For many years – both before and after the referendum in 1975 – the challenge to pro-Europeans in Britain was to win the battle over British membership of the European Community. Those who believe that Britain’s interests are best served by a peaceful and prosperous and united Europe, with the UK playing a leading role in it, had a titanic task in continually having to fight for the public’s support. Against them was ranged a mixed alliance including among others those who had never got beyond 1945 and the firm view that the best way of dealing with some of our continental neighbours was fighting them, those with long memories and lingering fantasies of Imperial Isolation, and those who believed that we would be much better throwing in our lot wholeheartedly with the Yanks.

It’s a battle we must continue not to neglect. One glance at the coverage of almost any even vaguely European-related issue in almost in any newspaper, is enough to remind us, if we needed it, of the sheer bile and vitriol constantly poured on the European project. Pro-Europeans have a continuing and constant duty to combat this, and continue to remind the public why it is that Britain’s interests are best served by being inside the EU.

But the need to do this should not blind us from the fact that in 2004 pro-Europeans find themselves in a somewhat unfamiliar situation.

For the truth of the matter is that Britain’s active membership of the EU is now under surprisingly little serious attack. Of course it is not difficult to find complaints that some new little regulation ‘from Brussels’ means the end of 1000 years of British history, or somesuch nonsense. But Britain’s actual membership of the EU is enjoying a period of unusual security. Even the Conservative party does not actually want Britain to leave the EU – even under IDS’s leadership, which will surely historically be seen as the high-water mark of their extremism, they were careful not to question our EU membership. We have, despite Blair’s personal and utter failure to lead on the Euro, possibly Britain’s most generally pro-European government ever. In British post-war history it is unusual for both the governing and the largest opposition party both to support Britain’s active engagement in the EU.

1 May’s enlargement also plays a role. At a time when every country from Estonia to Slovenia is a member of the EU, the idea that the UK might not be a member is even more difficult to understand. It is, in fact, increasingly difficult to find any serious mainstream politician anywhere in the forty-odd countries of Europe (outside Switzerland, perhaps) who does not want their country to be actively and positively engaged in the EU. This too is certainly new in post-war European history.

All this puts British pro-Europeans in a new place, and presents us with new challenges.

For instead of worrying only about the question of whether we want to be part of the European project at all – the question of the second half of the twentieth century – in 2004 we should be focussing on what kind of EU it is that we want to be part of, and what we want it to do. These issues – the more ‘normal’ political questions we ask about national and local tiers of government – are the challenges of the European Union in the twenty-first century.

Since the days of the Great Reform Bill Liberals have been clear about the ways we want Government to be open, democratic and accountable through Parliament. This should be as true at the European level as it is at any other level of Government.

At one level this means a central role for the European elections in deciding the people who govern the EU for the next five years, and the policies they will implement. We should not be shy in saying that the elections should represent a political choice, when voters decide which politicians and which political principles they want to lead the EU for five years. We wouldn’t dream of suggesting anything else for any other tier of government.

And in a whole range of ways, from the Council routinely meeting in public, to the regions of Europe having a more meaningful say in the decision-making process, the EU needs to change to perform the central role of any legitimate tier of government, helping its citizens tackle the challenges they face. Pro-European Liberal Democrats should be articulating the way we want the institutions to change to function more effectively and democratically, and campaigning to achieve that.

We should be prepared to look too at which areas we would like the EU to be taking action in. This should not be on the basis that we support the EU and therefore the EU should have its finger in every pie, but on the basis of a sensible assessment of which areas action at the EU level has something usefully to bring to achieving our goals more effectively. One of the anti-European media’s most successful insights has been that a very good way of turning people against the EU is to predict that the very next Directive proposed by the Commission, or Treaty agreed by Heads of Government, presages the introduction of that mythical creature, the Federal Superstate, which in turn will cause the end of Britain, the sky to darken at midday, and broadly speaking the end of civilisation as we know it. It is something alien. In fact what is really surprising is how little pressure for action by the EU in new areas there is, of how much of the road to an integrated federal system we have already travelled.

In industrial and economic policy (broadly speaking the first pillar of the Maastricht structure) the level of common action already achieved is very considerable and there is probably not much more to be done here. In home affairs policy (very roughly the third pillar of Maastricht) there is certainly more to be done at EU level to tackle the security threats that we all face in common, but following 9/11 and now Madrid there is currently considerable progress now happening towards this.

The one obvious outstanding area where we as a party have been clear that all our interests will be served by common action where we agree, is in foreign and security policy. In other areas, such as social policy, education and health, where there are very wide differences in national attitudes to the balance of tax we want to pay, and level of public services we want in return, there is probably little role for the EU to get involved.

And in those areas where we do think the EU should be involved, we should of course be guided by the same Liberal Democrat principles that we follow in everything else the party does. Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament face the same choices between economically right-wing and left-wing paths, between policies which respect citizens’ civil liberties and those which infringe on them, as Lib Dems in the House of Commons (or indeed those in Council Chambers).

Clearly LDEG has a continuing role to express and support activists in showing that Britain’s interests lie in being a leading player in the European Union. And of course we have a particular role to play in supporting the party’s campaigning efforts so that we elect as many MEPs as possible in the European elections.

But I believe we increasingly also have a vital role in helping the party to focus on expressing the policies we want to pursue at European level. There is a lot that LDEG can do to help deepen understanding among party members and activists of the ideas that we put forward at European level.

For any political party the key questions are what it would do differently if it had the power. Increasingly at European level Liberal Democrats do have the power, and LDEG has an important role in developing and deepening our ideas of what governance at the European level ought to be doing.