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Mr. Campbell-Savours: Did the hon. Gentleman say Czechoslovakia?
Mr. Maples: I think that I said the Czech Republic, but if I said Czechoslovakia I mis-spoke myself.
Sir Peter Emery (East Devon): Before my hon. Friend leaves this subject, will he comment on the great danger that if the Western European Union is taken over by the European Union, four EU nations which are neutralist and not members of NATO will be making military decisions and will have some say about military decisions taken by the WEU and, therefore, by NATO?
Mr. Maples: My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I am concerned about the premature folding of the WEU into the European Union. The WEU provides an extremely useful meeting point for countries that are in one of the bodies but not the other, but it is now to go. Those countries which are useful and valuable allies in NATO but which are not in the EU will not have a say, but countries which are neutral and, frankly, not useful as military allies will have a say.
I said that we had breached the conditions of discrimination and duplication, but we have also breached the decoupling condition. At the Franco-Italian summit in Nimes in September, there was a call for the European Union to have permanent political and military bodies responsible for security and defence questions--that is, military committees. If that is not decoupling Europe from NATO, I do not know what is.
The Foreign Secretary told us that there will be no European army, but all last week we were hearing about a 30,000 to 40,000-strong Euro corps. If he thinks that the United States was not concerned about this at the time of the Washington summit, he should read the recent speech given by Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State, in London last month. He said:
It is clear from the speeches of many European Commissioners and Mr. Solana that the United States is right to be concerned, as they want a European Union foreign policy that is backed by a European Union military force outside NATO.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon):
Did the hon. Gentleman also read that part of Strobe Talbott's speech in which he said that he supported the ESDI, as did the United States?
Mr. Maples:
Yes, but that is polite cover. [Laughter.] I happen to have discussed this matter with Strobe
We do not like the initiative being taken out of NATO and given to the EU, which is not the right organisation for it. The Government have surrendered to France what the French have long wanted--an alternative to NATO.
Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe):
On the disingenuous intervention from the Secretary of State for Defence, is it not the case that Strobe Talbott said that the US support for the ESDI
Mr. Maples:
Disingenuous interventions by the Secretary of State may fool a few Labour Back Benchers, but he should not let himself be blinded to what is happening in foreign policy. It is being changed--there is no point in pretending that this initiative is not developing outside NATO. It is, and that is the French agenda.
On 8 November--the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall--President Chirac made an incredibly anti-American speech in Paris. He called for
Everybody in Europe is cutting defence budgets, and we will need to duplicate certain things to make the ESDI work. It is possible to make it work if we are all prepared to spend a lot more money, but we are not. The idea that we can strike out on our own is a dangerous fantasy. It is the Foreign Secretary's job to stop the Prime Minister playing games with our long-term security for his own personal vanity.
The Foreign Secretary spent an awful lot of his speech dealing with our policy on the European Union, so let me say what it is after I have dealt with what he has succeeded in getting in the EU. His handling of European affairs has been characterised by surrender. He has raised pre-emptive concession to an art form. The Government signed up to the social chapter without getting anything in return. At Amsterdam, they gave up our veto in 16 areas and asked for nothing in return.
The European security and defence identity is a 180-deg reversal of policy. The Government conceded ground on the corpus juris at Tampere. They are trying to introduce the single currency by stealth, and I believe that they are planning to give up our veto in more areas at next year's intergovernmental conference.
What is the purpose of all that? The Prime Minister says that it is to generate good will. He says, "We will have much better relations than those awful Conservatives
had with the Germans and the French and we will be able to get things in exchange." Until a month ago, when asked what we got in exchange, he said that we got the beef ban lifted. That was the only prize that he could identify from the ream of surrenders and pre-emptive concessions. Apparently, our relations with France were not even good enough for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to telephone his French counterpart for a week. I do not know whether they had lost one another's phone number or could not find an interpreter.
This is pathetic. We have surrendered long-term, hard-won interests for good will, and all we have gained is the supposed lifting of the beef ban, which has not even happened. That really illustrates the bankruptcy of the Government's policy.
Mr. Bercow:
In the light of the Foreign Secretary's low music-hall bluster, does my hon. Friend recall that, at column 86 on 2 November, the Foreign Secretary, having been invited by my hon. Friend to commit himself to veto an enlargement treaty that eroded our national vetoes, three times declined to do so?
Mr. Maples:
Indeed, he refused to rule that out, which makes me very suspicious that the Government are preparing to surrender our veto in more areas, which is of course the agenda of the President of the European Commission.
We are allowing the European Union to continue down the wrong road. A lot of the regulation being imposed on business imposes unnecessary costs that do not fall on businesses in America or Asia and attracts more power to the centre. If we do not stop it at some point, that will eventually lead to a European super-state. The Government say that they do not want that, but others want it. It is what the Simon-Dehaene report, commissioned by President Prodi, says. He has said that he wants that in many pronouncements, including his speech last week to the European Parliament.
The danger is that we will get that over-regulated super-state unless the Foreign Secretary is prepared to stand up for Britain's interests. One of Europe's main tasks should be to concentrate on ensuring that European business is competitive, that we can continue with our agenda of free trade and that we complete a north Atlantic marketplace and the single market in the areas in which we want it to be completed; but the European Union and the Commission are obsessed with integration and harmonisation, leading to expensive regulation that makes European businesses uncompetitive and will eventually lead to job losses and, I believe, calls for protection for some member states.
We must reverse that before it is too late. We have an opportunity, because enlargement, as the Foreign Secretary said, requires institutional reform. A European Community of 25 to 30 members will need some reform. There are two models for that reform. One is the Prodi model of removing the national veto, and introducing much more qualified majority voting and a requirement for much bigger blocking minorities. The alternative model would not require every country to go along with every piece of legislation. Of course we must be bound by the core legislation on the free market and free trade and competition, but we do not all need the same trade union recognition rights or the same paternity leave arrangements.
The flexibility model offers an alternative vision of Europe. There is a clear distinction between our policy and the Government's. Our vision is of an open, flexible, outward-looking, free-trading, free-market, low-cost Europe. The Prodi vision, in which the Government are acquiescing, will lead to an inward-looking, protectionist, over-regulated super-state.
"We would not want to see an ESDI that comes into being first within NATO but then grows out of NATO and finally grows away from NATO, since that would lead to an ESDI that initially duplicates NATO but that could eventually compete with NATO."
Two other things had bothered him. The Anglo-French summit at St. Malo raised concerns among non-EU allies--to which I have just referred--and the EU leaders' declaration at Cologne in June,
"which could be read to imply that Europe's default position would be to act outside the Alliance whenever possible, rather than through the Alliance."
That seriously concerns us, and it is now developing.
"will be guided by the answers to two questions"?
He went on to detail those questions, one of which related to the precise quotation from his speech that my hon. Friend gave the House a couple of minutes ago.
"the European Union to work for a multipolar world that contained US military . . . power."
This agenda has been pursued by the French for some time, and the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have fallen for it. It is a dangerous policy, and it is not in the UK's interests. It will weaken NATO and substitute something with less political credibility and less military clout.
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