David
Sumberg MEP
Date: 10/02/2004
NIL POINT FOR EURO ANTHEM
North West MEP David Sumberg is urging Europe's top bureaucrat Romano Prodi to bin lyrics for a European anthem with Federalist overtones.
Mr Sumberg said people from the North West would be appalled at the thought of having to sing a song praising the EU "Motherland".
The lyrics have been given to the EC's President Romano Prodi to go with the existing European hymn, Beethoven’s Ode To Joy by Austrian academic Dr Peter Roland.
But Dr Roland's lyrics sparked fury with their ominous echoes of Stalin’s imperialist Soviet regime in the line “ ... freedom for its people in a bigger motherland.”
The lyric is a dead ringer for one from the old Soviet anthem, “ ... sing to the motherland, home of the free.”
Mr Sumberg said: “The people of Britain should give nil points to this EU anthem,' he said. “Romano Prodi and his friends, Mr Blair included, should abandon their ill-thought-out plans for a European superstate. We know the draft EU Constitution boasts all the trappings of a state, from an anthem and flag to a currency, military arm, and justice department. We must stop it being adopted at all costs which is why the Conservatives are demanding a referendum on it."
THE LYRICS READ:
Europe is united now
United it may remain
Our Unity in diversity
May Contribute to world peace
May there forever reign in Europe
Faith and justice
And freedom for its people
In a bigger Motherland
Citizens, Europe shall flourish
A great task calls on you
Golden stars in the sky are
The symbols that shall unite us.