Britannia ruled the waves the until the 1940s, now the EU wants to waive the rules.
EU plot to rule the waves instead of Britannia
By RAY MASSEY, Transport Editor, and JAMES CHAPMAN
17th October 2006
GREAT Britain - HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's ship during the Battle of Trafalgar against the French, is now based in Portsmouth, Hampshire - the home of the still-mighty Royal Navy (second only to America, don't forget) - and is used as a tourist attraction. She's not a replica but the actual one, and is the oldest ship in the Royal Navy. As an island nation, the Royal Navy has always been Britannia's strongest section of her military and built the Empire.
The EU has been accused of a 'sinister' plan to abolish the sovereignty of Britain's territorial waters.
In what critics said would mean Brussels, rather than Britannia, ruling the waves, it emerged the EU is proposing a new 'common maritime space'.
Extraordinarily, sailing by ferry between Britain and the Continent would no longer be considered a trip abroad but a 'national' journey between two sectors of the European Union (somehow, I don't think the British would like to think of France being a part of the same "country" as them).
The EU says the plan is designed only to help 'simplify' trade around Europe.
But the proposals, being drawn up by the European Commission's transport officials, sparked outrage among MPs and shipping bosses.
They said it smacked of creeping federalism and another step towards a United States of Europe.
The prestigious 'Lloyds List' newspaper - the house journal of world shipping - branded the move 'sinister' and said it should be resisted.
Britain's mastery of the seas helped build the British Empire and was key to resisting all invasions since 1066 - from the Spanish Armada (158 and Napoleon (defeated by Nelson in 1805) to the Second World War (1939-1945), when most of Continental Europe surrendered to the Nazis.
The EU plan is the latest in a long line of challenges to Britain's maritime sovereignty.
It has opened up Britain's fishing zones to Continental rivals and sought to replace the historic 'Red Ensign' from merchant ships and replace it with the Euro flag.
One EU map of the UK abolished England altogether - showing Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - but reducing the rest to a series of English 'regions' without an country called England.
As part of the latest shake-up, plans have also been drawn up for an EU coastguard.
The shipping industry is concerned the commission will subsequently attempt to protect its maritime space by restricting journeys made by ships which do not fly the EU flag.
Under the Brussels plan for a borderless 'common European maritime space', a ferry crossing from Dover to Calais will be classed as a domestic voyage because at no time will the vessel leave EU waters.
But critics accused Brussels of 'self-deluded grandeur'.
Lloyd’s List, the daily newspaper which covers the maritime industries, said: 'It was in the second century AD that the Roman jurist Marcianus first raised the concept of mare liberum - the 'freedom of the seas'.
'If all the seas were Roman seas, their freedoms were indisputable. A couple of thousand years later matters are not nearly so clear, but Rome, or at least the Treaty of Rome, as implemented by Brussels which brought into being the European Union, is still attempting to exert its influence over the seas which surround it.'
The newspaper continued: 'Fortunately there are still a few free traders around to alert us to the latest Eurospeak about a 'common European maritime space' which contains not a few sinister assumptions in its bland phraseology.
'All sorts of deep and difficult implications could emerge should the Euro-bureaucrats come to believe that this is a legal term which changes these waters into a political entity.'
The term 'common European maritime space' was first included in a discussion document issued by the commission earlier this year.
Commission officials are now gathering industry reaction ahead of making a formal proposal next year and declined to comment last night.
For the Tories, shadow shipping minister Julian Brazier said the proposal was 'an assault on member states' sovereignty' and deserved to end up 'in the dustbin of history.'
UK Independence Party transport spokesman Mike Nattrass said: 'This is a transparent power grab by an imperialist Brussels autocracy.'
dailymail.co.uk
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Britain has beaten unjustfied interference from from Continental Europe many times in the past. If the EUSSR doesn't watch its step it'll be beaten again.
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