European Union (Amendment) Bill

Like the noble Lord, Lord Howell, I agree with the amendment. Why do we need this long-serving, long-time president? That was answered in a sense by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who made a Jesuitical point about efficiency and effectiveness. Well, it depends how you define those two words, but it seems to me, and to others in our position, that the European Union has been perfectly effective or efficient enough already, both on the national and international stage, with a rotating presidency. I do find it rather odd, again picking up on something that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said—I hope I have not misunderstood him—that it would relieve the burdens on smaller countries, such as Cyprus and Malta, not to have a presidency or to be a long way down the line to have a presidency. That seems to me extraordinary. All the federalists make great play about equality of nations and what a wonderful brotherhood this is, yet it seems to me that there is a first and a second division—those who will have the presidency and those who will not have it. Surely, it is much more sensible, if you are to have this figure, that he should remain short-term and that the presidency should be rotating and go around all the nations, even if they have it only every 14 years. That would not be terribly onerous. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is absolutely right: this is naked empire-building. It is giving the European Union a presence on the world stage which it fears that it may not have at the moment, with a rotating president. Personally, I think that it is a very good thing from the point of view of our party—but be that as it may. I move on to another point that has not been raised in this debate. I sincerely hope that we do not have a long-term president of the EU with all the trappings. I do not give any particular credence to this, but I have heard that the president will be salaried, have a house and staff, have a helicopter or two and several limos. We do not know about that; that is by the by; but the position is being built up. But if the EU is going to be a figure in the world—and it is obviously the design that it should have a position on the world stage—can I ask the Minister or her proxy what the position would be of Her Majesty the Queen, relative to the president of the European Union? We are a member state and Her Majesty the Queen is under the Maastricht treaty a citizen of the European Union. I wonder how or if her constitutional role would change, under these arrangements. Who would receive ambassadorial credentials? Who would represent Great Britain at international conferences, or at any international event in which the European Union might have a role and the United Kingdom might be separately represented? Would it affect her role as head of the Commonwealth, for instance? I ask those questions simply for information. It is important that we get some answers during these debates, whether now or at a later stage. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said that she was rather dubious about Switzerland’s credentials as a democracy because it had denied votes to women for such a long time. Well—that is Swiss democracy. There was a referendum in the local canton of Appenzell, where they voted against having the representation of women. It may be reprehensible, but that is what happened; that is what they wanted. They changed their minds and now women are fully represented, of course. The Swiss have a terrific representative democracy. They have referendums on almost everything. There is almost perhaps too much representative democracy there, as the Swiss sometimes say. But, of course, that is a happy position to be in, when you have too much democracy. In the EU we have much too little. I therefore support wholeheartedly the amendment of my noble friend Lord Howell and look forward to having one or two of the questions that I put, particularly on the monarchy, answered this evening.