Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
WEDNESDAY 16 JULY 2003
RT HON
PETER HAIN,
MS SARAH
LYONS AND
MR TOM
DREW
Q20 Angus Robertson: Yes.
Peter Hain: What is the answer
to that, Tom? Can I probe you a bit? What do you mean by that?
Q21 Angus Robertson: From a legal
perspective, do the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common
Fisheries Policy have the same legal status?
Peter Hain: I am trying to get
at what is behind your supplementary question, so perhaps you
could ask that, as it were, before I answer it and then I can
give you a proper answer.
Q22 Angus Robertson: The question
obviously is if they have the same legal status, which most purists
would agree, then why is it that both of those policies are treated
differently when the competencies of the European Union are listed
under Article 12 of the draft constitution?
Peter Hain: I do not see really
what the problem is here. It seems to me that what we have here
is a situation in which the fisheries policy and the agricultural
policy is determined by the European Union in the way we all know,
and again—and I apologise if I am not getting to your point
but I cannot see the key point you are making—
Q23 Angus Robertson: It is pretty
fundamental really because at the moment policies with regards
to fisheries and policies with regards to agriculture are subject
to the CAP and to the CFP, yet when one looks at the constitution
both of those policies are treated differently. It is not just
a tidying up exercise. One, namely fisheries, is to be an exclusive
competence when dealing with the conservation and marine biological
resources, but agriculture is not—it is to be a shared competence.
It is fundamentally different. How is it that they are being treated
differently if they are of the same legal status?
Peter Hain: Well, they operate
in a different way. The draft Treaty does not propose extending
competence. It is not extending competence of fisheries—we
can all agree that. If you are interested, as I think you are,
in the conservation of marine biological resources under the Common
Fisheries Policy, that has been exclusive to the European Community
since 1979.
Q24 Angus Robertson: With respect,
that is not my question. I am asking why are these two policy
areas which have the same legal status being treated differently?
Peter Hain: Because they have
been.
Q25 Angus Robertson: Why?
Peter Hain: I am not sure, to
be perfectly frank, other than the obvious point which is that
lots of different policies are treated in different ways in Part
III of the constitution, and in different ways and so on. It seems
to me to be a pretty obvious point. I am not sure what you are
getting at.
Q26 Miss McIntosh: My understanding
is that these are two common policies so they should have exclusive
competence and I think the thrust of Mr Robertson's question is
that one is being treated—fisheries—as exclusive competence,
whereas the CAP now, under the mid-term review, is going to be
treated as shared competence. That is a fundamental change to
the Treaty which appears to have been smuggled through. It is
a very important point.
Peter Hain: What matters is the
impact and the outcome—that is what matters. The common
foreign and security policy is common, but it is treated in a
very different way.
Q27 Miss McIntosh: If we follow that
logic through then effectively exclusive competence means that
fisheries policies will be applied the same across the European
Union, whereas now you are going to have farming policy which
is going to be applied disuniformly across the European Union.
I think the question I would like to ask the government is, was
this the intention behind the change of competence in this new
constitution?
Peter Hain: There has not been
a change of competence.
Q28 Miss McIntosh: Yes, there has.
You just told us there has.
Peter Hain: No, I have not. I
have not said there has been a change of competence in the way
the constitution—this is getting very anoraky, Mr Chairman,
but unless I am wrongly advised, I do not think there has been
any change of competence in this area in the draft constitutional
Treaty compared with the previous one. Is that right?
Mr Drew: Yes.
Q29 Chairman: I have the advantage
of having my legal adviser on my right hand side here, who tells
me that it is a highly technical matter but it may be a bit better
than it was previously under the new proposals. I am going to
suggest it is something the Committee will want to look into in
greater detail, and we will come back on this. It is a highly
technical matter according to my legal advice, so I will move
on, Minister.
Peter Hain: Well, if I can help
in the future on that, or if the Foreign Secretary or the Minister
for Europe can respond to help you I am sure they would, but I
do not believe any substantive change has been made in the way
that has been suggested.
Mr Connarty: I think we will look forward
to that answer, Minister. It is not just an SNP point. If people
representing fishing communities do not have a right to speak
on it because it has been pledged solely to Europe and there is
nothing for us to say at national level, I think that would be
very worrying, and I think that is the inference of the question.
Chairman: I did not call Mr Connarty
to carry on this point. We look forward to the answer. [1]Do
you have another question, Mr Connarty?
Q30 Mr Connarty: I would like to
turn to the institutions, Minister. I was surprised to hear Giscard
d'Estaing say himself that the institutional reforms contained
many uneasy compromises, and he said, "it contained mistakes
made by the Praesidium at the express request of the Convention
at large". Is the government happy with the Convention's
compromise proposals on the reform of the EU institutions, or
will it seek substantial changes at the IGC, and could we have
an indication of where the government stands on the various proposals?
Secondly, does it hold the view that was given in the contribution
by you and others that you submitted that the Nice provisions
should be retained after 2009?
Peter Hain: Firstly, on the last
point, I do not think anybody is suggesting that the Nice provisions
say, for example, on the numbers of commissioners should be retained
after 2009. It is accepted that there will be a change there.
Secondly, on the institutions, we were broadly happy with the
outcome: we got a key strategic objective achieved in making the
European Council and therefore governments stronger by better
co-ordination, better organisation, and a full time elected member
to chair the Council on behalf of national governments. We were
also happy that the European Commission had been strengthened
and reformed to make it more efficient, and we were happy that
the European Parliament, for example, got greater scrutiny rights,
which I think is a good thing. The area which we remain doubtful
about is this proposal for a so-called double hatting of the existing
High Representative, Javier Solana, and the external relations
commissioner, Chris Patten. The way that has been configured still
leaves some room for doubt in a number of areas and we would still
need to negotiate the detail of that to make absolutely crystal
clear that this new foreign representative role is strictly under
the control of governments and accountable to governments, despite
the fact that he quite properly, or she, would have access to
European resources through the Commission role in a way that is
not possible now.
Q31 Mr Connarty: Pressing you on
this, some of the discussion has been that the Foreign Secretary
of Europe, which is the title that has been bandied around, somehow
would conflict with the role of the new elected President or chair
of the Council, who is seen in the first instance to be the most
important person in the joint government bodies. Is that the basis
of this? That it would be a conflict of who speaks for Europe?
Peter Hain: No, that is not what
it is about. The point I was making was whether the Commission
in effect got a back door into the common foreign and security
policy in areas where it does not have a competence, and if you
brought these two posts together, and we are not satisfied with
the position as it currently stands, it is satisfactory to the
extent that the person is appointed by the Council, in other words
by governments and accountable to governments, but some of the
detail leaves us uneasy. It is not a question of a conflict of
role with the full-time Chairman of the Council or President.
What each President of the Council would do is effectively operate
for Europe at the level that the post operates now—for example,
in international summits with Russia, China, the United States
or India, representation at the G8 and so on. But it is very confusing
for other presidents and Prime Ministers of other countries when
the person changes every six months. They just start to build
a relationship, then off they go and it is some other figure.
So that is the advantage of that role at a foreign policy level—the
foreign representative level will not deal with that any more
than our own Foreign Secretary normally deals at the head of government
level. He or she would be dealing with the foreign ministers of
other nations and other groups of nations, so there is no conflict
at all.
Q32 Mr Connarty: To the same agenda
set by the Council rather than by the Commission?
Peter Hain: Indeed. To the same
agenda set by the Council.
Q33 Mr Marshall: Continuing on the
institutional changes, one of the provisions in the draft Treaty
is for a legislative council. Will the government seek to remove
this provision and, if it fails to do so, do you think that the
principle is workable?
Peter Hain: Originally, there
was a proposal for an entirely new Legislative Council which we
saw as a Trojan Horse really for effectively separating legislation
from executive policy making, whereby the Commission would be
able to get its hands on executive policy making in a way that
was not acceptable from our point of view. I think that was part
of the agenda behind those who advocated it. There was a very
persuasive advocacy in the sense that the Legislative Council
would give the opportunity for a final, as it were, almost Third
Reading on behalf of governments sitting together and whoever
was representing governments on the Legislative Council. For example,
it was argued that the Environment Council could adopt a position
that was actually negative as far as the Agriculture Council was
concerned or Industry was concerned, so you might want to have
a chance of a final look at it—that was the argument put.
Anyway, we knocked out the Legislative Council but then it was
proposed to change it to the General Affairs and Legislative Council
together, so you extended the existing General Affairs Council
mandate. Now, effectively, you have in the existing GAC an agenda
item at every meeting called Reports from other Council Formations,
what these different councils have been doing, legislating and
so on, so you could regard it as a kind of expanded version of
that agenda item, and if that was the case then fine, normally
it just goes through on the nod, but if there is an ambition to
reincarnate a full-blown Legislative Council that is not something
we would be prepared to go along with.
Q34 Mr Tynan: Minister, Mr Connarty
touched on the Foreign Affairs Minister in a kind of competition
with the President, or the proposed Presidency. Obviously the
fact that 25 countries are going to be part of the European Union
and the smaller countries in particular enjoy their time in the
sun is in strong opposition to the proposal that there be strong
rules about the presidency. There is a feeling at the present
time that the smaller countries have been successful in watering
down the role of the new President. What would your view be on
that?
Peter Hain: There was an ambition
on the smaller countries to do exactly that. First of all, some
of the smaller countries like Sweden backed us all the way, Denmark
supported us, and there were changes along the road through the
process of the Convention, but when the smalls realised that it
was something that was either going to happen or the Convention
would be in deadlock they then changed to try to reconfigure the
job description and strip away some of the role to do exactly
that, and to confine it to just chairing the European Council
meetings, whereas we wanted it to co-ordinate the whole work of
governments in the European Union including Councils of Ministers,
and we have achieved that to all intents and purposes, so I think
we have exactly what we want which is a strong representative
of governments at the top of the European Union, and I would have
thought that would be welcomed by everybody who wants to see the
European Union as a partnership of sovereign nation states, not
a federal super state.
Q35 Mr Tynan: So the view expressed
that the Council President has been talked up to be considerably
more important compared to the Commission and the Foreign Affairs
Minister you would dispute?
Peter Hain: I would strongly dispute
it. The Council President has the same role as the job has now,
pretty well, and I think once that person has been appointed,
beds down and starts to operate, then it will become an increasingly
formidable role just because of the nature of the way the world
is changing, and governments and prime ministers and presidents,
heads of other governments, are increasingly seeing the European
Union for what it is—a very important, and growingly so,
agency for achieving national interests. Having somebody who is
there as a full-time person based in Brussels, able to negotiate
with the Commission President and the European Parliament President
on governments' behalf continuously rather than with prime Ministers
or presidents who have to do the full job of heading up their
own governments—it has become increasingly impossible to
do both of those things.
Q36 Mr Tynan: I understand there
is no proposal for the President of the European Council to have
their own cabinet: that no longer exists within the proposal that
is on the table at present. Is that not a weakening of the position?
Peter Hain: No. We did not want
a rival bureaucracy set up, or a great big institutional apparatus
to underpin the role of the President in the Council. We wanted
pretty well the existing Council secretariat to do that job so
no, there was no real, as it were, knock back on that position.
Q37 Angus Robertson: Minister, can
I move things on to the common foreign and security policy? As
you will be aware, probably, the German foreign Minister, Joschka
Fischer, not long ago proposed the creation of a diplomatic service
for the European Union and that it should be under the control
of the new EU Foreign Affairs Minister. Can I ask you what the
government's view is on the proposal to create such a foreign
service for the European Union, and should such a service be under
the control of the new Foreign Affairs Minister or, indeed, the
Commission?
Peter Hain: Well, the idea of,
as it were, a fully fledged European diplomatic service was not
taken forward by the Convention though it was, as you imply, advocated,
and we argued against it. What we did argue for, however, was
an end to the ridiculous situation where Javier Solana, the high
representative, as he gave evidence to us demonstrated, could
travel to Washington representing the Council and governments
but not be able to use the European Union's Commission staff there.
This is a ridiculous situation because he was representing the
Council, not the Commission so we now have a situation where that
artificial distinction is going to be broken down. Already, there
is a sensible co-operation amongst European Member States: we
represent some Member States in African countries, for example,
and they do the same for us in areas where they have a traditional,
historical relationship, and we do not have the resources to put
in a proper mission. So I think that kind of co-operation will
go. But arrival of a diplomatic service? No.
Q38 Angus Robertson: In five years'
time you do not imagine that there might be even only a small
diplomatic service working for the Foreign Affairs Minister?
Peter Hain: Yes. Perhaps I need
to clarify what I said. There are proposals for a diplomatic service
but not as a rival. I think some in the Convention saw that like
they saw Europe taking our seat in the Security Council, they
had that ambition—well, all of that was defeated within
the Convention and we had a much more common sense approach.
Q39 Mr Marshall: Could I just probe
a little on the role and the position of the European Foreign
Affairs Minister? From what you have said, Minister, it appears
that the British government is in favour of that position: I wonder
if you could make that clear? Secondly, even though the government
may be in favour, do the government not see that they could well
be in serious difficulties with the duality of the role of this
person? You have mentioned one example of where Javier Solana,
when he is at the United Nations, might be in a better position
to negotiate if he could use the Commission's staff or whatever,
but is not this the crux of the potential problem? That you cannot
on the one hand be serving the Member States where the national
interest is paramount—you have mentioned that in terms of
the common foreign and security policy—but at the same time
be a Vice President of the Commission, because in many cases their
interests are different. The Commission has got this urge to extend
qualified majority power all the time whereas presumably the European
Council in charge of common and foreign security policy is opposed
to that, and there is a potential danger if you put all of this
responsibility in one person?
Peter Hain: There is obviously
a concern about that and I understand that, but the original proposal
for this double-hatted figure, as it came to be known at the Convention,
was for a takeover by the Commission through the back door of
the common and foreign security policy, and there were still those
who wished to see that—if you like the federalists' convention.
We saw them all. But to give you another practical example—
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