” is absurd. The EU can only act in those fields where its member states, all democracies, have conferred powers on it. Even then, any EU legislation requires the approval of ministers from the member country governments, by a large majority or even unanimity. These are hardly people who would want to transfer powers out of their hands unless there was a good reason to do so.
As Richard Branson has pointed, the EU’s central administration — the European Commission, which only has the right to propose — has fewer employees than Birmingham City Council. Hardly the Kremlin.
Richard Corbett
MEP for Yorkshire & Humber
