The European Union must reform its economy and embrace globalisation when it finalises its constitution that leaders will debate today, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Gordon Brown said in a newspaper column.
Mr Brown attacked the idea of EU-wide tax levels, adding that fiscal policy must remain in the hands of national governments, where politicians are "answerable to their own electorates" and command popular legitimacy.
"Political and cultural identities have remained firmly rooted in the nation state and only one in 10 [citizens] think of themselves as European," Mr Brown said in an opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal Europe.
Mr Brown set out a five-point plan for reducing unemployment, boosting growth and competing in a global marketplace.
The five points call for avoidance of tax harmonisation, rejection of federal fiscal policy, proactive monetary policies, liberalisation of markets, and the rejection of "protectionism and parochialism" by improving trade relations with the United States.