Article: A powerful antidote to euroscepticism

British business seems to have turned almost universally eurosceptic in recent years, so the pamphlet published yesterday by Business for New Europe - "A Europe We Can Do Business With" - makes a refreshing antidote to the ill-informed prejudice that has come to characterise so much of what is said and written in this country about the EU.

The sponsors have persuaded an impressive 36 leaders from business, the City, and the professions to make the case for Europe, and a pretty compelling read it makes too.

Everyone has their own particular take, and most of them qualify their remarks with reference to the urgent need to pursue the reform agenda within the European Union. All are realists, and nobody is pretending there aren't huge challenges ahead. Yet the great thing about the EU is that, though it aspires to be a single market, it is self-evidently not a single economy, culture or country. It is this diversity which is likely to be part of its strength in the global economy now fast becoming the over-riding reality.

I hardly dare highlight one of these luminaries for fear of upsetting the others, but one of the best perspectives, spoken from the heart, as it were, comes from Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse. I couldn't put it any better, so I'll let him speak for himself: "There are some in the UK who think that we have the answers to everything, and that Europe can teach us nothing. These people affirm that we are Anglo-Saxon and highly competitive whereas our Continental neighbours are slow, old-fashioned and lazy. This is not what I find when I visit the Continent. We should be open to learning from our Continental partners in different areas, including in the sphere of business and economic policy. It is notable that the most successful countries in Europe at the present time are the Nordic ones - Sweden, Finland, Denmark. They have been able to become competitive in the global market place." Quite so.