Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)

Yes, although it is right that British nominees should take part if the service is established. When the right hon. Member for Rotherham referred to the ““best brains”” being sent, he was rather giving a hint that he would like to sent as one of the service's ambassadors, as the phrase is one that he would certainly like to apply to himself. However, my hon. Friend makes a good point. The EU is sometimes in the habit of setting up institutions before it has the full legal authority to do so. The service should not be established or recruited to before the treaty has been ratified by Parliament. Yet the Government have now agreed to the creation of such a service and to its rules on diplomatic and consular protection being determined by QMV, even though they used to be opposed to all of that. The Government's opposition was deep and long standing: as recently as last June, only days before the treaty was signed, the Foreign Secretary's immediate predecessor, the right hon. Member for Derby, South, fought a spectacularly unsuccessful last-minute rearguard action against the creation of the external action service. She reportedly said that the creation of such a service could be seen as ““state building”” and that Britain was opposed to it. How can it be that the creation of the service was sufficiently alarming to the Foreign Office for the Foreign Secretary of our country to make every effort to stop it even at the final hour but, when the Government caved in and agreed to it, it became something that was no threat at all and a matter that Parliament did not need to worry about? At the same dinner in Brussels, at the Foreign Affairs Council that preceded the Lisbon summit, the right hon. Lady the former Foreign Secretary also made a last-ditch effort to prevent the EU Foreign Minister or high representative from becoming the permanent chairman of the meetings of Foreign Ministers. Again, if that is of no account, why did the Government go to such lengths to try to prevent it? Is it the present Foreign Secretary's position that his predecessor was wrong to try to prevent those things? Was she only asking ““searching questions”” when she declared her opposition at the last minute? Then there is the matter of representation at the UN Security Council. Once again, the treaty carries the exact language of the constitution, saying:"““When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the UN Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the High Representative be invited to present the Union's position.””" The Government's approach to that was unambiguous. When the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) put forward the Government's views to the European convention drafting the constitution, he argued that that entire paragraph should be struck out altogether. He said:"““The UK cannot accept any language which implies that it would not retain the right to speak in a national capacity on the UN Security Council.””" Another ““searching question””: the UK could not accept the paragraph and wanted it struck out. Having got nowhere with that argument, however, the Government instead proposed another amendment that suggested that the EU Foreign Minister could only make a request to speak on behalf of the EU. Overruled on that ““searching question”” as well, the Government simply gave in completely. To be fair, the Foreign Affairs Committee has said that the provision allowing the EU high representative to speak at the UN Security Council would make little difference to current practice, and the Government of course have stated their agreement with that view. However, if they were confident that it made no difference to current practice, why was their initial hostility to the idea so emphatic and repeated? Presumably it is because they saw it as the thin end of a wedge. Subsequently, of course, it has turned out that, while the Government have been resisting that wedge, the Prime Minister has appointed to the Foreign Office a Minister who is the wedge himself. The noble Lord Malloch-Brown said on 2 October 2006 that the European Commission would eventually represent the EU and the United Nations as the voice of all member states, adding:"““I think it will go in stages…It's not going to happen with a flash and a bang””," but"““as quickly as possible.””" That is not the Government's policy, but it is the policy of one of their members. As Lord Malloch-Brown sees himself, to use his own words, as"““the older figure, the wise eminence behind the young Foreign Secretary””," and as the Prime Minister saw fit to make him the Minister with responsibility for UN reform, who knows where it might lead?