Europe as a Tenth Member of the Community

Extract

THE REFERENDUM PROVED THAT THE BRITISH PEOPLE DID NOT WANT to leave the Community. But neither the government's presentation of its case nor the people's response to the campaign indicated any demand for changes in the Community, other than a loosening of some of its rules and a strengthening of the intergovernmental aspect at the expense of the supranational. Yet M Ortoli called the referendum result a ‘point of departure’ for the Community; the French are interested in resuming progress towards monetary union; the Germans are talking of more political integration; and on the continent there are high hopes of ‘European progress’ following the Tindemans report on European Union. Are we, then, heading for another great clash between static British and dynamic continentals?