GB and EU
...ts or changes in rules of procedure. One of these is very important to Britain: the nomination of the Commission President: It is essential that in an EU of 27 or 30, one small state cannot block the right appointment. Nine deal with freedom of movement where Britain has an absolute right to decide whether to take part or not, thanks to the protocol it secured at Amsterdam.[16] The remaining are primarily about the efficiency of economic management and the single market, where majority voting is in this country's national interest: financial management of the EU budget, industrial policy, and trade in services. All that means new markets for British financial services and the jobs and prosperity that go with it. And within these articles, the Union has kept unanimity where Britain needs it: unanimity in respect of harmonization in anti-discrimination measures, unanimity for passports, unanimity for anything to do with taxation and social security. There were areas where it would not have been in British interests to agree to any Qualified Majority Voting, in particular for taxation and social security. Any proposal in Nice to remove these from veto would definitely have been vetoed by GB. As the British Government had undertook to the House, these matters will now remain subject to unanimity. In the field of justice and home affairs, the special protocol agreed at Amsterdam continues, to mean that Britain can decide where to join in cooperation in its national interest, for example, in dealing with problems of asylum.[17] Enlargement 'Enlarging the EU is an historic opportunity, both for the EU and its new members. It will fulfil the challenge set a decade ago when the Iron Curtain was brought down - to create a prospe...