EU no threat to democracy

M M Henderson (Letters, 13 February) makes so many uninformed points about the EU Reform Treaty that it is difficult to know where to begin correcting him.

Each EU institution (parliament, council and commission) already has a president. It is therefore difficult to see how the change in the council presidency from six months to two and a half years can possibly be seen as a threat to "our monarch" or "the people's democratic voice".

In fact the reform treaty enhances democracy by giving more power to national parliaments by allowing them to judge whether EU legislation adds value to national objectives. The directly elected European Parliament will have greater power in a range of policy areas. The democratic merits of the text are difficult to deny and the treaty should be saluted for sketching out a union that is both democratically sound and helps us attend to the need for greater EU policy coherence on the world stage.

DAVID MARTIN MEP, European Parliament, Rue Wiertz, Brussels