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Mr. Cook: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that at Feira we will be approving a timetable for the IGC.
Yesterday we received a report that the Portuguese presidency intends to put to the European Council on the progress in the IGC. That report will call on us to agree a timetable to complete the IGC by the end of this year.
Mr. John Maples (Stratford-on-Avon): What about enlargement?
Mr. Cook: The matter is of course about enlargement; it is the part that the EU can play in preparing for enlargement.
We shall also take forward negotiations with the applicant countries. The speed with which that can be done must depend on the speed of those countries in reforming themselves.
Mr. Ben Bradshaw (Exeter): Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the policy of vetoing any treaty change would stop enlargement? Does he know of any mainstream political party in the whole EU--including the neo-fascists in Austria--that has such an extreme policy on Europe as does the British Conservative party?
Mr. Cook: I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important to take forward the IGC so as to secure enlargement; it is also important because the reforms that we want in the IGC are in Britain's interest. Our key objective is to achieve a re-weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers so as to give Britain a bigger vote. We want--
Mr. Michael Trend (Windsor): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook: No, I shall come back to enlargement, if the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene.
We want to keep a fixed ceiling on the European Parliament so that it does not balloon with enlargement. We want to control the size of the Commission so that it does not become a mass meeting rather than a functioning college. We shall agree to majority voting only where it would remove obstacles to reforms that Britain wants.
So there will not be anything in the treaty of Nice that represents a threat to Britain or to the British way of life. It is not even a threat to the Tory party, unless its members feel that their prejudices are challenged by the prospect of a reformed and more effective European Union.
Much in the treaty of Nice will be of immense value to the candidate countries. They know that enlargement will be agreed only if those reforms are agreed first. If the right hon. Member for Horsham does not agree with that, he should listen to the views of the candidate countries, if he will not listen to mine. They all want the treaty completed on time.
Mr. Cash: The right hon. Gentleman is getting very close--I use the word with respect--to misunderstanding the position, or misleading the House. In recent months, I have visited some of the candidate countries; they are deeply concerned about the blackmail to which they are being subjected by having to accept the acquis communautaire without reservations in order to acquire
the benefits--as they see them--of getting into the European Union. They are deeply concerned about the defence implications.
Mr. Cook: I have met the Governments of those--
Mr. Cook: I shall inquire gently of my Foreign Minister colleagues what they made of the hon. Gentleman. I assure the House that every Foreign Minister of the applicant countries--especially those in NATO--is keen to play a part in the European security policy. All six were at Florence and they all agreed to our proposals there.
Candidate countries understand that, if we do not reach agreement at Nice on the IGC, enlargement will be deferred. It will not give them an opportunity to pick and choose, as the hon. Gentleman wants; it will mean that they will not have the opportunity of membership.
The right hon. Member for Horsham has promised "to campaign strongly" against the treaty of Nice. Nothing could do more to lose Britain friends from the Baltic to the Balkans. The right hon. Gentleman is in danger of making his party as unpopular among the dozen applicant members as it already is among the existing members.
Mr. Fabricant: The Foreign Secretary wrote that speech before the latest opinion polls.
Mr. Cook: It is true that I have made that observation before. It is even more true on this occasion, after the speech made recently by the right hon. Member for Horsham. All those applicant countries want to be full members of the EU; they want to be accepted as equal members--not second-class members of the type suggested by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). That is why there was unease among them at the recent speech made by Joschka Fischer with its implication of a vanguard of member states providing an inner core of the EU.
I realise that some Opposition Members pounced on Mr. Fischer's speech as evidence that their fantasies are realities, and that a federal superstate is just around the corner. What I thought was revealing about the aftermath to Mr. Fischer's speech was the degree of resistance to it across Europe. I would not go as far as the Foreign Minister of Finland who described it as Leninist, but I share the fears expressed by the Swedish Foreign Minister about any federal structure that has the effect of
- dividing the EU into a core of nations and other countries with lesser status.
The reality now is that the broader consensus does not seek a federal superstate but a union of free and democratic member states. As Chancellor Schroder has said:
- the nation state will be the centre of people's hopes and needs.
-
Or as President Chirac has put it:
Europe's future is not a United States of Europe but a United Europe of States.
Mr. Donald Anderson: The Conservatives do not care about anyone else.
Mr. Cook: The problem, I say to my hon. Friend, is that that approach might be shared by others. Conservatives assume that other member states will continue to observe their obligations to us while we stop observing our obligations to them.
Mr. Fabricant: I tried to intervene earlier and the Foreign Secretary has talked about enlargement, which most of us would welcome. He also said that there must be a restructuring of the European Union, and many of us would welcome that, too. However, a report from the Institute of Directors says that, taking into account all the benefits of the European Union, our membership costs the United Kingdom between $75 million and $100 each year.
The Foreign Secretary clearly has not read the report, but I advise him to do so. However, will his restructuring of the European Union and renegotiation result in a reduction in the amount of money that we pay net into the EU, taking into account all the benefits that we receive? That money could otherwise go into pensions, hospitals and schools.
Mr. Cook: I am alarmed at the degree of agreement that the hon. Gentleman has found in my speech. I shall try to ensure that that does not happen again before I conclude. I welcome the fact that he supports enlargement. However, if that is the case, he cannot campaign strongly against the intergovernmental conference that will make enlargement possible.
On the net payment, the outcome of the Berlin settlement should reduce the cost to the common agricultural policy, will reduce the cost to the structural funds and will reduce the extent to which Britain's contribution is in any way different from the contribution of many of the other larger states. We continue, as a result of Berlin, to preserve the rebate to make sure that we get back 70 per cent. of the funds that we pay in net.
In his speech last week, the right hon. Member for Horsham said that the Conservative party would reclaim the supremacy of national Parliaments over the European Court of Justice. That is flatly contrary to Britain's interests as a trading nation. As a trading nation, it is in our interests that the single market has rules that are enforced by an authoritative European Court of Justice. There are far more cases outstanding against most other member states than against Britain. France has more than two and a half times as many cases outstanding; Italy has twice as many; and Germany, Belgium, and Greece each has half as many again as Britain. It is in our interests to make the European Court of Justice stronger, not weaker.
Mr. Maude: The Foreign Secretary must know that he is deliberately misrepresenting my proposal. I propose
that we should give Parliament supremacy over EU law where EU law is imposed by virtue of an extensive interpretation of the treaty by the European Court of Justice. That would give us precisely the same protection that the German and French have under their written constitutions. Is he opposed to that?
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