The ultimate aim of the EU is European integration

Professor Kenneth Wain in his article entitled "Of time warps, realities, and the EU" (The Sunday Times, August 25) made a number of comments on some of the reasons for opposing the EU, which I had given in my piece entitled "Eurocracy, and not democracy, is at stake" (The Sunday Times, August 18).

Professor Wain thought it fit to call my writing, "deceitful", my remarks "laughable", my suggestions "ludicruous", my invocation of our Christian values "eyewash", and me "dishonest", "living in a time warp", "radically out of touch" with contemporary political reality, not understanding current changes in the international order, and not knowing the history of neutrality.

I confess I am not qualified to reciprocate Professor Wain's insults, unbecoming of one who claims to be an educationalist, and setting a bad example to University students whom he's supposed to educate.

Reasons for opposing the EU

Professor Wain's comments were made in respect of the following reasons I gave for opposing the EU. I submitted that EU integration does away with Malta's independence; that the EU whittles down Malta's sovereignty by progressively assuming more legislative powers; that the EU's common foreign policy is not in alignment with Malta's policy of neutrality; that the military alliance and militarisation of the EU are at variance with Malta's constitutional prohibition to form part of a military alliance; that the EU's economic and social policies are not in accordance with Christian ethics; that the EU Common Agricultural Policy is basically unchristian; that the EU officially promotes policies, such as abortion legalisation, which are against Christian values; that there is a "democratic deficit" in the EU; that the EU is a veritable web of contradictions, an example of which being the EU proclaiming the principle of free trade, while at the same time applying protective import policies and paying agricultural subsidies; and that the EU is stiflingly bureaucratic, rampantly corrupt, and lacking in accountability.

EU's ultimate aim: integration

Professor Wain disagrees with those who hold that the EU's ultimate aim is the complete integration of its member states. I think this is the fundamental point of the whole issue. Is the EU going to revert to being a community of independent and equal states, or is it going further on in its march towards being a union of dependent peoples?

I am afraid that the ultimate aim of the Brussels eurocrats is the second alternative, and that they will continue to have their sway as they have unfailingly done over the years.

I hold that the logic of the EU evolution, as amply illustrated in its successive treaties, necessarily implies the ultimate abolition of nation states and their artificial fusing into one state, made up of different peoples, all to be considered citizens of the EU. The national member states are expected to wither away with the flowering eventually of the regions.

Professor Wain may consider all this to be unfounded, but I cannot understand how he may qualify it as being "outdated".

Different meanings of independence, sovereignty

Professor Wain argues that the world has changed in such a way that people today understand independence and sovereignty in a manner different from what the two concepts meant in the past, and this because of the introduction of new terms, such as inter-dependence and shared sovereignty.

I do not think this is the case in respect of the EU. I think the EU is being moulded in such a way that a member state will not be allowed to act independently of the EU in an ever-increasing number of spheres. Every member state will have to act in the way the EU decides, even if a member state does not agree with the EU.

To me, this does away with a country's independence and sovereignty. Membership of the EU involves a country giving up its independence and sovereignty to another entity, the EU, in all spheres which are within the EU's competence.

I respect those who are honest enough to admit this, though I do not approve of it. I do not like those who do not have the courage to acknowledge it, though they know it is so.

I do not think that independence and sovereignty have today a different meaning. I think the question is whether one is prepared to undergo every sacrifice to preserve one's country's independence and freedom, or whether one is faint-hearted and afraid to face the future, and is prepared to exchange them for the protection of foreign domination through EU integration.