British business gives thumbs down to over-regulated EU

EU Commission President Barroso will use the Hugo Young lecture tonight to urge greater British EU involvement according to a report in today's The Guardian, linked here. BUT a survey published in the FT and reported by MSN linked here, reports that British businesses favour a re-negotiation of Britain's membership of the EU, one section reports: Chief executives who said they distrusted the European Commission outnumbered those who said they trusted the Brussels bureaucracy by more than two to one......

Larger businesses tended to be less sceptical about the EU but still showed much disenchantment. While 60 per cent of chief executives overall wanted the UK to renegotiate membership of the EU, support for renegotiation among those from the larger companies was 52 per cent.

Concern over EU legislation was greater among chief executives of the bigger businesses, with 70 per cent who thought regulation was increasing, compared with 59 per cent for the survey as a whole.