EU Council President Van Rompuy concerned at growing EU nationalism - by Arthur Beesley

EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy has expressed his concern about increasing nationalism in the EU, saying Euroscepticism was no longer “the monopoly” of a few countries.

In a speech last night in Berlin in which he argued against protectionist tendencies, he made the case that there were people in every member state who believed their own countries could survive alone in the globalised world.

“It is more than an illusion: it is a lie,” he said as he cited Franklin Roosevelt’s expression that the only thing to fear was fear itself.

Praising the “exceptional” role of German chancellor Angela Merkel in the debt crisis, he said the European authorities had more pressing matters to hand than to reopen the entire internal debate on the nature, the goal and the architecture of the union. Mr Van Rompuy also argued against recent proposals from European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso for the development of own-resource taxation by the EU institutions. Redesigning the way the EU secured its revenue was not a priority, he said.

For more: Van Rompuy concerned at growing EU nationalism - The Irish Times - Wed, Nov 10, 2010