Posted 5:15 AM by Dil
December 07, 2003

Caught in the coils of Giscard's folly
Gisela Stuart MP was one of the 13 people who drafted the new EU constitution. She doubts the process, the motive and the final product
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-921964,00.html

Posted 5:14 AM by Dil
Very nice piece on MacShane - don't know exactly where he is, but he is forcefully pro-European.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,1109536,00.html

On the plane home I show Tony Blair extracts from Douglas Hurd's memoirs. In it, the former foreign secretary and an incarnation of British Torydom writes: "I saw the EU as a huge achievement compared to anything Europe has seen. By historical standards it was still young - imperfect and often irritating because we had not yet learned the art of working effectively together. Rhetoric had run ahead of achievement, but that was an argument for moderating rhetoric, not for abandoning achievement."

In Hurd's view saying "No" to Europe by opposing ratification of constitutional treaties like Maastricht was "foolishness" which would help "to bring about the nightmare which had always alarmed our predecessors: a continental union influencing British lives at almost every turn over which we had no control."

Posted 5:12 AM by Dil
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1081987,00.html
Reasons Blair may have changed on constitution

Posted 5:11 AM by Dil
France ends coal mining with tears but not a single protest
By John Lichfield in Paris
24 April 2004

The French coal miner, a powerful symbol of social revolt and industrial strength for more than a century, passed into extinction yesterday.

The last lump of coal was ceremonially carved last night from the La Houve mine near Creutzwald in Lorraine. An industry that produced 60 million tons of coal and employed 150,000 people as recently as 40 years ago has ceased to exist.

Although several smaller European countries have already stopped coal mining, France is the first of the world's large industrial powers to abandon production of what remains the world's second largest energy source.

Paris decided10 years ago to close its remaining mines, rather than compete with cheap, open-cast coal from other countries. The last shipments of French coal cost €130 (£86) a tonne to extract. Coal imported from Australia costs €40 (£26) a ton, including transport costs.

French coal miners, once numbering 300,000, built a fearsome reputation as the spearhead of social revolt and the champion of workers' rights - illustrated by Emile Zola's novel Germinal, based on the strikes in the northern coal fields in the 1880s. The last pit closed yesterday with nostalgic ceremonies but not a single protest.

By agreement with the unions, all redundant miners are paid 85 per cent of their salary until they are 45 and then 80 per cent until they reach normal retirement age. They keep their free homes and generous health and other social benefits.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=514677