SEASON OF MYTHS
Will Brussels do away with the
British passport? Sarah Helm
digs for the truth
MYTHS of old were often spun around an element of fact. Archaeologists removing the sediment of Cadbury Castle in Devon observed that this ancient hill-fort might indeed have been the site of Arthur's Camelot. Latter-day researchers, digging beneath the hyperbole of a good tabloid Euromyth, may sometimes find a kernel of truth.
In the run-up to next month's Nice summit there has been a spate of tales from Brussels, ranging from plans to ban village fetes to reports of an attempt to ban Euroscepticism itself (see last week's cover story by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard). And then there is the passport myth, or alleged myth.
The autumn storm culminated in fren- zied headlines announcing that 'Brussels' was about to introduce standardised EU passports, in EU blue with EU gold stars. The British emblem on the cover was to be wiped off. Neil Kinnock has since issued frenzied denunciations (see cover story) of this kind of myth-making, and so I decided to get to the bottom of it.
I was confidently told at the outset of my inquiries that the passport myth had no basis in truth but had magically appeared from nowhere on a Brussels website and spread from there. So I called a senior Commission official.
It is a fact, he wearily explained, that the Commission is looking at ways of improving EU passport design to achieve greater `homogeneity', thereby making forgery more difficult. But it is not true to suggest that the Commission is acting without the authority of democratically elected national govern- ments. The power to make proposals on the design of passports of EU citizens was con- ferred upon the Commission in 1992 when Not another record token.' heads of state signed up to Article 18 (citi- zenship) of the Maastricht Treaty.
It was John Major and his Conservative government who signed away this slice of sovereignty because it was they who signed the Maastricht Treaty.
It is a myth to claim that the new mea- sures are an attack on national citizenship, he continued. European citizenship is intended to exist in parallel with national citizenship. The idea is simply to improve passport security so that EU citizens are able to move around freely, while ensuring that non-EU citizens cannot enter illegally. The options on the table include one to change the burgundy colour (introduced by Brussels back in 1981) to EU blue with EU stars printed upon it. This option would be the most secure as the design could be legally patented.
So, under that proposal, the British emblem might have to go, after all?
`Not necessarily,' said the official, although it might be 'a little over-crowded' on the cover if it stayed, opening up the possibility that it might just drop off. One idea is for the national emblem to be on one side and the EU stars on the other.
So there was some truth in this part of the myth? 'That option is very unlikely to be chosen,' I was told, and, anyway, Britain would have a final veto.
So was any of the myth true? I think it would be fair to say, 'Yes and no.' No, the British emblem on the passport is not going to disappear tomorrow. But, yes, a proposal, initiated under powers autho- rised by a Tory government, is being put forward which could lead to such a change. Was it therefore fair for the story to be highlighted in such sensational terms?
No, because there is nothing to fear; for security reasons the change makes a lot of sense. And no, because it is not going to happen now anyway. But yes if you care about emblems. And yes, because the change might happen in the future — the process of integration never stops, so the option is bound to return. Construction of the European Union resembles a glacier — you never see it moving. But at some point somebody has to sit up and say that it has moved.
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