European Affairs

I am interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's view on that. Today I want to deal with a question of democracy in Europe: the denial by Governments of well-established principles of democracy in the Council of Europe. Her Majesty's Government are not only complicit in that denial, but are a leading advocate of it. I should give a little background. Mr. Terry Davis, a former Member of this House, has been the secretary-general of the Council of Europe for some time. Before that he was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; in fact, he was the leader of the socialist group there. We are in the process of seeking a replacement for Mr. Davis. The person replacing him will be elected by Parliamentary Assembly members, who are Members of Parliament from the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. In the same way, judges at the European Court of Human Rights are democratically elected by parliamentarians from across Europe. Some would say that as the secretary-general for the past five years has been a socialist, it is now time for someone from the centre right to have a go at the job. However, I do not want to portray the issue in a party political manner, because the election, which is due next Tuesday in Strasbourg, will involve a vote on the nomination by the Committee of Ministers' Deputies, who are the ambassadors. The committee has given the Assembly a list of two to choose from, and I shall come back to those two in a moment. What is at stake next week is the very position and credibility of the Parliamentary Assembly, and that debate has nothing to do with individual candidates for the post. In a strictly legal sense, the regulations for the election were drawn up in 1956. As long as they are not formally changed by agreement between the Committee of Ministers' Deputies and the Parliamentary Assembly, only those regulations are valid. Until today, the Committee of Ministers' Deputies had not proposed to review the criteria applicable to candidates for the post of secretary-general. The long-standing practice, in force for more than 50 years, has involved co-operation, consensus and consultation between those two important pillars of the Council of Europe. However, on this occasion the Committee of Ministers' Deputies did not respect the existing procedure and rules as it had in all previous elections for the post of secretary-general. In all the previous elections, all the candidates nominated to the Committee of Ministers' Deputies were forwarded to the Assembly for it to deliberate and vote on. Our diplomats—for they are the people who normally sit on the Committee of Ministers' deputies—have created a problem by coming up with a draft opinion on a shortlist of two candidates, instead of the four who were nominated. They did so because they believed that they were solving a problem, created by their Governments and by the Assembly, which endorsed the so-called Juncker report in 2005. I stress that the Juncker report, drawn up by the long-serving Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, with its 15 proposals, is an excellent document—but it is not the law. Among much else, the report contained the wish that the next secretary-general should be a high-ranking figure in European political life. The diplomats therefore advised their Ministers to present a list of two candidates to the Assembly next week, because, in the opinion of the ambassadors, those candidates meet the so-called Juncker criteria. The ambassadors would have preferred more candidates under those criteria, but unfortunately Mr. Blair became special envoy to the middle east, Mr. Rasmussen went to NATO, Mr. Putin became Prime Minister of Russia, and Mrs. Merkel, Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Berlusconi were unavailable. Our own Prime Minister might become available, but probably not before September. The ambassadors' list therefore became a very short shortlist. They then created a huge problem by not accepting the candidacy of two other applicants, both of whom happen to be members of the Parliamentary Assembly, as well as the leaders of two of the larger political groups in the Assembly: the European People's party—the Christian democrats—and the Liberal group. Incidentally, they both meet the Juncker criteria, as they have been Ministers and are certainly notable figures. The ambassadors also forgot that the rules are clear that the Parliamentary Assembly has to be consulted before a decision is made on a list of candidates. In April, my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) produced a report for the Parliamentary Assembly that provides complete clarity on the issue; I congratulate him on that. However, the Ministers cannot pick and choose from the Juncker proposals; they must respect the rules and procedures. At their meeting in October 2008 the Ministers' deputies—that is, the ambassadors—decided that candidates should comply with the criteria set out by the Ministers in 2007. The key point of the criteria is that candidates should have previously served as a Head of State or Government, or have held senior ministerial office or similar status relevant to the post. On that basis, candidates applied and were invited for interviews, and the four candidates apparently fulfilled the criteria. After the closing date for the receipt of nominations, and following a series of votes, the Ministers' deputies changed the procedure and the criteria to a more restrictive interpretation. For ambassadors involved in what is essentially a democratic procedure, that is unprecedented. The Foreign Ministers of member states apparently made a decision, and their deputies decided that they would accept as candidates only former Heads of State or Government. The Ministers' deputies decided to establish different criteria after the closing date for the receipt of nominations. It must also be emphasised, with great regret, that the Ministers' deputies never considered it appropriate to consult the Assembly before making their decisions. In the past, all regulations relating to the appointment of the secretary-general were adopted by the Committee of Ministers, with the agreement of the Assembly, yet the Committee of Ministers now took a decision prior to any consultation with the Assembly. The Ministers' deputies—the fonctionnaires, or civil servants—moved the goalposts while the game was under way. If they want to apply other criteria and another procedure, that must be done in co-operation with the Assembly, and prior to the opening of the election procedure. They failed to do that. In effect, this is an institutional coup d'état and an unacceptable limitation of the prerogatives and competences of the Assembly and its parliamentary representatives, all of whom have been democratically elected. This is a test case and a precedent for the Assembly—the parliamentary guardians of democracy and human rights in Europe—regarding one of its most important prerogatives: the election of the highest officials of the Council of Europe. Members of Parliament from across Europe are now unified on this principle, yet the weight of all future elections, including the election of judges, could, if we are not vigilant, shift to the officials, to the Committee of Ministers and to the Executive. This debate is about the principle of parliamentary democracy. It is about the balance of power between Executives and Parliaments. In many countries across Europe, that battle goes back over several hundred years; in some younger democracies, it is as recent as 20 years ago. It is about the balance of power between the Executive and Parliament: in this case, between the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly. We must remind the Foreign Secretary and his representative on the Committee of Ministers that they represent national Governments: they are ambassadors, functionaries, advisers. They advise the very same Governments whom we collectively, as parliamentarians across Europe, authorise and oversee in our daily work. The democratic legitimacy of the Council of Europe Assembly is beyond question, but I question the procedure in this process. First, it is normal practice for the Committee of Ministers to look at all candidates and forward the list to the Parliamentary Assembly. In this situation, therefore, had the Committee of Ministers followed custom and practice, the names of all four candidates would have been submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly. Secondly, the Committee of Ministers normally acts by consensus. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of occasions on which it has taken a vote in the last five years—so why on this occasion, unless it was looking for confrontation, did it decide to use the voting procedure? Why not use the normal consensual procedure to arrive at an opinion which could have been forwarded to the Assembly, and which we would have respected? Thirdly, I believe that this is a cynical attempt by the Committee of Ministers to prejudge the decision of Members of Parliament. It has submitted two candidates. One is clearly its favourite; the other, although he meets the Juncker criteria, is probably unacceptable to the Assembly. It has therefore decided already and ensured that we in the Assembly have no decision to take on the election. I believe that the rejection of two candidates from the Parliamentary Assembly is a blatant attempt by the Committee of Ministers to shift the balance of power from elected parliamentarians to appointed ambassadors. Custom and practice say that they should have sent us all four candidates. We may well eventually choose their preferred candidate—he is the Speaker of the Norwegian Parliament and a former Prime Minister—but that is up to us to decide. We in the Assembly are the guardians of democracy in Europe. The Government should take note of this: in April the Assembly voted by 158 votes to one to reject the procedure adopted by the Committee of Ministers. If that had been a vote in this House—and therefore a resounding rejection of a Government position—Ministers would have had to think again, but the functionaries and the Committee of Ministers' Deputies battle on with their established position. I hope that the Minister will tell the House that he will now endorse the proposal that the Committee of Ministers, when it meets the Parliamentary Assembly on Thursday, should present the Assembly with a list of all four candidates on which the Committee can indicate its preference, as foreseen in the rules. Anything else will be a negation of the very principles of democracy on which the Council of Europe is built.