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6.27 pm
Mr. Wayne David (Caerphilly): I shall be very brief. A few weeks ago, I and my hon. Friend Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) had the privilege of visiting Poland for the purpose of speaking to pupils in a number of schools. I visited two, one in Warsaw and the other in Piecki, which is north of Warsaw. Our purpose was to tell young people about the situation as it is and to explain to them what the EU is all about, and that we did.
What I found most rewarding was listening to what the young people had to say to me about their vision of Poland and of the EU. It was interesting that they hardly mentioned the reform of the common agricultural policy and the stability and growth pact. Instead, they mentioned the opportunities that they saw the EU offering them as young people. They saw the EU offering them the chance to study abroad. They saw new opportunities for travel across the European continent. They also saw the chance, if they so wished, to work in other European countries. They also said that they had a vision of Poland in the new Europe. They were proud of being Polish. They had an understanding of Poland's history and its bitter past. They wanted Poland to develop as an independent sovereign state. They recognised that the EU was not a threat to that ideal, but a chance to fulfil it in its entirety.
Those school children saw Europe as a Union of states that was not in contradistinction to the United States but an entity that would work in partnership with the US. That was extremely important. Above all else, they saw the EU as a way of achieving long-term sustainable peace and prosperity for their country and their continent.
I left Poland with a great sense of humbleness but also one of inspiration. I spent my time on the plane returning to the UK thinking long and hard about what
young people had had to say to me about their country and our continent of Europe. I suggest that when we cast our votes this evening, if we do so, we should think long and hard about what those young people had to say.6.29 pm
Mr. Richard Spring (West Suffolk): I am pleased to welcome the Bill and support its primary aim. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) said earlier, we have always supported EU enlargement. During the debate we heard a number of thoughtful and well thought-out speeches from both sides of the House.
It is a special and joyful moment when we can welcome 10 more European nations into the European Union. As the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson) observed, there are two fellow Commonwealth members joining—Cyprus and Malta. For them we feel a special kinship. Eight countries formerly dominated by the Soviet Union are becoming members of the EU. The old division of Europe imposed by Stalin has now truly gone, and we have the potential to work together as partners in building a more prosperous and stable Europe. In three years' time, I hope that we shall all be voting on an accession Bill to let Romania and Bulgaria into the EU as well.
Let no one make a mistake. Those countries want to join the EU as equals. They want to look to the future and see a true partnership. That is why we continue to press the Government to show leadership to secure full rights for the accession countries at next year's IGC. I make this point to the Minister: the accession countries become full members only on 1 May. If the Convention begins later this year, or earlier in 2004, decisions may well be made before 1 May over which they cannot exercise a vote or a veto. I pass on to the Minister from the accession countries the clear aspiration that has been expressed so many times to my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes and to me that that should be recognised.
The threads of the Bill go back well into the 1980s. We can remind ourselves, as was freely acknowledged by the Foreign Secretary, that it was British Ministers who, when visiting eastern Europe, made contact with dissident groups, made specific public pronouncements and spoke out in defence of freedom, often to the fury of their communist hosts. Additionally, it was the then Government who took important defence and foreign policy decisions that helped to outface the Soviet Union. They did so in the teeth of violent opposition, both in and out of Parliament. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), I take pride in the fact that it was a Conservative Government who faced up squarely to the most important geopolitical challenge of the time.
When the Berlin wall came down—I echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) about that—it opened up the possibility of the freedoms that we all take for granted. For the former communist countries in particular, the Bill is effectively the final act in their being embraced into the European family of democratic nations. Thus the expansion of the European Union is not only right politically, and not only beneficial economically; in my personal view, it is a moral obligation as well.
To have enabled millions of our fellow Europeans to breathe free goes to the heart of what I and my parliamentary colleagues believe in. Furthermore, Members of Parliament of different parties can take pride in the fact that there is not one of us, to my knowledge, who has opposed expansion, and nor have the British public. That is virtually unique anywhere in the European Union.
There is, however, one disappointment in the Bill: that Cyprus will not be joining as a united island. Recent events there give us hope that its two peoples are seeking reconciliation. We must also hope that that will lead to a political settlement, bringing into being a united Cyprus. The extraordinary examples of friendliness and lack of rancour between the two groups on the island when they have recently been allowed to meet was moving. I can only hope that it pushes those who resist full reconciliation on to a new and different point of view.
The accession countries will benefit from and add to the size and opportunities of the European single market, but they also need structural funds. Both will be of significant benefit to them, and their membership and access to their markets will, in turn, be of benefit to us. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) pointed out, too much structural funding is devoted to subsidising countries for which European handouts were a hand up out of their economic ills. Many such countries have surmounted the difficulties and no longer need those funds, but the new members do. When I visited Poland last year, I was impressed by the difference that structural funds can make. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David), who is so involved in and committed to the cause of Poland in the European Union. An efficient road network would make it much easier for such countries' products to reach markets economically.
The EU does not work as it should. It badly needs reform if it is to fulfil the expectations of its constituent peoples in the 21st century. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) made that exact point. If we asked people on, for example, Oxford street, the Champs Elysées or the Charles bridge what they wanted from the EU, they would of course reply the stability that it has fostered, but perhaps two further main aspirations would emerge.
First, people want a sense of ownership of the European Union and its institutions. I am pleased that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) has committed his party to a referendum if the IGC produces a constitution that has a significant impact on this country. We believe that that will happen. I point out to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) that several other European countries that are not constitutionally required to have referendums on such an issue have committed themselves—or are likely to do so—to a referendum, because of the importance of the potential changes at the IGC.
Mr. Tom Harris: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the Conservative Government should have held a referendum on Maastricht simply because the French did so?
Mr. Spring: As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) pointed out, the most
important issue in Maastricht was probably the single currency and the opt-out, which the people of this country greatly value. The vast majority want to keep the pound. If a referendum is called after all the fighting that is going on in the Government, we, and the overwhelming majority of people, will know how to vote.The greatest challenge that faces all democracies is that people feel alienated from the political process. It is tragic that approximately 40 per cent. of the people of this country simply do not vote. The dismal story is repeated in many other countries. People do not believe that they have control over what has an impact on their lives. That applies especially to the EU, with its flow of regulations and directives and seemingly inexorable moves towards greater centralisation, regardless of what people want. If we do not tackle that democratic deficit and reconnect to EU institutions, considerable tension and further alienation will follow.
Secondly, the people of Europe want jobs and prosperity. Unfortunately, the EU's economic performance has been poor and unemployment is too high. The EU suffers from an outdated, dirigiste and statist view of the dynamics of economic growth. The pursuit of harmonisation and centralisation is its defining characteristic. The right hon. Member for Llanelli (Denzil Davies) implied that, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) also made that point. Either we embrace economic reform, liberalisation and decentralisation or we shall not be able to face up to the immense demographic challenges that beset our continent. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) made that point. If the enlarged EU is to succeed in the new century, it must concentrate on the new challenges. That is not a small task.
The much-vaunted Convention on the Future of Europe has sadly failed to deal with the problems. If anything, it has done the opposite and may have compounded them by proposing an EU constitution that takes us in the wrong direction, with all the attendant supranational trappings. I salute my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells for his contribution at the Convention. He correctly chided his fellow Convention member, the Secretary of State for Wales, for disgracefully trivialising the important IGC. It goes well beyond a "tidying-up exercise".
Those who want a more centralised EU—effectively a political union that might act as a counterweight to the United States; the word "rival" has been used—are not acting in Europe's best interests. The last thing that Europe needs is a greater concentration of power in Brussels. We need not more European presidents but more real power for national Parliaments, giving a real sense of connection between the European Union and the citizens of its member states. The European Union evolved as it has because of a post-war political generation who possess a bloc mentality. It was a response to the horrors of the war that has bedevilled our continent—a point that was made by the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks)—and to the threats from the old Soviet empire. Much of what dominates the debates in the Convention on the Future of Europe arises in response to threats and challenges that simply
no longer exist. As recent events have clearly shown, the world has moved on, but much of the thinking in Europe, and regrettably here in London, is frozen in a time warp ill suited to the way in which the world will work in the 21st century, where the aggressive pursuit of harmonisation and centralisation is destructive and indeed irrelevant.I suspect that the accession countries will be far less likely to accept the nit-picking and invasive interference in the political and economic lives of member states that is such an unwelcome characteristic of the EU. In view of the many visits that my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes and I have paid to the accession countries and the dozens of meetings that we have had with their representatives, I hope and believe that they will be allies when it becomes obvious that the current and proposed constitutional architecture of the European Union is ill suited to the needs and challenges of the people of Europe. I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson): we will inevitably have to build a new set of relationships with countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, assisted by the considerable knowledge and experience of countries such as Poland and Lithuania. That will require more flexible structures, but the current thrust of thinking in the European Union is that one must accept the acquis communautaire in toto, so we have some fresh thinking to do.
The Conservative party fully supports the Bill, but last week the Prime Minister asserted that we were opposed to enlargement, which is utterly wrong. I want to quote what the Library has to say on that point. The reason why I dwell on it is that it is incredible for a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to be so ignorant of the workings of the European Union that he seems to have no clear idea in his mind of what the Convention is there for. The Library's research paper on enlargement says of the Convention that
- "it has not been part of the enlargement process itself. The Prime Minister said in Prime Minister's Questions on 14 May 2003 that the Convention was 'necessary to make the accession work'. The Copenhagen European Council Conclusion stated, perhaps more accurately, that: 'Without reform the Union will not fully reap the benefits of enlargement'. The Convention and its outcome are not prerequisites for accession, the sole legal basis of which is the Accession Treaty"—
We shall vote for the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip will ensure that we have the opportunity to demonstrate that the Prime Minister had his facts wrong and—inadvertently, no doubt, and wholly out of character, of course—misrepresented the position of the Conservative party. In reiterating our support for the Bill, let me state categorically that I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote aye in the Lobby tonight.
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