European Union (Amendment) Bill

A connoisseur of conspiracy theories would have a lovely time if they attended the debates on European constitutional issues that we have in the House from time to time. I have been to a great many such debates, starting off with the Maastricht debate, and including the Amsterdam and Nice debates. On every occasion, I can recall the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) and others arguing that national sovereignty was about to come to an end, and that if we passed the legislation in question it would bring to an end centuries of British constitutional history. Today they are still arguing that if we pass the Bill before us the same effects will ensue. They always do their homework and are always extremely interesting to listen to, and I do not wish to run down their sincere convictions on the subject, which I have known about for a very long time, and which I thoroughly respect. However, their predictions are in danger of running out of credibility. The treaty's provisions for a European common foreign and security policy are extremely desirable, sensible, and pragmatic—and, I shall argue, extremely modest in their effect when we consider what might have been called for given the circumstances in which we find ourselves in the modern world. The provisions include important reforms that are desirable for two reasons. First, it has been clear to a great many people for a long time that, in the modern world, a platform of 60 million people with single-nation status is simply not sufficient to solve some of the problems that we face. That goes for the economy, climate change and the environment, and many other matters, and certainly for foreign and defence policy. If we wish to have an effective, positive influence on the stability of the world, we need to join forces, pool our resources and join our voice to those of like-minded countries. We need to put structures in place, so that if we come up with a common initiative or make a common démarche on a particular matter, we are taken seriously and it is not regarded as a temporary coming together of a group of nations whose opinions might diverge again the very next day; we should instead be seen as a major world force that has coherence, conviction and sustainability. Many of us have been making that analysis for a long time. It is of course the basis of the development of the European defence and security policy initiative, which has come to fruition in the treaty. The second important aspect of the treaty is that it brings to an end a lack of coherence, a potential contradiction. Until now, the European Union has had a distinct untidiness—it is worse than untidiness; it is a serious administrative handicap—in the division of responsibility between the Commission in its external affairs function and the high representative on one hand, and the country holding the presidency of the Council on the other. Until a few months ago, I sat on the Select Committee on International Development—I lost that position for reasons that I shall not go into now—and I frequently saw at first hand how frustrating and almost incomprehensible it was to third-world countries to have to deal with two different representatives of the European Union. In matters of foreign policy, human rights and security, they had to deal with the high representative, Javier Solana. On matters of trade and aid, which are enormously important to a large number of developing countries, they had to deal with the External Relations Commissioner. It is always difficult to get two or perhaps three extremely busy people such as Peter Mandelson, Mrs. Ferrero-Waldner and Javier Solana all in the same room at the same time in Beijing, Delhi, Abuja or wherever it might be. That is virtually impossible, but in order to have a coherent, meaningful and fruitful discussion between the European Union and the third-world country concerned about the range of issues of interest to both sides, it would be necessary to get those three individuals into the same room. That is absurd. All those individuals have their own staffs, their own briefing and so forth. No doubt those staffs have their own bureaucratic interests and agendas. That cannot be avoided in any bureaucracy, even in one as effective and as relatively lean as the European Commission. It is a highly undesirable situation. Anyone coming from a private sector background—the right hon. Member for Wells, like myself, comes from that background and understands these things—would be horrified at such administrative muddle, duplication and possibility of creating misunderstandings all round.