Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)

It is a pleasure to share in the poignancy of the act of apostasy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth)—a poignancy that perhaps only two lads from Huyton could fully appreciate. I shall do two simple things in this short address: set out what I see as necessary and beneficial developments in European foreign, security and defence policy in the past decade or two, and then move on to the difference that the Lisbon treaty makes. Even bitter opponents of the European Union will recognise the advantages of being part of the Common Market. What opponents do not always recognise is the corollary: the extent of the commonality of interest that that implies. It extends to responsibility for the protection of those at risk within our sphere of influence and to the defence of common interests. The Balkan wars of the 1990s demonstrated how weak European Governments were when acting alone, and so the need for a common European foreign policy was perceived, in order to address future crises better. Following the St. Malo agreement of 1998, we saw the agreement of European defence policies at Helsinki in 1999 to support the common foreign policy, particularly through the development of the rapid deployment capability. That is why Europe was able to take over responsibilities from NATO in Bosnia, and to continue work in Congo, Sudan, and the other places in that impressive list of interventions for good cited by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in his opening address. In December 2003, the agreement on European security strategy spelled out the main threats to European security, which were terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts, failed states and organised crime. None of those issues is purely military. They all require more than a military response, and they demand a complete rethink of how we deploy civil and military resources to address future threats. Also, importantly, they require maximum collaborative effort, because such threats do not confine themselves to national frontiers. Such matters give rise to the consideration of defence procurement, rationalisation of the European Union defence industry base and, importantly, interoperability between our forces—hence the formation of the European Defence Agency to break down barriers, to encourage cross-border trade in military equipment and to harmonise the process of research, development and production of weapons and equipment. Such considerations have been made all the more necessary by reductions in defence budgets following the end of the cold war. As previous speakers have pointed out, the divergence of interests between the EU and the USA meant that we could not continue to depend entirely on NATO for European and security needs. We are witnessing a transformation of European forces in terms of their purpose, their equipment and their operation. I was at a conference on this transformation of European forces in Paris about a fortnight ago, and much high praise was given to the European Defence Agency by European defence procurement Ministers and by high-ranking military officers. Indeed, much praise is due to Nick Witney, a Brit—the director who got the EDA off the ground. What does all this have to do with the Lisbon treaty? Quite a lot. I am one of those who says that the treaty is emphatically not constitutional. It reforms institutions that need reform, specifically in the context of today's debate. The current EU institutions for making foreign policy are inadequate for the collaborative approach. The rotating presidency means a lack of continuity and expertise, which frustrates our American colleagues, for example. The institutional split between the Council of Ministers, which is diplomatic, and the Commission, which is economic, is counter-productive and inhibits partnership work. The reform treaty will improve the situation in a number of ways to allow for positive, more effective action, such as the merging of the jobs of the high representative and the Commissioner for External Relations, and the downgrading of the rotating presidency. It is a myth that the rotating presidency will take away powers from the UK. As was said by a previous contributor to the debate, if that were so, how could Spain and Greece go their own way on Kosovo? I put the case that collaborative effort is needed to promote and defend common and individual interests arising out of the successful development of the EU, which we all share. I commend the treaty to the House.