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4.37 pm
Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon): I have heard repeatedly this afternoon the expressions "super-state" and "super-power", both of which I believe to be largely mythical. The problem is that, in many ways, Europe is not capable of being a super-state. People talk about an unremitting, purposeful action towards a common goal, but what I see when I look at Europe in practice is far too often incoherence and incapacity, failure to reconcile conflicting ambitions and the fudging of aims. That is Europe in practice and not the Europe of myth.
Europe today has a weak Commission that lacks credibility. Many member states have coalition-ridden Governments and find it difficult to declare lines of action. France has a problem dealing with the cohabitation of a President and Prime Minister of opposite and competing parties, both of whom want to be the next President. Germany has a federal system in the real sense of the word, and the Lander jealously guard their power. That does not make up the recipe of ingredients that is required for a super-state. Kohl, Mitterand and Delors are
either dead or politically buried. We do not have such giants now; we have third-way minnows. They are not the stuff of which super-states are made and I do not think that their ambitions reach to such heights.Of course, speeches and recommendations can be laid side by side or end to end to give the impression of a strategy. However, we forget that, while it is good politics in Britain to sound as euro-sceptical as possible, it is good politics on the continent to sound as pro-European as possible. That means that the declamatory differences often hide practical approaches that are much closer together in reality than from the rhetorical point of view. If people are judged by what they do as opposed to what they say--we have heard a great deal today about what people say that they want to do--we will find that some of the differences narrow.
If Europe is seeking to act as a super-state, the recent sugar proposals demonstrate that it is doing so in a jolly hamfisted way. There is hopeless incoherence between proposals made by the agricultural directorate and those from the external trade directorate, and that causes problems for everybody. If that is not incoherence, then it is difficult to find an adequate definition of the word.
It is equally daft to talk about a super-power. Super-power comes from states. However, the EU is not a state, but a permanent negotiation between states. The United States can, to use a phrase that has been used in this Chamber, project the forces across the world. The President does not have to do that after a debate with a conference of Republican or Democratic governors. EU decision making is protracted, slow and even dislocated.
Mr. Denzil Davies: I do not wish to labour the point, but my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister used the phrases "super-power" and "projecting power".
Mr. Curry: I am objecting to that silly expression. Where the EU has a common policy and a mandate, it has a powerful role to play. However, its super-power status is limited, specific and occasional.
We need to think about how the EU develops and with what mechanisms. There is a real opportunity for ideas that put the market at the forefront and insist that institutions should enable the market to function as the driver of competitiveness and opportunity. My own Front Bench is missing a trick on market opportunity because policies based on the concept of rolling back rather than defining a different way of advancing will not be listened to.
There is an obsession with building a Maginot line or ne plus ultra. The terms of almost pathological dislike in which our policy is couched suggest that Europe is not far short of the evil empire but, unlike it, presumably incapable of redemption, which makes it inevitable that we will be seen as wholly reactive and largely destructive. In other words, there is a market opportunity for defining a different way forward on Europe. However, we are not taking that opportunity because we are not attempting to make an intelligent definition.
The market is driving the European Union in a way that would have been inconceivable 20 or even 10 years ago. French industry is a global player and German restructuring is now wide open, as the single currency has helped to unleash a market-driven revolution. We need to embrace that market-led liberalisation and renounce the
curious mentality that portrays an obviously successful country such as the UK as besieged, blockaded and threatened in some form of neurotic lack of confidence.That is my main objection to what some Opposition Members say, which does not reflect the Britain that I see when I look about me. The proposal to pick and choose among EU measures is particularly unhappy. In any case, any treaty changes must be ratified by the House before they apply. The same mechanism reproduced across Europe would bring the single market--which, after all, is the thing that we claim to care about most--to the point of disintegration. I agree that that market is a crucial ingredient, perhaps even the most important thing in Europe. French competition policy on energy, German exposure of industry to restructuring, and takeover policies are crucially important, and would make it easy for member states to say, "Sorry, we do not like your policies."
If people do not like the federal vision of Europe, they should stop it, not by putting sleepers on the railway track, but by providing an alternative. The federal vision will persist if it is not offered competition, but it has got to be capable of commanding the understanding of all the partners in that negotiation. The Government have a huge responsibility for that because of their persistent failure to confront the issues. It is no good whingeing about the press, which only holds a mirror to the Government's own hesitations and dissensions.
The Government have a policy of relentless drift. Their "Don't mention the euro" comes from the "Fawlty Towers" school of political leadership, and the Government's engagement is as minimalist as the taste in home decoration of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. In the Chamber, debate in Europe is all too often a case of Basil Fawlty meets Dan Dare.
Mr. Curry: Discretion forbids me to answer that. Reality tends to be the loser when we have comic strip exchanges across the Chamber.
What are the priorities for the European Union? Enlargement, of course, followed by liberalisation and competitiveness. Enlargement matters the most and, more than anything else, the EU should stand for liberal, political and economic values. Of course, we could enlarge without treaty changes. However, the EU needs to function after enlargement, which is what those treaties are about that. There is a perfectly good case for extending qualified majority voting. I cannot conceive that, on the basis of changes in qualified majority voting--perhaps even negotiated and accepted by a Conservative Government, since there would not be a treaty to put before the people had we not accepted such voting--we would then say that we were going to go to a referendum and risk having that work overthrown. Those in opposition must be careful that people believe that, when in government, they would do what they say. I have an inkling that this issue is one that might not be so acceptable in government as it is in opposition, and for that I am profoundly grateful.
Of course, there are big issues that are not being addressed at Nice. Agricultural policy is in desperate need of reform and, although there is a process for doing that, it is too slow. I agree with my right hon. and learned
Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) that we should not touch the old resources ceiling, which imposes an important discipline on reform and retrenchment. We need to reform the arithmetic of qualified majority voting. The qualified majority now represents 58 per cent. of the population of the EU--I think that I am right about that. When the treaty of Rome was made, that majority was 70 per cent. At the very least, one needs to be sure of a comfortable majority of population and states to command a qualified majority.I am not impressed with the proposals for a new chamber for national Parliaments, which would add to institutions and limp along pathetically and ineffectively. It is ironic that, in this Chamber in a national Parliament, we have spent most of the past two weeks lamenting the loss of parliamentary authority and the growth of direct action. However, we seem to think that, by adding another parliamentary institution to the European Union, we would address what we keep describing as a democratic deficit. I do not believe that that would work.
We must be careful to acknowledge the case for strong institutions in Europe, as we have a vested interest in making sure that they are strong. Markets need gendarmes to keep them free. We have a big interest in a Commission committed to driving forward liberalisation in areas such as e-commerce, local loop unbundling and competition policy. It is interesting to note that, although Mario Monti, the Competition Commissioner, suggested the repatriation--if I dare to use that word--of certain decision-making areas in competition policy, the Confederation of British Industry said that that is an exceedingly bad idea. That make me think that, when one starts to look at individual policies, reactions are different from when they are seen as part of a collective project.
If we are not going to create new institutions, it would be wonderful if the EU could occasionally abolish institutions. The Economic and Social Committee is utterly useless in every regard. Its abolition would save a large sum of money and have no negative effect. The Committee of the Regions is a more recent creation, but disappeared to the far side of the moon, and no one has heard a word on anything about it since it came into being. Its loss would not be noticed for a considerable period. Abolishing those Committees would be a wonderful gesture to show that Europe is capable of reducing as well as simply adding to its institutional galaxy.
We talk about unelected dictators, thinking about what, at the moment, is a fairly weak and demoralised Commission. However, we must remember that the Councils, with their elected politicians, often do the most damage. I have two proposals, one of which is modestly ambitious and one genuinely modest. I am tempted by the notion that we have to find a way of defining or producing an answer to the question "Where does it end?" I hesitate to use the word constitution, but we must consider the relationship between member states, central authority and national authorities. However, negotiating that would simply be a microcosm of the whole negotiation on Europe and there would be different purposes and objectives. Whether we like it or not, the EU is work of progress. It is difficult to answer the question "Where does it end?" because so much depends on need and
circumstances and it is difficult to define a fixed destination. Given the nature of the debate in Britain, we should give some thought to that matter.My other proposal is much more modest. In a week or two's time, we will debate the Queen's Speech. We will parade into the other place and the Queen will deliver her speech. We will come back to this Chamber and we will debate it. There is no equivalent to that in Europe. I believe that the Commission should annually set out a draft programme of major proposals--the equivalent of primary legislation: a President's programme if you like. That should be sent to national Parliaments for comment and advice. They should give their comments and advice before the Commission publishes the proposals as a definitive programme of work.
National politicians in their own Parliaments--not transferred to some new super-Parliament--need a stake in the process. They would be obliged to confront the reality of individual proposals and European activity. I am convinced that, if national politicians were to examine the merits of individual programmes in the light of the concerns of their own country and their own constituents, they would rapidly identify areas on which there was consensus and in which European action made sense and was necessary, just as they would rapidly identify areas in which they felt that the case for European action had not been made. That would give us a stake in the process.
Such a system would enable us to have an intellectual and policy relationship with the central organisms of the European Union. It would be a positive way of creating a new body of stakeholders in the process with an interest in making things work. They would see Europe in a pragmatic way--the United Kingdom has sometimes been condemned for that, but it is genetically inevitable--rather than dismiss the whole because they dislike some parts of it, as a result of which we give an impression that is sometimes false and different to that which we intend to convey when we consider the details.
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