THE German government yesterday rejected a charge by Britain's Foreign Secretary, Mr Malcolm Rifkind, that it wanted to create a European super state. In a speech to the Christian Democrat Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Bonn, Mr Rifkind accused Chancellor Helmut Kohl of being out of touch with public opinion in Europe.
"It was the absence of real legitimacy that brought down the regimes across Central and Eastern Europe eight years ago," he said.
"Anyone who proposes taking power away from established institutions and giving it to new ones is taking a grave risk and must have good reasons for doing this."
Mr Rifkind's speech, the third of his series of lectures setting out the UK's vision of Europe, was aimed not only at Germany's politicians and electorate but also at British voters.
He was particularly critical of Germany's proposals for greater European integration at the InterGovernmental Conference and cast doubt on Dr Kohl's claim that he does not want a European superstate.
Mr Rifkind pointed to Germany's proposals, including more majority voting on issues such as foreign policy, a European police authority, moves towards a common defence, and integration of large areas of justice and home affairs.
"All of these proposals seem to point the same way: a transfer of power from the member states to European institutions. To many people it looks like an agenda for creating a European state.
"People in Britain ask, how does a United States of Europe differ from the proposals made by Germany and others for ever closer integration? How far down the road of integration do leaders in Germany and elsewhere think Europe should go?" he said.
Mr Rifkind claimed these were fair questions about Europe which had to be answered by those countries calling for further integration.
He insisted that Britain was not anti European but wanted a European Union in which all of its peoples could feel comfortable.
"We want union without uniformity, a framework that liberates people and their governments, not one that constrains them," he said.
He described Germany's proposal to extend majority voting on major EU decisions as being undemocratic and scorned a favourite German metaphor to describe the process.
"It is no good saying that the convoy must not go at the pace of its slowest ship. We are not talking about convoys, we are talking about democracy," he said.
A German government spokesman dismissed Mr Rifkind's remarks as inaccurate and insisted that Germany wanted a federal structure for Europe rather than a centralised one.
He also repeated Dr Kohl's warning that European integration was a question of war and peace in the next century.
