European Union (Amendment) Bill

I think it is clear that the purpose of this exercise was to clarify the matter beyond the sniping that has sometimes taken place and beyond the exaggeration by some commentators of the significance of the issue. The Union is clearly proceeding towards making comprehensibility a factor. I believe that recognising that the new treaty will spell this out will end the oddity of the situation in which explicit legal personality is provided for in respect of the trading matters under the original European legislation, the European Act and other international matters. The question of whether this has, as has been suggested by some anti-Europeans, the significance of conferring on the Union the attributes of a state has also been bluntly and clearly answered by the report of the European Union Select Committee. In answer to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, whether de facto possession of a legal personality makes the Union a state, Professor Dashwood answered: "““No it does not. There are many international organisations that have international legal personality. States are in the unique position of being full subjects of the international legal order ... In the case of the European Union, the European Community has legal personality, so does the European Central Bank, so does Euratom””." It is clearly nonsense to suggest that the explicit conferral of a legal personality on the Union in any way makes this a conferral of a state on the Union. It has been suggested that in some way this muddies the waters so far as concerns the representation of the Union in international organisations, such as the Security Council of the United Nations. Once again, the evidence is absolutely clear from all witnesses that this House has heard. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, asked questions about this and was again clearly answered that the status of individual member states was unaffected by the conferral of a legal personality on the Union as a whole. At any time, two permanent members or other members of the European Union may sit on the Security Council, and their role is in no way affected or diminished by the conferral of a single legal personality on the Union. Perhaps most importantly, the question needs to be addressed of the impact of conferring a legal personality upon the competence of the European Union to enter into international agreements. It is clear, again without dissent from those lawyers who spoke to the House, that the conferral of a legal personality in no way affects the European Union’s competence—the terms of the European Union treaty specifically provide for its competence to enter into international agreements. Nor does it affect the relative competences of the European Union and its member states, as summarised in the opinion of the European Union Select Committee. I rely heavily on evidence from that committee, because it is a body representing many different views about the virtues and limitations of the European Union. That that judgment was unanimously accepted seems compelling to me, and ought to put the whole debate about the legal personality to rest.