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A look at what's happening across Europe

Hannan's view

What kind of democracy only consults organisations it funds itself?

If the EU were a country applying to join itself, runs the joke, it would be turned down on grounds of lack of democracy. The only body that can initiate legislation is the European Commission and its 27 members are not elected by anyone.

Ah, say Euro-apologists, but it's a problem in theory rather than in practice. It's true that the Commission is unelected. But it doesn't really come up with these legislative proposals: it simply puts forward ideas that have been suggested to it by 'civic society'.

What they mean by 'civic society' is a nexus of pressure groups and NGOs: the European Women's Lobby, the Union of European Journalists, the European Trade Union Congress and so on. And what they don't tell you is that all these groups are creatures of the European Commission, wholly dependent on the EU for their funding.

When, for example, MEPs voted to regulate the use of pesticides, they were deluged with emails from an organisation called Pesticide Watch. What wasn't mentioned was that this nebulous body was a confederation of EU-funded campaigns. The EU, in other words, was paying to lobby itself. Or, rather, it was taking your money to have itself lobbied.

In much the same way, it pays Friends of the Earth to lobby it over global warming, it pays the WWF to lobby it on ecological standards, it pays the European Cyclists' federation to lobby it on cycling routes. And, surprise surprise, all these organisations urge it to extend its powers.

When the European constitution was being drawn up, the EU made great play of consulting 'civic society', inviting 180 organisations to give their views on what the constitution should contain. Looking down the list of these groups ' the Young European Movement, the Union of European Federalists and so on ' I became suspicious. I put down a written question asking how many of them received EU funding. Eventually, the answer came back: all of them. And, as you would expect, they all demanded that the constitution bestow more powers on their paymasters.

Wonderful, isn't it, how we are governed? The laws are made by busybodies who can't be bothered to get themselves elected to anything. And the rest of us are stuck with the bill.

Daniel Hannan is the Conservative MEP for South-East England

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