Richard Ashworth MEP: A vision of Europe we can all share

Richard Ashworth is the leader of Britain's Conservative MEPs.  Follow Richard on Twitter.

Yesterday I was in the audience at Bloomberg to hear our Prime Minister set out to the country his vision of our future relationship with Europe.

At the core of his message was a warm and overwhelmingly positive vision of a reformed and reinvigorated European Union, with British involvement at its heart and the single market its engine.

He stated, calmly and clearly, how vital Europe is to the UK - and vice versa. He acknowledged that our close involvement with the rest of Europe is an inevitable function of our history, our geography, our culture and our politics. He carefully described these ties that bind - ties which on some levels are unbreakable.

But he also vividly diagnosed the sickness which we now see laying Europe so low -  its democratic remoteness, the euro's fragility and a fundamental lack of competitiveness.

Disaffection over the EU is growing across Europe. It is not only in Britain that citizens increasingly see the EU as remote, unaccountable and costly. People begin to see the union as the problem rather than the solution.

Richard Ashworth MEP: In the EU, "austerity" means reality, and growth can only be achieved through competitiveness

Richard Ashworth is the leader of Britain's Conservative MEPs.

The debate surrounding Europe's economic crisis has reminded me of Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty. In Through the Looking Glass he scornfully tells Alice: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

And so it is in the Eurozone debate, especially over the two words on everyone's lips - "austerity" and "growth". It seems to me that every speaker means something different by each word, while each listener understands something else. For some, austerity means economically-dominant northern Europe - forcing southern Eurozone partners into political submission under the weight of monetary and fiscal union.

For some of us, however, it seems an unfortunate and misplaced word to use altogether, precisely because it is capable of so many different meanings. Never forget, the Greeks didn't get where they are by accident, nor because of any agenda in Germany, ECB or EU to do them down. They got there through years of poor decisions and bad governance. Most notably, they thought that once they were in the Eurozone, Greek labour costs could have parity with the Germans. Without German productivity, they priced themselves out of the market and the government effectively handed control of monetary policy to the trade unions.

Richard Ashworth, Martin Callanan and Charles Tannock set out their stalls in the race to lead the Conservative MEPs

Next week in Strasbourg three Conservative MEPs will stand for the leadership of the delegation of Conservative MEPs. ConservativeHome asked each of them to briefly set out their stall...

Richard Ashworth has been an MEP for South East England since 2004 and deputy leader of the Conservative MEPs since 2009.

Proportional representation (PR) and the Lisbon Treaty.  We didn't want either of them but, now that they are in force, they have a huge impact on the role of MEPs.

Under the PR system voters vote for the party of their choosing and for its policies.  They do not vote for individual candidates, nor do they vote for the individuals views. Responsibility for defining all the major decisions on Europe rests with the political parties and their leadership in London, not with MEPs in Brussels. It should be clear that the role of MEPs is to promote and represent the policies of the party in the committees, where the real work is done, and in the parliament of the European Union.

Richard Ashworth MEP: EU accounts debacle enters its unlucky 13th year

Richard Ashworth, MEP for the South East and member of the European Parliament's committee on budgets, explains what went wrong with the EU's accounts.

Even before the European Union's Court of Auditors delivered its verdict on the EU's accounts on Monday night, I could have told you what it would say. For the thirteenth year in a row, the EU's accountants felt they were unable to give a positive statement of assurance.

Trust in the integrity of the accounting procedures is a vital foundation stone of any democracy. If the people don't have confidence in the veracity of the governing institutions of Europe then we begin to resemble a banana republic. I would like to explain in a little more depth why the auditors came to their decision, and some of the steps I have been advocating that will enable us to move closer to ending this charade.

Firstly, there is the issue of inadequacy of internal controls and the regularity of the transaction the EU conducts. The court makes reference to administrative errors, misapplication of funding and the failure to follow correct budgetary procedures. While the auditors rarely actually refer to fraud, not having adequate controls can leave the Commission vulnerable to accusations of corruption.

But the comments above are usually as far as the Court can go – because they can only comment on the transactions they can see, and that’s a mere 26 percent of them. 74 percent – the overwhelming majority – of transactions are carried out by the national governments and their agencies. For example, in the UK a large amount of EU money is spent by Defra. If you’re one of the farmers I recently met still waiting for their 2005 CAP payment, you will not be filled with confidence! The Court of Auditors are unable to scrutinise these accounts and, while that does not mean each of them are cooking the books, it does create a lack of transparency and accountability we would expect.