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Mr. Hoon : I accept that, although I repeat my earlier caution about historical parallels.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. As to his analogy with the United States, does he not remember that the rather brutal establishment of the United States was the result of a mixture of a colonial rebellion against an imperial power and the genocide of the native Americans?
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If my hon. Friend is now envisaging the establishment of a federal Europe, will he not reflect that the Maastricht treaty does not take us in the direction of the checks and balances contained in the American federal constitution? It takes us in the opposite direction of an unelected legislative body--the Commission--and, in the case of foreign policy, a policy commission that will be, in effect, imposing foreign policy on nation states that have fought for their own democratic accountability.Mr. Hoon : I included the quotation from Benjamin Franklin because it quite nicely covered the point that I wished to make. I now regret that, because it has provoked an historical debate which is not strictly relevant to our discussions.
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. It is intriguing to sit next to my very dear friend the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) and hear him praise the role of the nation state.
I put it to my hon. Friend that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has made some very good points about the question of the necessary democratisation and making the European Community responsive to the wishes and needs of people as a whole, in this country and elsewhere. Surely the argument must be entered that one should look at those institutions within the European Community and make them responsive and more democratic, and not argue for isolationism?
Mr. Hoon : I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is the direction in which I hope to continue.
Mr. Peter Mandelson (Hartlepool) : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Hoon : No, I should make some progress.
I am strongly convinced that, if we are to achieve a common foreign policy, it will be on the basis of a series of pragmatic steps. A step-by-step approach is the only way in which we can transfer relevant competences from member states to the European Community. The present European Community and Atlantic alliance will continue to be the solid foundations of the common efforts in the foreseeable future.
Even those who would oppose the deliberate development of any common policy must recognise that the European Community has, over the years, developed pragmatically policies which are, in effect, the outlines of a common foreign policy. Sanctions against South Africa, action in the middle east and statements about Salman Rushdie are indications of the way in which the European Community is reacting collectively to the pressure of events. That may or may not be the outline of an emerging common foreign policy but, whether or not hon. Members approve, it is happening and we must take account of it.
Mr. Mandelson : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Hoon : No. I had better continue my speech.
The implementation of a common foreign and security policy will allow the European Community and its member states to maintain their role on the world stage. It will contribute to the transition from confrontation to a more common approach. These policies need to be based on agreed principles. The implementation of those principles should have clear objectives.
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First, peace and security should be maintained. Secondly, disputes should be settled peacefully, and international law respected. Thirdly, there should be a mutual, balanced and verifiable reduction of armed forces and armaments. Fourthly, an international order should be promoted, based on respect for human rights. As the European Community develops those policies--Mr. Marlow : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
As the European Community develops those policies, consistent with the step -by-step philosophy that I have already outlined, we need to develop priorities for joint action.
Mr. Mandelson rose --
Mr. Hoon : I shall now give way to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Mandelson : It is important, given the instances of joint action and statements to which my hon. Friend referred, to make it clear that they were jointly entered into by the respective Governments and member states. Those decisions were not made for, by or on behalf of member states by the Commission.
It is wrong for my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), who I notice, having made his point, has left the Chamber, to suggest that it is the Commission that will conduct foreign policy on our behalf. Article J of the treaty specifically precludes that, and says that it will be--and it should be, in my view--a matter for intergovernmental machinery.
Mr. Hoon : I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I should have given way to him earlier. He has made the point much more clearly than I have done. Therefore, I thank him for his comments.
Mr. Marlow rose --
Mr. Hoon : I shall now give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Marlow : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, courteous as always, for giving way. He listed four principles upon which European foreign policy co-operation should be based. Could I suggest a fifth : that it should apply to all member states equally? How confident and convinced is the hon. Gentleman that Greece will apply sanctions on Serbia?
Mr. Hoon : That is precisely the issue that we need to develop. We must achieve mutual confidence. If we are to persuade all 12 sovereign states to take the action that the hon. Gentleman and I agree is necessary, they will do so only on the basis of the step-by-step approach that I have outlined. I hope that, for once, we shall be able to agree that action will be taken only if together we take those steps.
Action will be taken only as the result of success in other areas. That will lead to the confidence that is required for action to be taken later. There is no good reason why the European Community should not reach agreements concerning non-European Community nations. The remainder of Europe ought to be capable of being approached by the European Community in a consistent manner--as should the United States and Japan. Relations between the European Community and those countries ought to be the subject of a common rather than an individual nation state approach.
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Mr. Spearing : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Similarly, participation in the conference on security and co-operation in Europe and the contribution that we can make together towards strengthening the United Nations ought to be policies that we are capable of developing together rather than as separate nation states.
Mr. Spearing : I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been most generous in giving way. I think that he is going a little far in suggesting that all these matters will come within the ambit of the European Community. Has not the Foreign Secretary attempted time and again to make a distinction between the European Community and the articles in the treaty that we are discussing that relate to it, and the wider union under which a common foreign policy is required? Despite that distinction, I think that my hon. Friend may be correct. Despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) said, article J.8 provides the Commission with powers of initiation. As that is a corporate body, strong in muscle, I have no doubt that its initiative will be important.
Mr. Hoon : Having had a number of years of experience of the European Commission, I do not find it quite so frightening as my hon. Friend appears to do.
Mr. Spearing : He was part of the machinery.
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Mr. Hoon : The reason why I have less concern than my hon. Friend appears to have is clear in the terms of his own question : the Commission may have the powers of initiation. Why should we be afraid of the powers of initiation?
Mr. Spearing : Because they are non-elected.
Mr. Hoon : They have the power to put forward ideas. It is then, even under the existing arrangement, for the member states to decide what should be the conclusion. I cannot see why that should be such a frightening prospect.
The essentially pragmatic development of a foreign policy, in my view, resembles the way in which the Community already deals with the GATT issue, external trade negotiations--issues that we are already, in effect, comfortable with. Therefore, having built on those successes, we can look into these other areas for the development of a policy.
The Community cannot allow itself to be isolated from other states in the world community as an enclave of prosperous industrialised nations. The Community has an obligation to contribute worldwide to overcoming poverty and underdevelopment, implementing human and civil rights, containing conflicts and guaranteeing peace. A European Community foreign and security policy is the prerequisite for meeting those obligations effectively.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd) : As the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon) explainedin his interesting speech, this group of amendments deals with European co- operation on a common foreign and security policy. I underline the word co- operation. From experience in the past three years, I must say that I am strongly in favour of such co-operation as it is at present practised and as it is laid down for the future in the treaty. I and others have
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been trying to work the system for three years and I believe that I have some knowledge of both its strengths and its limitations. The principle is, and will remain, a simple one. Where we can work together as Europeans, we do so ; where we cannot work together, for lack of agreement or where there is no need to do so, we are free to go our own way.I am quite clear in my own mind that this system of co-operation, although not magic, adds to the effectiveness of British foreign policy without reducing our ability to protect our own British interests. As the hon. Member for Ashfield illustrated, there is a massive flow of diplomatic business already through this channel of European co-operation. Much of this activity is relatively uncontroversial, so it does not find a place in the newspapers, but I will give one or two examples that right hon. and hon. Members may recall.
The concept of safe havens for the Kurds in northern Iraq is much on my mind today, because I saw the delegation of the Iraq national conference this morning. This concept of safe havens for the Kurds was originally a British proposal, but it gave immediate and decisive impetus once it was adopted by the European Council at the urging of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. It was a clear example of how a decisive move at the European level achieves worldwide acceptance.
Dr. Cunningham : There are reports, which the right hon. Gentleman probably heard this morning, of some apparent change in the position of Her Majesty's Government with respect to Iraq. Can the Foreign Secretary clarify this for us? Does he stand by what he said, for example, at the Scottish Conservative party conference in Perth on 10 May 1991? He said then :
"There can be no question of any relaxation in sanctions whilst Saddam Hussein's bloody persecution of minorities continues. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that Saddam Hussein's government could fulfil all the conditions laid down by the United Nations for the removal of sanctions. Only a new government will enable Iraq to be re-admitted to the community of nations."
Is that still the position of Her Majesty's Government or has it changed?
Mr. Hurd : The requirements of the Security Council have not changed in any important sense since that time. Those are the requirements with which Iraq has to comply before there can be any question of lifting sanctions. What I and others said around that time in 1991 is that it is hard--indeed, it is still impossible--to imagine Saddam Hussein being able or willing to comply with those Security Council requirements. Those are the requirements, and compliance with those requirements was and remains the test.
Mr. Marlow : My right hon. Friend said as he opened his remarks that we can run our policies where we need to, but where they are better run at European level and where we should co-ordinate and co-operate we should do so ; nobody would disagree with that. However, with respect, that is not what it says in the treaty. Paragraph 1 of article J1 states :
"The Union and its Member States shall"--
not "can"--
"define and implement a foreign and security policy covering all areas of foreign and security policy."
That says something totally different from what my right hon. Friend said.
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Mr. Hurd : The treaty goes on to explain how that is to be done, and I shall do the same. It explains how common positions and joint actions are to be decided. They are to be decided by unanimity and I shall come to that in a moment.
Mr. Tony Banks : Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
Mr. Hurd : I should rather get on. I was going to give another example at a lower level following the example of Iraq.
Last summer, I went with Ministers of the EC troika to South Africa and, as a result of that visit, we now have a team of EC observers in the townships of South Africa alongside those from the Commonwealth and the United Nations, to help deter and prevent the violence which has caused so much misery and distrust among those trying to negotiate for a new South Africa.
In the world of today, it is welcomed by all concerned in South Africa that the European Community, alongside others, should take such a responsibility, with Britain sending individuals to the European and Commonwealth teams.
Equally, it was as a member of the European Community that we joined in the multilateral talks now going on in the Arab-Israel peace process. It would be regarded as frivolous or bizarre by Arabs, Israelis, Americans, Russians and everybody else if, instead of joining in as Europeans, we began to shove and push for individual national representation in such talks. There would be no point and it would be regarded as bizarre and ridiculous.
Mrs. Dunwoody : Does the Foreign Secretary accept that those of us who have long experience of dealing inside the Community with the question of the middle east have found that there was a clear division between countries that had direct involvement in the Masraq and Maghreb and those that were prepared to take a more even-handed attitude? Does he accept that the suggestion that Britain can adopt an attitude towards the middle east only if it works through the Community begs the question of those nations that have already entered negotiations carrying the baggage of their long Arab-Israeli connections?
Mr. Hurd : I do not agree with the hon. Lady. Of course, as a matter of law we could do that. Each of the 12 countries could pursue and elaborate its own policy towards the middle east, but that makes no sense in today's world.
In the past few years, we have managed--not without difficulty--to work out a whole series of statements and positions among the 12, and it is on that basis that we take part in the multilateral part of the Arab-Israeli peace process. That is a good thing ; it is better than if we, the Germans, the French and the Italians all worked out our own policies and then scrapped for priority in putting them forward. The process of co-operation already in being is now elaborated and defined more closely in the treaty to which the Bill relates under the heading that we are discussing. It is natural that the House should look carefully to see whether the character of the system is being changed. Nobody is seriously challenging what we are doing, but the House will want to see whether the character is being changed and whether we are being penned into a new system which would deprive us of essential rights. My right
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hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell), in his shrewd and perceptive speech on 25 March, included some cautionary remarks on the subject.Those are exactly the concerns that the British Government had at the front of their mind when we negotiated this part of the treaty, on which a huge amount of time was rightly spent. We wanted to preserve the advantage of co -operation in foreign policy without depriving ourselves of freedom in cases where co-operation was not necessary or not possible. I believe that we have succeeded and I should like to explain why.
Mr. William Cash (Stafford) : My right hon. Friend talks, rightly, about the need for co-operation and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) said, it is important to make sure that we treat all this with a great deal of caution. The reality is that under the provisions of the treaty, what the Foreign Secretary is saying does not accord with what is provided for under title V. I understand my right hon. Friend's motivation, but if we have produced provisions in the treaty that bind us to support "the Union's external and security policy actively, unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity"
refraining from actions contrary to the interests of the union and so on, we are binding ourselves--and the Foreign Secretary knows this perfectly well--to international obligations. It may be in the context of what is claimed to be separate pillars, but, for practical purposes, they are international obligations which are imposed on us and which impose constraints that will prevent us from exercising that pragmatic action which we have always been capable of pursuing, including the Gulf war.
Mr. Hurd : Nothing is imposed on us under this pillar because "The council shall act unanimously".
It means that the obligations are obligations to which we have agreed. My hon Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) is pushing me ahead a little faster than I intended to go, but I shall develop the point and go on. Then I will give way to those hon. Members to whom I have not given way.
This section of the treaty does not bring the common foreign and security policy within the ambit of the European Community. It is a separate pillar and is specifically set out as such. I think that I see the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) nod in agreement. That is why amendment No. 30 is somewhat extraordinary ; it would incorporate title V of the treaty on common foreign and security policy in the 1972 Act. That incorporation would erode the structure of the pillars in a way which I should have thought the sceptics about Europe would particularly wish to prevent. The amendment would not alter the legal character of title V which is plain on the face of the treaty, but I think that it would be incongruous for Britain, of all states, so to amend its internal law as to apply title V and this pillar of foreign and security policy as if it were part of the treaty structure of the Community. It is not.
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) : I supported the separate pillars and the high level of co-operation that has been achieved. I am worried about paragraphs 3 and 4 of article J8. There, for the first time, the Commission gets the power and the obligation to begin
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things. Whereas the rest of the articles are about the Council and the clear division between the Commission's responsibility under the treaty of Rome, in article J8 we have the Council and the Commission getting the right and the obligation to initiate. That is the beginning of an erosive process.Mr. Hurd : That is what happens now, but I will come on to the role of the Commission in a moment. The first point I was trying to make about the new structure, the step-by-step approach that we are contemplating under the treaty, is that the pillar is separate. Secondly, the European Court of Justice will have no jurisdiction in these matters. I know that that has been a worry. The European Court might take the opening statements of intention and turn them into a legal obligation, but article L of the treaty sets out the areas that will fall within the jurisdiction of the court. Title V is absent and is, therefore, excluded from the jurisdiction of the court.
Mr. Leighton rose --
Mr. Hurd : I will just come on to the point about the Commission if I may and I will give way to the hon. Member later.
In this part of the treaty, because it is a separate pillar outside the Community, the Commission has held a monopoly of initiative. The Commission, under the treaty, will be "fully associated"--those are the words in the treaty--with the work of the union on this subject, as it is today. A Commissioner today attends meetings on foreign policy co- operation. He is able to speak. He is able to make proposals--the hon. Gentleman's point--but he has no monopoly of such proposals, as he would have if the pillar were part of the Community. Because it is separate, the Commissioner is there and can make proposals, but he has no monopoly, and I am convinced that that is in practice a thoroughly sensible arrangement.
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As my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford pointed out, there is often an overlap between different kinds of action open to the Community and its member states. It is an overlap, in effect, between the economic and the political and, therefore an overlap between the responsibility of the Community and that of member states acting in co-operation.
An obvious example is sanctions, which are specifically provided for in article 228a. The Committee will see there that before sanctions can be imposed by the Community--it is an economic measure coming within the scope of the Community--there must be a common position or joint action decided by the Council under the common foreign and security policy, and such a common position must be arrived at unanimously. So it is curious that there should be an amendment that would modify an extremely important provision about the imposition of sanctions.
Mr. Leighton : The Foreign Secretary has been talking of co- operation in foreign policy matters. How well does he suggest such co- operation worked when, under German pressure--and, I suspect, against the better judgment of the right hon. Gentleman--we precipitately gave diplomatic recognition to Croatia and other Yugoslav
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states before the boundaries were fixed and before agreements were arrived at on ethnic minorities, which partly was the cause of the war?Mr. Hurd : I have an extensive passage in my notes on that incident, which was raised when the Committee began to consider the amendments a few days ago, so I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will deal with that extremely fair and important point.
Mr. Marlow : My right hon. Friend says that there is nothing new about this because the Commission has the powers already. I understand from the Single European Act that the Commission is associated with political co -operation, but is not associated with security co-operation. The Commission may put forward proposals now, but it does not have the power to put forward proposals that will be given to it under the Maastricht treaty.
Further, the European Parliament has significantly more involvement under the Maastricht treaty than it had under the Single European Act. So the position after the Maastricht treaty is not the same as it was after the Single European Act. This pillar is not totally apart from the European institutions. Those institutions have far more power than they had under the Single European Act, and under the debate and discussions that will take place in 1996 with a view to 1998, the probability is that they will get even more.
Mr. Hurd : My hon. Friend is right to say that there is a change. There is what I would call a slight change in the role of the European Parliament. I do not think that, in practice, there is a change in the role of the Commission today, and I strongly disagree with my hon. Friend's last point. We went to considerable trouble to make sure that wherever in the treaty there was a reference to a review in 1996--there are two or three such references--the review was without prejudice.
It is part of my case--my hon. Friend and I crossed swords on this issue in the debate on subsidiarity--for which evidence flows in all the time, that we are not on a conveyor belt and that we are not moving inexorably to a degree of federalism or a centralising tendency of a kind that most hon. Members would reject. To suggest otherwise is increasingly not borne out by the facts of Europe. We succeeded, and one minor proof of that is that we succeeded in the negotiations in preventing any reference to future reviews which prejudiced the outcome of those reviews.
Mr. Spearing : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hurd : I am anxious to make progress.
I am illustrating the characteristics of the pillar--of the separate nature of this part of the treaty, as opposed to the normal structure of the Community. The Committee will see the provision in paragraph 5 of article J8 for political directors to prepare the work of the Council in foreign and security policy. They will of course need to work closely, as they do today, with COREPER, but we thought it right that the autonomous work of political directors responsible to Foreign Ministers should be specifically spelt out in the treaty again to make clear that it is a separate pillar of co-operation between member states.
Finally, there is the provision of unanimity to which my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) brought me a few moments ago. The mention in
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paragraph 2 of article J3 of voting by a qualified majority contains a double lock. First, there must be unanimity to decide a joint action and, secondly, there must be unanimity in agreeing to the use of qualified majority voting. That means that if the Council, or the British Government, were to decide that all decisions, no matter how small, needed, to be taken by unanimity, they would be. One can imagine carefully chosen circumstances in which qualified majority voting could make a policy more effective, for example, by speeding up the process of taking decisions on implementation. However, under the treaty, that could not be a general rule, and each proposal that any matter should be decided by qualified majority voting would have to be decided by unanimity. That is the nature of the double lock.Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood) : My right hon. Friend is, as usual, being exceedingly reassuring. However, there are many instances in article J of the untrammelled sovereignty of nation states within the Community being, to a greater or lesser degree, circumscribed by the provisions of the article. For example, paragraph 4 of article J1 states :
"The Member States shall support the Union's external and security policy actively".
It adds that the Council shall ensure that those principles are adhered to. Paragraph 2 of article J2 states :
"Member States shall ensure that their national policies conform to the common positions."
There are other examples. What my right hon. Friend says by way of reassurance about majority voting may be true, but the article as a whole gives the impression that the treaty gives precedence to the interests of the union over those of the member states.
Mr. Hurd : My hon. Friend is right ; it is a crucial point. The common positions and joint actions all have to be approved unanimously. There is no question of the Commission, a majority of member states, or even 11 member states, seeking to impose on this country or on any other member state a commo0-2XZ Several hon. Members rose --
Mr. Hurd : I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin).
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (Colchester, North) : My right hon. Friend's assurance is very fulsome, but there is still concern that there will be a good deal of cross-infection from the external relations run by the Commission through the Community which, after all, runs trade, which is a large proportion of, and a large political influence on, overall foreign policy. Will he give the House a categorical assurance that we shall never find ourselves in a position where the Commission grabs to itself more and more initiative at the expense of the unanimity provisions in the foreign policy pillar?
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