European Union (Amendment) Bill

I thought that the noble Baroness was going to express dissatisfaction with Switzerland because of its commitment to referenda as a means of determining policy. I intervene briefly to say how much I support my noble friend’s amendment. I found the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, very revealing, because he is looking at this from the perspective of creating an entity. My noble friend Lord Trenchard said that to create a presidency was to view Europe as a country and not as a set of nation states. I think that what my noble friend Lord Howell said about celebrity was not a flippant point. If we create a president who represents the Community externally, especially if it turns out to be President Blair, he would use that office and all his talents to become a figure on the world stage. What I find difficult about the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is that, on the one hand, we have to give up many of our vetoes, because apparently it is impossible to get agreement when you have such a large number of member states forming the Community, but, on the other hand, apparently it is okay to have a president representing the views of the Community externally that somehow are going to be agreed magically without having that requirement. I think of the crises that have beset us of late. I personally opposed the invasion of Iraq, but I wonder, if we had a world figure, a president of Europe, representing our views, quite how he would have managed the chaos that we saw in Europe at the time of the invasion of Iraq. We can think back to the Falklands and many other examples of where it has not been possible for Europe to form a view. The serious point that I want to make is that this is yet another example of the elite in Europe trying to force the pace of political integration too quickly. If it does that, it will damage the Union.