European Union (Amendment) Bill

I hesitate to speak for obvious reasons. I will have a glass of water. I may have to stop, but I am tempted to speak because the issue that underlies this debate is so fundamental. I shall speak about the European External Action Service. We in this House must recognise that in the European Union we are dealing with a very varied grouping of nations. If you come from a very small country, your belief that the European External Action Service can be in your direct national interest is perfectly understandable. It is extraordinarily difficult for small countries such as Estonia to be represented in all the countries of the world—indeed, to be represented in anything more than the member states of the European Union. When we consider the external aspect and almost all aspects of foreign policy, we must from time to time consider what it means to be a small member of the European Union. In fairness to such member states, they frequently look at what it means to be a large country with a proud, historical record—and in our case a very large empire—and with substantial armed forces. They realise that they will have to accept the recognition inside the European Union that large countries count for more than small countries. Of course that is not spelled out, but it is a fact with which people live very sensibly. Moderately sized countries must also accept that. I well remember how Greece faced many of the issues affecting the Balkans. It disagreed, sometimes in my judgment correctly and with better understanding of the problems of the Balkans than many of the larger states did, but it accepted that it was in a minority. Even though it disapproved of some of the actions over Kosovo, for example, it allowed troops to come up through Thessaloniki and into Macedonia, even though that was difficult for it politically. There are many other examples. I thereby come to the European External Action Service. As I understand it, this may be the only opportunity that we will have to discuss this question. Crucial to the service is the balance between people being under secondment from national Governments to it and those who come from the European Commission or Community institutions. If we are to keep common foreign policy predominantly intergovernmental, there must be a large element of secondment from the diplomatic services of the larger nations. I hope that this will be championed not just by the larger countries but by smaller ones, who will understand that the way to get the external service accepted is when it has to represent the fundamental elements of a common foreign service policy—not integration, but representation of the member states. It is a mechanism for getting greater measures of agreement and it seems not unreasonable to introduce that at this stage. A common foreign policy is not a single foreign policy. In the parlance of the European Community, integration means a single foreign policy—and I understand that there are people who want that. If there is genuinely compromise, agreement and consensus then it is preferable to have a united foreign policy, but we are not talking about a single foreign policy, and we have to examine carefully any aspect in this treaty that could lead to one. That is why we will come, in later debates, to what I consider the most important amendment; namely, that we could not have a common foreign policy inserted on this country by moving to qualified majority voting without substantive legislation through this House and through the House of Commons. I believe no other issue lying within our powers and which does not affect the treaty, yet is a fundamental issue for parliamentarians, is more important for us. On that motion, I hope that the Liberal Democrats will be voting as they voted in the House of Commons—in favour of primary legislation, at least on that aspect of the passerelle clause. I come back to the external service, on which I hope that the Minister will feel able to explain some of the Government’s thinking. Now, the service will of course be discussed inside the European Union; as I understand it, that will be under a qualified majority vote because it will come on a recommendation from the high representative, having discussed it with the Commission. I would prefer that it were a genuine consensus and had to have unanimity.