THE Government has vowed to stop the European Union deciding workers' rights in Britain following the latest proposals from the Convention discussing Europe's future.

The plans unveiled in Brussels yesterday include making an existing Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding in all European Union countries.

That is acceptable to the UK, a Government spokes-man said, as long as it did not add new legal rights beyond those already enjoyed by British citizens.

The charter was introduced in 2000 as a declaration of peoples' basic freedoms. Most of it repeats long-standing Council of Europe principles on human rights and individual freedoms, to which every EU country and nearly 30 others are signatories.

But it goes further on workers' rights and social policy, and that could mean a European judge having the final say on a UK workers' right to strike.

Under the Convention's plans, the charter is enshrined in a constitutional treaty, giving it legal force and overriding domestic law.

Yesterday's publication of another raft of proposed EU measures also included the creation of a European Public Prosecutor, with legal powers to act on the EU's behalf "to tackle serious crime having a transfrontier dimension".

Originally seen as a mandate to deal with cross-border fraud involving EU cash, the proposal says the prosecutor would have the right to operate in the jurisdiction of any of the member states to pursue criminals and bring them to justice for "serious crime affecting several member states".