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Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham): After statements from the Treasury that the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot accept article I.14 of the draft treaty relating to the co-ordination of economic and employment policy,
will the Foreign Secretary say what success the Prime Minister has had in negotiating its removal or amendment?
Mr. Straw: There is no surprise in the position adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as it was well laid out in the White Paper that I published on 9 September. That specific issue has not yet been the subject of formal negotiation in the intergovernmental conference, either at Heads of Government level or Foreign Minister level, although the Italian presidency and the Council secretariat are well aware of our views.
Alan Howarth (Newport, East): In the European Council's consideration of how to get better economic growth in Europe, was serious consideration given to reform of the stability and growth pact to get rid of the deflationary bias that has existed in European policy for many years?
Mr. Straw: As I recall, that was not specifically on the agenda at the summit, but it is certainly under active consideration.
Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk): I know that the Foreign Secretary will have seen the British press this morning, but has he seen the French press? Although my translation may not be 100 per cent. accurate, is it true that Dominique de Villepin said that the constitution will lead to fundamental changes in the integrity and sovereignty of the different nation states? Will Her Majesty the Queen now become a citizen of the EU, and will we, as I presume, have a new ultimate Head of State? Surely the British people ought to have the final say on that with a referendum.
Mr. Straw: On this wonderfully wacky story that the European Union is going to take over Her Majesty and the British monarchy, let me reassure the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members who are having nightmares about it that it is simply not true. Six other European member states are monarchies, and I have never heard any of them suggest that their monarchies would be affected, and nor will ours.
As for Dominique de Villepin, it is not necessary to read the French press, because he gave the Dimbleby lecture in English. I will provide the hon. Gentleman with a copy, although it was no doubt good for his French homework.
On the issue of Her Majesty being a citizen, it was Maastricht that provided for European Union citizenship for all British citizens, not the draft constitution.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston): When the draft constitution was still a draft, it included a provision that would have prevented the same person from being President of the Commission and President of the Council, but that provision disappeared rather belatedly. Have there been any discussions to reinsert such a provision to prevent the merging of those two offices?
Mr. Straw: There have not been any in the formal discussions, but I agree with my hon. Friend that it is
extremely important that the two functions are separate, as they reflect the balance of power between the European Council and the European Commission. That separation and balance is one of the reasons why the EU has been as successful as it has been since its formation in 1957.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): In the course of the Council, the Prime Minister ruled out a British referendum on the EU constitution. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that referendums have legitimacy because they are a free and unconstrained expression of public opinion? If a parliamentary vote is to have similar legitimacy, it should be on the basis of a free and unwhipped vote. In the absence of that, surely only a referendum will do.
Mr. Straw: I welcome the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is shifting the Conservative party's position on this issue. I believe—I thought that this was once the Tory party's view—in the legitimacy of Parliament and the elected House of Commons. I have conceded that there are some cases where referendums are acceptable, but I do not believe—for reasons that we have explained—that one would be appropriate in this case.
As for the whipping of a vote, this is Government business and we should certainly apply a Whip on our side, but I realise that the idea of a seriously whipped vote in the Conservative party is a contradiction in terms.
Jane Griffiths (Reading, East): I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and, in particular, for highlighting the groundbreaking work being done by EU-led military missions to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Does he agree that the carpers and nitpickers on the Conservative Benches damage British interests by endeavouring to sow dissension on the subject of Europe?
Mr. Straw: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. The fact that the Macedonian operation is taking place in co-operation with NATO and using NATO's assets under Berlin-plus and that the operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is taking place very smoothly with British troops working in support of a French-led operation gives the lie to the nonsense and fantasies that we keep hearing from Conservative Members.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Given that the subsidiarity and proportionality protocol to which the right hon. Gentleman has already and unsatisfactorily referred imposes no obligation whatsoever on the European Commission to withdraw inappropriate legislative proposals and that many of us are concerned that it will prove to be but a thin cover for the EU's continued legislative imperialism, what discussions has he had over the weekend with his EU counterparts about bolstering subsidiarity to give it the real teeth that the Prime Minister promised to the House as long ago as 18 June 1997, but that the Foreign Secretary admitted on 21 May this year simply has not happened?
Mr. Straw: That part of the draft treaty was not discussed formally in the room, but it was a matter for
many individual discussions in the margins of the meetings. I do not accept that the protocol on pages 150 and 152 of the draft treaty lacks real teeth, although I accept that it could do with strengthening. It is true that, if the Commission receives back a proposal because a third of the national parliamentary Chambers have said that it should go back, it could in theory send it straight back. However, it must take account of the fact that, if a third of member states' national parliamentary Chambers say that a matter is unacceptable, it is possible—depending on the size of the member states—that the proposal would fail to win a qualified majority vote, which, under these proposals, requires 50 per cent. of member states and 60 per cent. of them by population to vote for it. In any case, that would raise an amber warning.I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman and those on the Opposition Front Bench, but my view is that the concept of federalism in Europe has been and gone. It is very striking that the concept of an ever closer Union has been dropped from this text. [Interruption.] That is true. We got it dropped, and we also got federalism dropped. It has gone.
Mr. Ancram: What about your friend Dominique de Villepin's remarks last night?
Mr. Straw: I am making a serious point. The very fact that there are now 25 states in the Union and that eight of them are new, proud sovereign states that have been released from the yoke of Soviet imperialism means that the shift in the balance of power has been away from the small group of federalists and in favour of those who see the Union, as is very clear from this text, as an association of sovereign member states pooling their sovereignty for the benefit of their individual peoples.
Mr. Tom Clarke (Coatbridge and Chryston): Were my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister able to discuss with their European colleagues their commitment to developing countries? In the light of the huge disappointment after Cancun, does the Foreign Secretary accept that the European Union is in a strong position to offer a strategy for the elimination of global poverty, and that his lead, as well as that of the Department for International Development, means that we in Britain can offer a positive contribution in that regard?
Mr. Straw: We did indeed discuss the failure at Cancun, and the concern of the European Council is highlighted in paragraph 40 of the Council's conclusions from last Friday. We have invited the Commission both to reflect on the European Union's strategy and to explore with key WTO players the possibility of future progress, emphasising that a commitment under the Doha development agenda will be indispensable to any successful resumption of negotiations.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire): Just as the right hon. Gentleman has learned over the past 20 years that total withdrawal, which he espoused in 1983, is not the right way forward, have we not also learned—if we have learned anything from the subsequent succession of EU treaties and agreements—that the vagueness of the language used in those documents can
lead them to be interpreted later to mean something totally different from what we believed them to mean when they were first signed? Will the Foreign Secretary give the House an undertaking that he will ensure that Britain does not agree to a constitution that leaves vagueness within it and allows the possibility of the European Court or Commission deciding at a later stage that any clause of the constitution meant something that countered the red lines that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister are so committed to achieving?
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