contrast, is founded on the converse principle. The first line of the first article of the Treaty of Rome commits it to an "ever-closer union".

Whereas power in Switzerland is dispersed, power in the EU is concentrated. And from that one structural flaw come most of the EU's present discontents: the unintended consequences of its directives and regulations; the inflexibility of its policies; the sense that the government has become remote from the governed; the determination of national electorates to vote 'No' to Brussels at every opportunity; and, yes, the high taxes.

Why, then, do Eurocrats keep bullying and hectoring the Swiss to join? Why do they encourage that minority of Swiss legislators

who see EU membership precisely as a way of sidestepping their voters and escaping their system of direct democracy? Is it envy? Or is it the fear that EU citizens might be encouraged by Switzerland's example to demand independence for their own states?

Let's drop the idea of Switzerland joining the EU, and instead encourage the European states to become cantons of the Helvetic Confederation. They know a thing or two, these Switzers.