Your editorial 'Rotten to the core' (Evening Press, March 16) rightly condemns the 20 unelected commissioners who have been responsible in recent decades for the infant European Union's civil service without having "... even the slightest sense of responsibility".

Some of them needed to be told, like kings of old, that they do not exist by divine right. However, your editorial is silent on three important points.

First: the European Union is a slowly evolving alliance seeking a common future safer than our collective past. In that evolution, by a process bound to take a very long time, the commission existed before we had a European Parliament to control it.

Second: a democratically elected EU Parliament was always meant, eventually, to develop and control European-wide policies when the citizens of Europe would permit it.

Third: the campaign which caused the commission's resignation was vigorously led from its start by Pat Cox, MEP, the Leader of the Liberal Democrat and Reform Group in the European Parliament, while the indecisive Socialist majority there dillied and dallied.

You make the point that the departure of the present commissioners gives our politicians a vital opportunity to get a controlling grip on the European civil service. Correct!

More significantly, the EU elections in June 1999 give all participating citizens of Europe a chance to get a controlling grip on the European Parliament. For all its present imperfections the Europe of 1999 is a far better place than the Europe of 1939. A fair, strong and effective European Parliament is what we now need. Such a parliament is, after all, answerable to the people whereas mere commissioners are not.

Coun Ted Batty,

Selby Liberal Democrats,

York Road,

Barlby,

Selby.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.