EU: UK Membership

My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lord McNally for calling this important debate. Europe is a subject that causes great emotion not only in this House but outside and within families and elsewhere. My mother was born in 1919, the same year as the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Her views are those of extreme Euro-scepticism. One of her great heroes is the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, even though her greatest criticism would be the Channel Tunnel. To her, the signing of that treaty was almost treason to the country. Indeed, when I travel on Eurostar to Brussels I usually admit only to going by the ferry. That is how strongly people feel about these subjects. In terms of emotion, I wonder how our leaders back in, say, 1944 would look now at the European Union and Europe. We use the words shock and awe in other ways, but I think they are appropriate here. There would be shock that, unlike the Treaty of Versailles and the conclusion of the Great War, the emotion was not one of revenge on defeated states but of building and creating economic success, rather than raping and pillaging nation states that fought on the wrong side. The emotion is also one of awe that this body has been so successful over 50 years. What are the EU’s successes? Noble Lords have gone through so many of them during this excellent debate. The successes are peace and security, economic growth, particularly in the post-war era, that there is a market economy, democracy and the rule of law across a whole stretch—the majority—of a Europe of half a billion people. That is not just in the eastern European states. Italy in the 1960s did not turn to communism, Greece did not go back to the colonels and became a democracy, and Spain and Portugal, which we forget were so recently under fascist rule, have become secure and stable democracies. The European Union’s soft power has been perhaps most successful in providing an answer to the break-up of the Soviet empire, a break-up that took place, outside Yugoslavia, without toil and bloodshed. Beyond that, we have a single market that works, and a single currency that is one of the world’s most dominant. It amazes me that over less than 10 years, between the Maastricht Treaty and when the euro was in our pockets, technically the European Commission delivered a new currency, bringing together a dozen others. That was successfully executed and it immediately moved to a position of dominance in world markets. That is a tremendous track record—it is finished business in many ways, although it is unfinished in certain others—but we cannot any longer rely on it as a justification for the future of Europe. Today, we have different agendas. They are around justice and home affairs, particularly on terrorism and organised crime. Strangely enough, although that is one of the agendas we would expect our European citizens to be enthusiastic about, it is in many ways portrayed as secretive and as oppressing the individual rather than protecting, as it should do. It is an agenda that will move towards energy security. Already 20 per cent of oil in the EU is supplied by Russia and it is estimated that by 2020 75 per cent of our gas will be imported. There is a lot of talk in the European Union about energy security, but, as other noble Lords have stated, we have yet to show the mettle of our ability to change that situation. We all now see climate change as a major priority. Indeed, from March we have important targets on carbon emissions, biofuels and renewable energy. But, as we have seen perhaps from our own Government's examples, targets are not everything, and we have to find a way of delivering that. One area where the European Union has been far more successful than it has been given credit for has been in the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Although there have been all sorts of issues around the first phase of that regime, in the second there is a viable carbon price of around €30. The scheme is being copied, and is envied by California, by other states on the west coast of America and by British Columbia. Other communities are starting to look at it. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned, we have had one particular success in Europe in the past year: it has managed to cap our international roaming mobile charges. This is one of the most popular things that has touched citizens. But where does Europe go in the future? One thing that always strikes me as the ultimate naivety of the argument about the future of the European Union is that somehow because of globalisation we no longer need regional blocs, that all we need to do is to go back to national states. That is clearly evidentially not the case. Elsewhere in the world we have Mercosur in South America; NAFTA; ASEAN, which is building up; and the Confederation of Independent States of the former Soviet Union. That is perhaps the one that has failed most in its mission, but has been replaced by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which will probably become one of the most important and powerful regional blocs over the next 10 years. Why are regional blocs such as the European Union important? It is because with a population and a size of economy you have power. A population and market of half a billion citizens counts in global negotiations. An economy with a GDP of $13 billion counts in negotiations. A currency that makes up 25 per cent of world reserves counts in international negotiations. We should remember the American economy. America may in many ways have not used its military power to the greatest success for the United States, but in terms of its economy it has hardly ever put a finger wrong. It bargains and bargains hard. It is also important for the protection of small states, which are important. We never forget that the Great War started because of Serbia and Belgium—a problem with small states. In the Second World War, Poland was a medium-sized state. Yet, we have seen, particularly at the recent Russian EU meeting at Samara, it was through the European Union that Lithuanian oil supplies, Polish food exports, and Estonian interests on the superhighway and the hits on its internet system were protected in solidarity by the European Union. I am sure that that would not have been possible if those Baltic states were outside the European Union and that power bloc’s relations with the Soviet Union. I should like to say something which is different from many contributions. In the European project, two areas of the Maastricht Treaty went wrong. Rather than solving the complexity of Europe being completely not understandable to its citizens, the structure of Europe was complicated by pillars and the various institutions brought in at that time. It is absolutely critical that the European Union is understandable to citizens, transparent and accountable. The Maastricht Treaty also went wrong in calling the European Union a union. The EU is not a super-state; a confederation; a federation; a superpower; nor is it a mere association. I believe that its original description was exactly right. It is a European community, but not a community just of member states, but a community of member states and a community of its citizens. It is in those two parallel bodies that the European Union as a community needs to move forward. Many noble Lords have mentioned referenda. On major constitutional issues, within the Council of Ministers each member state rightly has a veto. Each member state can say yes or no and any individual member state can stop a constitutional treaty moving forward. What of the community of citizens? We should have one referendum—not five, six or 27, but one—for all European citizens that balances that individual vote of member states in the Council of Ministers. In that way, we would have greater accountability. On any treaty that is called constitutional, the citizens of Europe deserve that vote. Two weeks ago I received my renewal on my road fund tax in the post. It shocked me. It was £110, which I thought was a lot of money. I think that in 2006 my membership personally for the European Union was £150. When I get my money back, as we have particularly in the south-west, from Europe—we did not from Whitehall—that comes down to £70. As a citizen, that is great value for my membership of the European Union. I want greater accountability as a citizen. Then we may see the European Union as a community as the two communities move forward.