The changes being made by the Nice treaty are necessary to accommodate enlargement and whatever the arguments may be, at the very least the prospect of enlarging the Union will recede if it is not ratified. We need an enlarged and effective Union to assert the rights of the people of Europe over the power of capital. In today's globalised economic environment it is no longer possible for individual nation states, even large ones, to curb, control and regulate big multinational companies. That can only be done effectively when countries come together in regional political institutions such as the European Union and pool their sovereignty to assert those rights. We had a recent example of this when an international television company sought to buy the broadcasting rights of our home soccer games. We had recourse to EU laws, so we now have what some would presume was a basic right to watch those matches live on terrestrial television. If it were not for the EU, there might not have been such a positive outcome.