British Vote for Closer Ties to New Europe

The British Parliament voted overwhelmingly Thursday night to approve the controversial Maastricht Treaty, which provides for closer economic, monetary and political ties in a future Europe.

The British vote means that a major hurdle has been overcome in ratifying the treaty, signed at a European Community summit meeting in the Dutch city last December.

The next barrier, perhaps the last, will be the Danish national referendum on the issue June 2.

Only Denmark and Ireland are holding national plebiscites on the treaty. Other countries approve it through government or legislative action.

Prime Minister John Major’s government won the treaty approval in the House of Commons by a vote of 336 to 92.

Major was opposed by 22 members of his own Conservative Party, but since most Labor Party members abstained and the third-party Liberals supported the treaty, it was in no danger.

The final vote for the treaty was a rejection for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who at the last minute had sharply criticized the agreement, reached after much haggling by Major at Maastricht.

The document draws the nations of Europe closer under a European Community umbrella administered from Brussels. Among other matters, it would provide for a single currency by January, 1999, and for closer cooperation on foreign policy and security.

In a Thursday newspaper interview, Thatcher warned that approving the agreement would involve a “colossal” shift of power to Brussels, which is already the seat of the European Commission, the executive arm of the EC.

In defending his support of the Maastricht Treaty, Major contended earlier that Britain’s interests would be safe. He argued that the treaty was a victory for Britain, staving off what might have been EC claims on a role in member nations’ social, economic, foreign and defense policies.

“We have moved decision-taking back towards the member states in areas where Community law need not and should not apply,” he said.

And Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, in a late appeal in the Commons, argued that the Maastricht agreement was “an important step away from an increasingly centralized, and therefore arthritic, community, toward a new Europe in which Britain has a central place.”

Observers said Major’s success in rallying the House of Commons behind the treaty would strengthen Britain’s hand when it takes over the six-month presidency of the EC in July--and is in a position to guide the organization’s agenda.