United Kingdom: About the United Kingdom - Part 2

From ExecutivePlanet.com

An introduction - legislation

With regard to legislation, it should be noted that England and Wales share the same legal system rooted in common law and, although Wales now has its own Assembly, all Welsh law is still made in Westminster. Scotland, on the other hand, has a separate legal system and the Scottish Parliament has considerable devolved authority, including fiscal powers. The Northern Ireland Assembly is currently suspended.

All UK legislation, however, is increasingly subject to the primacy of European Union law. The United Kingdom joined the then European Economic Community in 1973 and, despite sometimes difficult relations between London and Brussels (or, usually more precisely, Paris and Bonn/Berlin), is a signatory to the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 that established the European Union (EU). Like Sweden and Denmark, however, the United Kingdom has not adopted the single currency (the euro) and recent political developments suggest that the UK will remain outside the eurozone for the foreseeable future. Indeed the UK has a rather ‘semi-detached’ attitude to the EU and Europe as a whole. The topic divides the population into ‘Europhiles’ (in favour of greater European integration and embracing the single currency) and ‘Eurosceptics’ or ‘Europhobes’ (in favour of maintaining British sovereignty, against adopting the euro and, in extreme cases, hostile to the entire European project and even anything European). According to opinion polls the latter group constitutes the majority view. Again, if you are unsure where your interlocutor stands, it is best to avoid the issue completely or risk being subjected to the forceful expression of strongly held beliefs.

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