EU: UK Membership

My Lords, there are few Chambers in Parliaments in Europe which speak with greater knowledge of what is happening in the European Union than does your Lordships' House. The work of the Select Committee and its sub-committees ensures that our debates are well informed. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who would have wished to be here today but, because of a meeting with Members of the European Parliament and of the Scrutiny Committee of the House of Commons, is prevented from participating. Earlier this week I had the privilege of accompanying the noble Lord to a meeting of the European Parliament with the representatives of the national Parliaments, gathered on the eve of the Council to consider what should be the outcome of that meeting and of the IGC to follow. It may be of interest to your Lordships to know that there were few parliamentarians present who would have recognised the words of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, about the burial of the constitutional treaty being imminent. That, perhaps, was not only wishful thinking on the part of those parliamentarians, but also an awareness that the European Union has reached a point of decision which it cannot balk if it is to be an effective agency for the enlightened, liberal, democratic and free impetus which has given it its raison d’être. That is particularly so since the enlargement which has taken place. Like my esteemed leader, my noble friend Lord McNally, I came to support and accept the European Union for reasons very different from those which prevail with the younger generation today. That does not mean that our views should not be heard or given weight. My earliest childhood memory is of being bombed by German bombs in Glasgow and being taken into the cellarage of our home for protection. The following day, I was evacuated to the country. We sometimes take peace and prosperity too lightly. But I will not rest my case on that vision any more than the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, did on his. I share the view expressed by my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby that the performance of the European Union today is not as effective as it needs to be. If we are to contribute to eradicating the threats not only to ourselves but to billions of the world’s population from a regression to barbarism in Africa, the denial of human rights in many other parts of the world and the abnegation of democracy—to which threat we directly committed hard power in Iraq—the Union’s future capacity to make decisions is what this constitutional debate is about. How is the Union to become more effective, as the challenges grow, than it has been in the past decade? I do not dissent from what the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said about beef, but, candidly, in the scale of things, there are greater challenges which we have not successfully risen to. The essence of the constitutional treaty, as opposed to the way it was presented, was about ensuring that member Governments and parliamentarians were capable of focusing on issues in a continuing way and not simply indulging in aspirational rhetoric. That is the danger today in the European Union. We have heard a great deal about the threat of climate change and the importance of having an energy response to secure our supplies. I welcome what happened at Hampton Court and at the last Council, in which these issues were at the top of the agenda and in which declarations were made by Governments about how they wished to work together in those areas. But the actuality is that these selfsame Governments have so far denied the European Union a direct competence to deal with energy matters. There is a striking gap between aspirations and delivery if one looks back at the trading emissions scheme. Its weakness in moving us towards the targets that were earlier adopted was allowing the member states the discretion, which ought not to have been centrally decided by the national Governments, about the appropriate quotas. The debate on the constitutional provisions is not ancillary, peripheral or something to be got out of the way. It is core and central to ensuring the effectiveness of the European Union's institutions. That does not mean that we need something comparable to the events of 1776. There were moments in the Convention on the Future of Europe when we were given the impression from some of those leading our discussions—I exclude from this the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who I am happy to say is speaking in this debate—that we were at such a moment in Europe's history. It is patent nonsense to believe that, through the concertation of views of the individual Governments of 27 member countries, we will be able to make a continuing impact on the major problems that face us. The true danger faced by the Union at this time is stasis—the danger of standing still and the consequent loss of our citizens’ confidence that the Union has anything significant to offer. They will take it as read that we are not about to have a European civil war. They will not see the connection between our prosperity and the decisions that appear to be taken in Brussels. There is a danger of the whittling away of legitimacy and support for the Union. We have seen that route tested to some extent by the Lisbon process, and its very limited successes must be recognised for what they are. What is working is what is customarily known as the Community method. The competition policy, about which the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, spoke, does deliver and requires the member countries to come together to empower the EU’s institutions to take decisions on behalf of their citizens collectively, not at the level of the lowest common denominator, allowing proper democratic debate in consideration of these issues. I believe that the Council ahead has a great challenge to rise to. But we are fortunate in having the leadership of Chancellor Merkel, a clean mandate for the President of France, and some awareness of the seriousness of what is on option. Certainly, the parliamentarians in Brussels on Monday had no doubts about the nature of the challenge.