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Mr. Maude: Everyone has accepted that, to create the single market, which is where we principally gave up the right of veto, there was a strong case for doing that. I negotiated many of the single market measures. We did so extremely effectively. If we were seldom outvoted, it was because of the extreme skill with which those matters were conducted.
Dr. Nick Palmer (Broxtowe) rose--
Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow) rose--
Mr. Maude: I give way to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Bercow: The Foreign Secretary is extraordinarily insouciant about the level of European Union interference in our affairs. Is my right hon. Friend aware that, according to figures provided by the House of Commons Library, no fewer than 4,065 directives, regulations and decisions from the European Union have impacted on this country in 1998, 1999 and 2000? Does he not agree that the protocol on subsidiarity and proportionality in the treaty of Amsterdam, so lauded and magnified by the Foreign Secretary, has done nothing to arrest the process of European integration? Rather, it has given the green light to its continuation.
Mr. Maude: My hon. Friend should place those figures on the table of the House, so that they can be studied properly.
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham): The right hon. Gentleman does not understand them.
Mr. Maude: I understand them perfectly well. They make precisely my point, which is that more and more is being forced into the mincing machine. The complaint is that the mincing machine cannot cope with it. The lesson that we should draw from that is that the European Union should be doing less. It should restrict its ambitions and do what it has to do properly.
Let us be blunt about it: much of what the European Union still does is done badly; particularly much of what the European Commission does. If it concentrated its efforts on getting right what it is meant to do right, instead of supporting ever more political integration, it would be a better European Union, better serving the people of Europe.
Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) rose--
Mr. Maude: I give way to the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell)
Mr. Rammell: We have just heard the right hon. Gentleman's mea culpa for why he gave away the veto
42 times during the Single European Act. May we now have the litany of excuses about why he gave it away 30 times during the Maastricht treaty?
Mr. Maude: I am not sure that that is worthy of an answer. I will proceed with what we are facing at the Nice summit.
Mr. Heald: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Maude: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I want to make a little progress.
I move to something else that the Foreign Secretary will deal with at the Nice summit: the charter of fundamental rights, about which he spoke a little. On that, too, Ministers are playing the straw man game: elevate a possibility that they know will not happen and then claim credit for beating it down. Last weekend, they briefed the press that, against all opposition, they had ensured that the charter would not be part of the treaty--it would not be incorporated in the treaty--but that has been clear for some time. It is clear that no one really presses for it to be part of the treaty any longer. Why? Because it is now abundantly clear that, whether or not it is part of the treaty, it will be mandatory.
Ministers say that it will not be mandatory, but they should take account of what the Commission has said. In its formal communication on the legal nature of the charter of fundamental rights, it says that it can reasonably be expected that the charter will become
- mandatory through the Court's interpretation of it as belonging to the general principles of Community law.
- It is therefore preferable for the sake of visibility and certainty as to the law for the charter to be mandatory in its own right and not just through its judicial interpretation.
Mr. Maude: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash).
Mr. Heald: Is it not the case that, under article 6.2 of the Amsterdam treaty, the fundamental rights must be respected? What the charter does is to define them. Therefore, they will be mandatory on member states in so far as they are implementing European law. There is no doubt about it. In fact, article 51 of the charter says so.
Mr. Maude: My hon. Friend is completely right. There is only one group of people in Europe who argue that the thing will not be mandatory. Many people here are clear that it will be mandatory. The Commission is clear that it will be.
Mr. MacShane: The Germans, the French, the Dutch.
Mr. Maude: The hon. Gentleman is quoting people who do not want the charter to be in the treaty. There may
be plenty of people who do not want it be in the treaty. That is not the point. They are all saying that it will be mandatory anyway, precisely because of what the European Commission is saying. If it is now being seriously argued in the House that the European Commission has it fundamentally wrong, that its reading of the law is completely wrong and that it will not import it into law, the European Council will not and the European Court will not, that is a new contention.I note that the Foreign Secretary is not seeking to intervene to say that the European Commission in its formal communication has it wrong. Why will he not do it? Because he knows that it is the truth. The truth is that the charter will become binding. So much for the Minister for Europe's facile claim that it will be of no more value than the Beano. If it is of no more use than the Beano, why are Ministers so enthusiastic about it? Why do they want to proclaim it? Why do they not go there to proclaim the Beano? Would that not be as much use?
Dr. Palmer: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Maude: I will make some progress at this stage.
I turn to the European army. It is here that the Government have been most recently found out. Let us face it: it has been a bad week for the Government. When the Foreign Secretary talked about their headline goal, I do not think that he thought he would have the headlines that he has had this week. I do not mind them having a bad week. I am keen on them having many bad weeks, but it has also been a bad week for Britain. I do mind about that.
It is not about whether we support greater European defence capability or greater defence co-operation. We all support that. That is motherhood and apple pie, but we already have a European defence organisation. It is called NATO. It has existed for more than 50 years. It has created the habit of us working closely together. It has engendered trust between the European military establishments. It has been the principal means by which America has remained engaged in our continent. It ensures that European countries such as Turkey and Norway whose commitment to the alliance is strategically crucial remain fully engaged. It is flexible. Look at Kosovo, where the composition of KFOR includes Swedes, Finns and Austrians, who are outside NATO. It already is flexible. It is already capable of doing everything that is claimed for the rapid reaction force.
There are real concerns that the proposals will undermine and divide NATO. What was the Foreign Secretary's response to the concerns? He described them as
- lurid claims . . . euro scare tactics.
Unfortunately for them, however, the range of serious people opposed to the development includes many who could not by the wildest of standards be described as anti-European, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), Lord Carrington, Lord Healey, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and even Lord Owen.
The Foreign Secretary might have forgotten this, but Lord Owen left the Labour party not because it was too pro-European, but--the exact reverse--because it was too anti-European.Those people all make the same point: nothing about the scheme is being done for military or defence reasons; it is all about politics. It is about endowing the European Union with another of the trappings of statehood. It is part of the path to the super-state.
President Chirac of France said that the European Union
- cannot fully exist until it possesses autonomous--
- capacity for action in the area of defence.
Only the British Government deny that it is being done for political reasons. All their partners and colleagues in the other member states of the European Union say that it is being done for political reasons. They do not seek to hide it. They think that it is a good thing. The British Government, however, know that the British public do not agree with it, and therefore try to hide the truth--that it is part of a political union and a drive to further political integration.
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