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European Union Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have here an incredibly interesting article from this week's edition of Newsweek. It is headlined, ““To Rule the Euro Zone””. Hon. Members will know that I have tried to take a mild interest in European matters since I came to the House—I notice that one or two people are quite surprised—and I do so for good reasons. Indeed, in the first book I wrote on the subject, ““Against a Federal Europe””, I drew attention to what I then perceived to be a significant danger that Germany would take a disproportionate and predominant role in European affairs, for which I received a great deal of censorship and some abuse. It was suggested that I was talking about the Germans in rather disrespectful terms, which was quite untrue. However, the sub-heading to an extremely interesting article by Stefan Theil, dated 23 January 2011, reads:"““The unified currency was supposed to limit German power. Now the Germans are in charge—and no one is happy, not even the Germans.””" The article merits careful reading.