ACCORDING to Councillor Frank Adam (Your Letters, March 19) I am blaming Europe for the things it does not administer.

Were he to read the Maastricht Treaty he would realise that there is very little over which the EU does not have ultimate control. It was sold to us as a "free trade" area and Ted Heath assured us we would continue to have our rights of national sovereignty. He has since admitted that he deceived us.

He has apparently rechristened the rest of the world "Atlantis", it having disappeared beneath the sea, rather than being the recipient of more than half of our trade. As to the minority trade that we do with Europe, it is hardly in our favour given that our deficit is around £2 billion. I have no quarrel with democratic rule in Europe. Rule by bankers for the benefit of transnationals is what I totally oppose. This is the purpose of the European system of central banks against whom member states will be powerless to act as Article 107 of Maastricht forbids it. Far from being a bulwark against the USA the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the European Union are part of the same international monetary system which is forcing the so-called Structural Adjustment Programme on the Third World in return for help from the very International Monetary Fund whose harsh conditions for aid are exacerbating the problem. Similarly the EU convergence criteria are our Structural Adjustment Programmes.

Even now the WTO is secretly attempting to push through the agreements which would destroy the power of any democratically-elected government to protect themselves against the ravages of these transnational corporations and which, under the title of the Multilateral Agreement on Investments, was successfully defeated by massive protest led by the WDM. The USA and NAFTA are part and parcel of the same international monetary system.

As to Defence, it was Coun Adam who bought up the subject. With this reply, this dialogue has run its course, an opinion confirmed by Coun Adam's insulting use of the word "poses" to describe my defence of the poor. Enough said.

JIM HOMEWOOD,

Carr Avenue,

Prestwich.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.