I AGREE with Jim Homewood (Letters, November 16) that increased air travel is at best a mixed blessing and that it contributes massively to carbon dioxide evolution and thus to global warming.

However, I have to part company with him thereafter.

The European Union is part of the solution, not part of the problem. Whilst the EU has undoubtedly made air travel within Europe easier and has protected passengers' rights, it has also done more than any other group of states in the world to counter global warming, ensuring the Kyoto Treaty came into being, setting targets for CO2 reduction.

In the longer term, the way forward is to remove the exemption of aviation fuel from tax and to give people better alternatives to air travel for holidays. Both sets of measures need international co-operation and the only way to get that, in the face of likely oppositon from the United States, is through the European Union.

Lastly, once again, Mr Homewood is wrong about the EU draft constitution. It does not take away the rights of member states. In fact, it entrenches them and recent events have underlined the role of the European Parliament as one of the three pillars of EU decision-making, Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers.

Thus the EU can claim to be more democratic than the UK. All three of the EU decision-making arms are ultimately subject to democratic choice.

COUNCILLOR

DEREK BODEN