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Standing Committee
on the Convention
Wednesday 19 March 2003
[Mr. Frank Cook in the Chair]
The Future of Europe
2.35 pm
The Chairman: We are quorate at 2.35 pm, so five minutes injury time will be added to the debate. I remind hon. Members to rig for silent running. The Committee has up to 90 minutes to hear statements from the parliamentary representatives and alternative representatives and to put questions to them. There will then be a debate on the motion:
''That the Committee has considered the Eighth Report (14th March) from the United Kingdom Representatives to the Convention on the Future of Europe.''
I will put the question on the motion if not previously concluded when the Committee has sat for two and a half hours.
In addition to members of the Committee, other Members of the House of Commons or House or Lords may ask questions and participate in the debate. I know that many hon. Members will wish to take part, and I hope that questions and contributions will be brief in order to allow as many hon. Members as possible to participate.
2.36 pm
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston): I thought that I would start with a brief reminder of the function of House of Commons representatives to the Convention, because there was some confusion in the previous debate. We are here to give an account of how we represent the House of Commons at the Convention, we are not here as Government representatives.
I am a member of the Praesidium, but Praesidium papers are not put together in the same way as Bills produced by the House on behalf of the Government. Papers are not subject to collective responsibility and are not fully agreed texts: they are working papers. The Praesidium arrives at preliminary conclusions about how we should move forward.
In the previous debate, the question was asked, ''In whose name did we sign up to what?''. That is misguided. Praesidium members have been charged with drafting a paper that will be discussed at an inter-governmental conference and then put to the various member states. The purpose of these debates is to discuss the treaty negotiations, which for the first time involve not only parliamentarians but others, because they are taking place in public.
We are now entering the crucial final phases. Our mandate requires us to finish in June, and the current timetable includes meetings until the end of June. There has been much pointless debate about whether there should be an extension of the time allowed, and whether the Iraq crisis should influence that decision. I have consistently argued that we should keep to our timetable. All our energies should go into meeting that
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timetable. If that is not possible, we should deal with any problems when we come to them. We should not waste time worrying about eventualities.
I pay tribute to those in the House of Commons who have supported my work on the Praesidium. I appreciate that it puts tremendous pressure on officials who have to continue with their normal duties, and I thank them for their invaluable support.
Since our last meeting, the Convention has debated a paper on legal instruments. One of my fellow representatives will have far more detailed knowledge of the matter, but I urge members of the Committee to read the paper extremely carefully because it could change the way that we make decisions. The second and third pillars—justice in home affairs and in foreign security and defence policy—have always had different decision-making mechanisms, and it is crucial that they continue to be protected.
We also had a debate on two protocols: one on subsidiarity and one on national Parliaments. On that occasion, I broke my self-imposed silence, because I did not feel that it was appropriate for Praesidium members either to table amendments to the convention or to contribute to amendments to a text that they had collectively proposed.
However, I felt that those two protocols had not been sufficiently discussed in the Praesidium. They had serious shortcomings and did not reflect some of the output from the working group on national Parliaments that I chaired. The debate that we had yesterday on those protocols was extremely useful, not least because we saw for the first time national Parliaments starting to act collectively. The extensive amendments that I tabled were signed by 18 members representing 11 countries, and the debate was extremely supportive.
There were two main issues that I thought needed to be changed on those protocols. The first was that there should be a red card mechanism in relation to national Parliaments. If it were felt that a red card veto from national Parliaments would infringe the rights of initiative by the Commission, I would be happy to change the wording to provide that the Council should not proceed.
It does not matter exactly which body we say should not proceed, but there should be a mechanism to prevent procedure on those matters if two thirds of national Parliaments say so. The six-week period for reaching preliminary agreements should be respected. I was told time and again that that was a nonsensical amendment because the six-week period is often breached. My answer to that is that it is about time that it did not get breached. It should be respected, because it is only six weeks, and it is the only time that national Parliaments have to give their opinion. The system should adapt to it.
Since then, articles have been tabled on the budget and justice in home affairs. There are copies in the Room, but they became available only on Monday. Concurrent with that work, a circle of reflection is being set up on the budget, and my noble Friend Lord Tomlinson will be the representative. There is also a suggestion that there should be a circle of reflection on
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resources, which at this stage makes absolutely no sense to me whatever.
If expenditure is to be discussed, the ways in which expenditure is raised and used should be discussed together. On the matter of resources, the current treaty would allow a new resource to be created if all members agreed—for example, if all the countries wanted a European Union tax, they could establish one. The only question that a working group on resources would have to address would be the political question whether its decisions should be based on unanimity or qualified majority voting. From what I can gather, several Governments argue that that would be a thin red line for them. My colleagues will be able to say more on that.
The final issue to which I want to draw the Committee's attention is the tricky problem of the Euratom treaties. It has become clear that, in order to provide legal continuity, it is not possible to leave the Euratom treaties as they are. The question is whether the Convention should ask the IGC to deal with that, whether we should re-open discussion on the substance of the treaty, or whether we should simply amend the protocol that would give the legal basis for the Euratom treaties to be included.
The Praesidium's view—it is mine, too—is that whatever is done should be minimalist. The Convention should only change the legal basis to allow for continuity. The reason for not opening up the Euratom treaty is that it is not part of our mandate; we are not sufficiently skilled to do that job, and it would only lead to unnecessary delay.
That is a brief summary of what has happened since the last meeting.
2.44 pm
Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells): The main architecture of the constitution was settled in the first 16 articles that we discussed last time—a Union separate from member states with a single institutional structure, the disappearance of the intergovernmental pillars and the incorporation of the charter of fundamental rights as a legally binding document. As well as opposing those developments, I remain disappointed that the constitution fails to restrict the powers of the Union. It is sometimes said in defence of a constitution that it will at least clearly delineate the respective powers of member states and the European Union. The draft constitution fails to do that, as evidenced by the long list of so-called shared competences in matters of public health, social policy and so on. That is a hopelessly vague division of powers. Instead, the Convention relies increasingly on the principle of subsidiarity. That is not new; it has been in the treaty ever since Maastricht. It attempts to improve it, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) has done sterling work, with my full support, in trying to bolster the role of national Parliaments through subsidiarity. However, despite our efforts, the Commission will have to review its proposals only if requested to do so by a third of member states. That is hopelessly inadequate.
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On common foreign and security policy, I should remind the Committee that draft article 14.1 of the constitution treaty, says:
''Member states shall actively and unreservedly support the Union's common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity''
and that they should refrain from acting contrary to it. Those words, drafted only a few weeks ago, already sound tragic or comic, depending on one's taste. The detailed provisions relating to common foreign and security policy have been postponed. This is clearly an exercise in futility. One cannot create a common foreign policy by institutional means. The treaty cannot manufacture a European spirit and a European foreign policy. However, that will not stop people from trying to do so, which will be dangerous, because attempts will be made to enforce such a policy and to outlaw dissident opinions. It will all be judiciable. Once it is in a constitution it will be capable of being enforced.
The hon. Lady referred to articles 24 to 33 governing legal instruments. Those are extremely important. It is proposed that existing directives should become known as European framework laws and the existing regulations, with which we are all familiar, should become known as European laws and should be directly applicable in member states without the need for national legislation.
In addition, there is to be a new category of non-legislative Act. That, again, will be directly applicable and binding in all member states, but not passed by the Council and European Parliament. I find the matter difficult to grapple with intellectually. A non-legislative Act sounds like a contradiction in terms. However, some guidance is given in draft article 27, which gives one use of the category in delegated regulations that may be enacted by the Commission. That is an alarming development. It is certainly contrary to the rule of law to have Acts of general application being enacted by the Commission or an agency or a non-law-making body. Obviously, such Acts will rank above any national law under the primacy of Union law provision, which is also in the draft constitution.
New justice and home affairs articles were published too recently to be included in the Committee's information pack, and I discussed that this morning with the European Scrutiny Committee. Relevant to this debate is that an area makes full use of the new legal instruments to create common policies by qualified majority voting on immigration, asylum and on the approximation of certain criminal laws and criminal law procedures. That does violence to our common law tradition and to the diversity of EU legal jurisdictions.
However, we are witnessing momentous events in the Convention. We are building a written constitution for this country as well as for Europe. It is difficult to exaggerate the constitutional and political implications; they will certainly long outlast the present Iraq war. When that war has receded into history, the Convention will continue to dominate British politics.
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2.51 pm
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