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Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock): What about central Europe? The Visegrad countries should come in soon.
Sir Edward Heath: The countries of central Europe have not reached the same level as the present members of the Community. That is crucial in relationships between member states. We should not run the risk of allowing countries like that to join the European Union--not because they are evil, but because their current stage of development does not allow it. We can help them to develop as associate members of the Union. That is the line that we should take in order to assist the countries of central Europe and what is left of the Soviet Union.
I beg my right hon. and learned Friend to recognise those facts of life and to deal with them realistically.We shall not get anywhere by trying to overlook them or by listening to gossip in the Lobbies and so on. The problems are very real and very great.
We should have a separate debate about the common currency--it should not be discussed as part of the intergovernmental conference. There is an urgent need for such a debate. The people of this country are disillusioned because they are given no information about the issue. There has been no debate in this place about the single currency. The public do not understand the issue.
Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney):
Given the awful time constraints, I must support the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) in his complaint about the lack of serious attention that the House is able to give to the issue. This debate should not be conducted under such restricted circumstances. We do
I welcome this White Paper for one overwhelmingly good reason: it sets out what I believe are the real alternatives facing our people and the European Community. It also sets out clearly the option between advancing towards a centralised, supranational European state and a much more loosely agreed alliance with minimal treaty powers, which I think is favoured by the great majority of people in our country and by many hon. Members on both sides of the House.
We have to face clearly some very big problems.We have to accept and recognise that there is a most powerful drive towards the creation of a federal or quasi-federal state in Europe. It has rightly been pointed out that federal institutions such as the European Court of Justice, the European Parliament and, of course, the European Commission have been created under previous treaties. The weight of their influence is directed towards developing a centralised and federal Europe.
Let us not, however, forget the strong declared purpose and will of many of the leaders of the nation states of Europe. No one who has followed the statements made by Chancellor Kohl in recent weeks and months can have the slightest doubt that he is committed wholly and passionately to a political union, in which he sees economic and monetary union and a single currency as merely a stepping stone. He has almost conceded that a single currency does not make much sense economically, but it makes every sense politically, because it takes a giant step towards the federal political union that he wants.
Let us not ignore the fact that the leaders of the Benelux countries are also clearly pointing towards a federal Europe, as are those of Italy--or what is left of them after the collapse of its classe politique--because they believe that they are better governed in Brussels than they are in Rome.
Those are very powerful forces, and we have to face the fact that we will be isolated, virtually on our own, although we shall look for what allies we can find in the intergovernmental conference. I must tell my hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench that, when they form the next Government, they will find themselves in virtually the same situation, because the real differences between Labour Front Benchers and Ministers are by no means as great as has been suggested. They have said that they will keep the veto on the crucial spheres of treaty change, taxation and budget contribution, and that is very important. They have also said that we will not abandon unanimity in pillars 2 or 3 of the treaty. They cannot, therefore, easily be pushed along in the direction that most European Governments wish to go.
If Labour Front Benchers mean what they say about economic and monetary union--that real convergence would be necessary, in the terms spelled out by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook)--then, quite frankly, we can rest in our beds at night because we know very well that there will never be that convergence. Some of us will rejoice at that, because it means that we shall not become members of an economic and monetary union or a single currency.
A very interesting and most unusual test of opinion in Britain was conducted only a year ago. It was a very respectable survey, commissioned by the BBC and carried out by NOP. The people of our country, in weighted samples, were asked:
That is basically a question on how much one feels part of a community and what is one's sense of national identity. The answers to the question are fascinating. People felt "European" as follows: "a great deal", 8 per cent.; "a fair amount", 15 per cent.; "a little", 25 per cent.; and "not at all", 49 per cent.
The reality is that the people of this country do not feel that the European Community is a community in the same sense that we are a community within the United Kingdom. Until that perception has changed, it is no good trying to force the British people into an arranged relationship with Europe that is fundamentally against their instincts and judgment.
One other question was asked that is worth reporting. People were asked:
The responses to the European countries were as follows: France, 9 per cent.; Germany, 7 per cent.; and Spain,5 per cent. When asked about three non-European countries, the responses were: the United States, 23 per cent.; Canada, 14 per cent.; and Australia, 15 per cent.
The majority of the British people feel that they are closer to the countries of the English-speaking world than they feel politically close to our geographical neighbours across the channel. That is another of the great realities of British life, and it should be part of the realities of British politics. I hope very much that we will sharpen up our views and our objections to the course of conduct that has been pursued in Europe towards the convergence of their currencies. That conduct is doing dreadful damage to Europe: virtually 20 million people are unemployed, and cuts in public expenditure and reductions in public borrowing are occurring all over Europe.
It is no good Labour Front Benchers hoping that, because the Swedes will make an attempt to insert something into the Maastricht treaty, first, that they will succeed or, secondly, that it will be in quantitative terms, because it will not. I have spoken to the Swedes, and I know that it will be purely declaratory. So long as the existing convergence criteria remain--they are flatly deflationary--there is no chance at all of European countries and the European Union pursuing a different policy.
No mention is made in the existing Maastricht treaty of employment and unemployment, yet the treaty was signed when the majority of European Union Governments had a socialist complexion. It was signed by Mitterrand, Gonzalez and Craxi, and it had the imprimatur of that wonderful ex-socialist, Mr. Delors. That is no longer the situation. We have no major allies of the Labour, social democratic persuasion left in Europe with any real weight, apart from the Swedes.
There is no point in wishful thinking. The Council of Ministers will not change at the IGC when a Labour Government arrive, and it will not add to or change the treaty. The time has come when we must face up to the truth about these matters and not continue to exist in a cloud-cuckoo-land.
I shall quote one last remark. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East (Ms Quin)--for whom I have great affection--has put out a little document. In it, she says:
Mr. Douglas Hurd (Witney):
This is an admirable White Paper and the Foreign Secretary has spoken admirably. I should love to follow the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), but I can make only three brisk three-minute points: referendum, court and foreign policy.
It is obviously much easier to be clear about the referendum from the Back Benches. I am not in favour of referendums as a general rule, but, for about 18 months now, I have made it clear that the question of a single currency, if it came about it, would be such a massive change--more massive than anything that Britain was committed to at the treaty of Maastricht--that it would require a referendum. That would be the case only if a British Government of the day decided that it was in British interests to join a single currency.
My view is that that would happen only if the single currency had gone ahead with other countries, including France and Germany, and we had begun to find that our economy was suffering, inward investment was falling away and jobs were being destroyed. Then, a British Government might come to that conclusion. They would need to have a referendum, but they would certainly need to hold to the doctrine of collective responsibility.
What happened in 1975, which the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) held up as an impressive track record, was a disastrous example of weakness. I hope that we never see Conservative Ministers meandering up and down the country, from platform to platform, contradicting each other night after night. A Government have to decide, seek to persuade and then act if they are successful in persuading.
"How 'European' do you feel?"
"With which of these countries do you feel you have most in common?"
"We want to see a successful EMU which helps to promote general European prosperity and does not have a deflationary or negative effect on economic performance."
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