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Mr. James Plaskitt (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab): Has the hon. Gentleman read and noted article 9, which would do exactly what he seeks?
Mr. Walter:
Of course I have read and noted article 9 as well as all the other articles in the treaty. The problem is that it contains so many articles that it provides no
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clarification of what the EU can and cannot do. It complicates the decision-making processes between the institutions of the Union and the member states. The treaty should be crystal clear about countries' retention of the veto in key elements of national sovereignty such as tax, foreign policy and defence. That is not clear in the document. Although it goes some way towards removing the open-ended commitment to ever closer union, it does not make it absolutely clear.
I would support a treaty that made the EU more open and accountable. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) for their work on the Convention and their subsequent comments. However, despite their efforts, we have not got that sort of treaty. As we move towards a referendum on ratifying the treaty, we should be clear that conveying a message to the leaders of Europe that the document is unacceptable in no way means that we are anti-European or that we do not want the European Union to succeed. I stress that we want it to succeed.
There is a danger of overreacting to the undoubted success of the UK Independence party in our recent European elections. We must make it clear that withdrawal is not an option and that rejection of the treaty does not imply any such action. The anti-Europeans often tout the examples of Norway or Switzerland as attractive alternatives. We must make it absolutely clear in the debate on the constitution that those alternatives are not acceptable to the British people. We must reject such a fantasy. To gain full access to the single market, Norway has to implement all the EU regulations that we must with no say in the way in which they are set. Norwegians often refer to their country as a fax democracy because the laws by which they live arrive on a fax machine from Brussels.
Switzerland is bound by the same laws. Recent figures from the European Commission show that Norway has a better record of implementing EU regulations than the United Kingdom—and, indeed, a better record than 14 member states. It has failed to implement only 0.7 per cent. of the regulations; the UK has failed to implement 1.5 per cent.
Mr. Walter: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will add to the list.
Mr. Hopkins: Is not the crucial point about Norway that it is free to choose its own economic and social policies, and need not abide by the rules of, for instance, economic and monetary union?
Mr. Walter: It need not abide by those rules, but when it comes to access to the single market—the most important aspect of the EU—it must comply with the rules and regulations laid down in Brussels. I consider one option suggested for the United Kingdom, whereby we would take a step back and adopt the same status as Norway or Switzerland, to be totally unacceptable.
Both Norway and Switzerland, moreover, must contribute to the EU budget. There is a myth about that as well. I think that the Norwegians are committed to
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paying some €1.1 billion over the next five years, and in May the Swiss agreed to pay some €650 million over the same period. That too is not an option.
We need a tidying-up, simplifying treaty—a short document that merely lays down the competences and makes the institutions and processes of the EU both transparent and accountable. This constitution does not do that. I believe that it should be rejected by the people in a referendum, and that we should renegotiate to bring about something more in line with the Laeken declaration.
3.57 pm
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, and grateful for the debate itself. It marks an important moment in the EU's transition from one phase of its life to another.
The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor) referred to article 19 of the charter of fundamental rights. He asked for clarification of paragraph 1; as I am sure he will understand, it is self-evident. Paragraph 2 merely incorporates case law from the European Court of Human Rights dating from 1989 to 1996. I thought it obvious that for many years we in this country had pursued the policy of not extraditing people to countries in which they were likely to suffer the death penalty for crimes that they might or might not have committed.
Sir Teddy Taylor: What does the hon. Gentleman think we should do with, for instance, terrorists who have done some jobs in America—blown up 3,000 people, perhaps?
Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman said earlier that the charter of fundamental rights was bringing about a significant change, which would affect the UK. There is no such change, however: the provisions are already established in European law and, indeed, in our own law. The hon. Gentleman's point was poorly made.
We have reached an important moment, not least because by virtue of the constitution we have changed an ambition that until now the European Community—the European Union—has always claimed to have. I refer to ever-closer union. Article 1 of the original treaty stated that that was its aspiration, but the new article I of the constitution contains no such phrase. Indeed, it explicitly states what has never been stated before: that member states confer competences on the European Union to attain objectives that they have in common. In other words, it is not the European Union of itself that determines what competences it has.
Opposition Members have tried to suggest that this is a federalist document. How, in that case, could one of the leading federalists of Europe, Giuliano Amato, say on reading the final draft "I want to die"?
It is clear that the proposition before us flies in the face of anyone who wants a federalist agenda for Europe, so there is a changed ambition for Europe.
Of course, there is also a changed Union. We know that, by virtue of this year's enlargement—10 new members have joined the European Union, which marks
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a very significant change in the number of seats round the table, if not as significant a change to Europe's economic ability—we are no longer the gentlemen's club that we once were. When six members could all sit round a dining table and agree the future of Europe, the proposition was very different, and one needed a very different set of rules in order to make the Union operate effectively and efficiently.
It is not only the number of members that has changed; the international political environment has also changed radically in the years since the European Economic Community was founded. The collapse of communism has changed significantly the bipolar relationship into which Europe tried to fit itself; indeed, many of those who once fell under the shadow of communism have now entered the European Union. We must take seriously the rising tide of international terrorism, but we can do so only if we co-operate more fully. It is clear that countries that opposed the war in Iraq, such as France, and countries that supported it, such as Spain, are equally likely to face the wrath of international terrorism.
We also need to face down an argument advanced by many people since the constitution was published. Both Robert Kilroy-Silk and Tony Benn were arguing the other day that Britain has been lied to over the years. The argument is that when we originally joined the EEC we were told that it would be only a common market and an economic venture. But the truth is that, from the outset, the vision for the Common Market involved a political objective—not least, trying to ensure a peaceful continent for ever. I say to Conservative Members and others who argue that we should return to simply an economic union—a single market and nothing more—that the economy is never hermetically sealed. I do not believe in laissez-faire politics; I believe that the economic is political. One cannot split the two into a false dichotomy.
This is also an important moment because it marks a changed rulebook. The old amalgamation of treaties, which I knew to be an imponderable set of proposals when I worked for the BBC in Brussels—[Interruption.] That is all the bêtes noires of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) combined into one. When working for the BBC in Brussels and trying to make sure that Rupert Murdoch did not win his fight against BBC News 24, I knew that the old amalgamations of treaties—the "TEC" and the "TEU", as people used to call them—with their layer upon layer of different obligations on member states and the Commission, were simply unworkable. Because of the complex arrangement of "pillars", they made no sense to the ordinary citizen—or, for that matter, to the ordinary lawyer, many of whom were making a very good living out of trying to explain the treaties to the various officials.
The old system offers no clear delineation of the Commission's powers, which is a major reason why we have witnessed Commission creep over the years. At one point, the Commission was trying to tell Europe what public service broadcasting should be like in every country in Europe. That was possible because given the treaties' current form, it can be argued that the Commission has a competence in that area. The new delineation of competences makes it extremely clear that the Commission does not have that power. The new structure, involving five areas of exclusive competence, is much better and will put an end to Commission creep.
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Contrary to what the shadow Foreign Secretary said earlier, a constitution is a good thing. A constitution provides what many Conservative Members have clamoured for for years: some clarity about what the Commission does, what the Council does, what member states do and what the European Parliament does.
None of those things have been clear in the past and it is precisely such vagueness that will be abolished by the constitution. That is why I do not reject the idea of a constitution per se, as the Conservative party seems to do: indeed, I welcome it.
I believe that the status quo—what one is effectively arguing for in voting against the constitutional treaty—will simply not hold and that a no in the referendum would effectively be a yes to the vagueness, complexity and bureaucracy of the present system. In short, it will be a yes to Maastricht.
We have heard a lot from the Opposition over the last few weeks about why this particular constitutional treaty is not right and about how they might be enticed into voting for a different constitutional treaty. One of their arguments is that the present treaty is simply not flexible enough and does not allow for a flexible Europe. I want a flexible Europe and I would like, in the words of the Conservative party, a live-and-let-live Europe. That is why article I-43 provides an admirable way of allowing for enhanced co-operation, but I also believe that we need provisions to ensure that, when other countries co-operate, it does not worst the other members who are not taking part. Otherwise, it would be failing to allow live-and-let-live and allowing only live-and-let-die.
Another argument sometimes advanced relates to the primacy of EU law, particularly as expressed in article I-5. Of course there should be primacy of European law in certain areas where it is right for Europe to have the competence. European Court of Justice case law has applied since 1964, and I have to say that it is in our best interests. If something has been agreed around the table and it is within the competence of the Union to decide something, it is in our interest that all the other countries in Europe are signed up to it. Otherwise we would be cutting off our economic and trade noses. Many of this country's businesses have desperately wanted internal market provisions, for example, to be enforced effectively across the other European countries so that British businesses can do better business in Europe.
The truth is that Conservative opposition in that respect is contrary to the best interests of British business. That is undoubtedly why the Lords European Union Committee said that that doctrine was a "well established" and "key element" of the Union's legal order. The Conservatives are working against the interests of business in this matter and in favour of legal disorder in Europe. This is not a "new legal order", as the Conservatives state in their document published yesterday, and I have to tell them that hyperbole may make good campaign slogans, but it makes for poor politics and, even worse, poor government.
Much has been said about the co-ordination of economic and employment policies, where articles I-14 and I-11(3) are particularly relevant. In actual fact, contrary to what the shadow Foreign Secretary said earlier, there has been a change from the original document, because it is now the member states that
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"shall coordinate their economic policies within the Union".
Paragraph 3 of article I-14 also states:
"The Union shall adopt measures to ensure coordination of the employment policies"
I hope that the UK will vote yes. The status quo is unsustainable and the present treaties are too complex and labyrinthine. The present structures of the EU with its pillars and its rotating presidency may be a good fairground attraction, but its cumbersome bureaucracy is not fit for the purpose—
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