AGAIN, we have North West MEP, Mr Gary Titley, using scaremongering tactics to argue the case for giving up the pound for the euro.

Mr Titley is very selective with his facts and figures.

Yes, the switch over for countries giving up their own currency for the euro, went smoother than most forecasters predicted. We must congratulate all those involved in the operation. What Mr Titley failed to state is that research by UBS Warburg, says that in the first month of the euro changeover, cost European citizens some £1.8 billion in increased prices!.

Mr Titley's claims regarding our exports are very contentious. If we take goods and services together, we export more to the rest of the world, than to the EU countries. Also, any goods exported through a continental port and then onto other counties outside the EU are classified as exports to the EU. Some say that this could alter the export figures to the EU by some 20per cent.

Mr Titley states that remaining outside the Eurozone MIGHT jeopardise investment into this country. Nobody has produced any hard economic analysis to justify such a statement. It is precisely being outside the EU that investors see us as a gateway to Europe. We do not have the high taxation, red tape and the bureaucracy that comes with being controlled by Brussels.

If the EU countries are such a good place to invest, why has foreign investment into Britain been second only to the U.S.A. over the past decade?

In January, the United Nations produced its annual rating for foreign investment. It stated that last year, Germany and France jointly, attracted investments of $63 billion. Britain alone, achieved $73 billion!

Investment creates jobs. Only this week the German Federal Labour office announced that unemployment was at 10.4 per cent - 4.289 million people out of work- and rising.

France, Spain, Italy and Portugal have unemployment hovering around the 9 pc mark, and rising. In Britain, unemployment stands at 5.2per cent. I trust Mr Titley is still insisting on being paid in pounds rather then euros, which has lost a quarter of its value against the dollar and 8per cent against the pound, since its introduction.

G.Crowther

Heaton, Bolton