Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
17 DECEMBER 2003
MR DENIS
MACSHANE MP, MR
DAVID FROST,
MR TIM
BARROW AND
MR PAUL
JOHNSTON
Q20 Mr Bacon: There is not a text?
Mr MacShane: There is a text.
Q21 Mr Bacon: What does it say?
Mr MacShane: I defer to advisers
here. They are in the library of the Commons and they are on the
websites. There are several texts. There is a convention text;
there are the different packages that were published after all
the conclaves at IGC negotiating sessions during October and November
principally, and then there is Mr Berlusconi's summing up which
you have just read from.
Q22 Mr Bacon: Mr Berlusconi summing up,
the "Declaration of the President", refers to a text.
You sound like you are saying that the negotiating acquis
is not one text at all but a whole load of different texts from
different Member States. Which of those is right? The first or
the second? It says that it is not open to further discussion.
Mr MacShane: I have to go by what
the President said.
Q23 Mr Bacon: That is what I am trying
to do too.
Mr MacShane: I think it is a perfectly
fair question. We may need some clarification on that. My firm
understanding is that we do not have an amended treaty. We do
not have a treaty as of Saturday afternoon. We have texts in the
plural. I am not sure whether the Italian noun covers singular
and plural. They consist of the convention, the different presidency
declarations in the course of the IGC discussions and of course
Mr Berlusconi's final statement itself. There is not a single
text, in the singular.
Q24 Mr Bacon: What you are saying is
really that you are taking all the different texts of the different
Member States, their different negotiating positions, you put
them in a large sack and that is what Mr Berlusconi is referring
to.
Mr MacShane: No. We are talking
about presidency declarations that were issued, for example, on
the pasarelle clause; that went. The single legislative council
went. There were other issues that were contentious that were
dealt with through negotiation but we do not have a final text
that incorporates—
Q25 Mr Bacon: It does say here, "not
open to further discussion".
Mr MacShane: The difficulty there
is that that was Mr Berlusconi's statement as translated into
English. I have tried to explain several times what my understanding
is. I do not think it is a secret or unknown text. The only things
in writing are the convention draft, the presidency declarations
as produced after the different IGC negotiating sessions and this.
I am happy to write to the Committee to clarify this.[1]
Mr Bacon: That would be very helpful.
Q26 Chairman: The Prime Minister said
in his statement that he was assuming that things were banked,
inferring that it was agreed. Then, when the IGC reconvenes to
discuss a future treaty, the outstanding issues that have not
been dealt with need to be dealt with. That is not set in concrete
because once they open up the negotiations again everything is
up for negotiation. Some of the red lines that we had agreement
on will have to be re-agreed when we go through that process.
Mr MacShane: That is why we have
used this concept of banking. We assume that, if the presidency
of the European Council makes a declaration in front of 24 other
heads of government and states that there is agreement on unanimity
in this or that area, that is de facto a bankable decision of
the entire Council. I have taken part in Council meetings and
if the presidency says something I do not like I raise my hand,
one against 24, and say, "This is unacceptable to the UK.
I must ask you to come back and think again." That did not
happen, as I understand it. I was not physically present there;
it was the PM and Foreign Secretary. You are equally right, Chairman,
in that when the IGC resumes its negotiations, if it does, nothing
is agreed until everything is agreed. Anybody can reopen almost
anything, but I do think it is slightly unrealistic, having been
through the discussions and negotiations we have been through
in the last 20-plus month, the President having made the statement
he did, that a sensible person would start knocking on the door,
saying, "We want to ignore all of that, ignore what the presidency
announced and what 24 other heads of government gave consent to
and reopen these issues." Theoretically, that could happen.
Q27 Mr Connarty: One of the two issues
that were of concern was the passarelle clause. What has been
banked on that?. We were not sure when I was in Rome and we had
the presidency's draft. It could be rejected or accepted by X
countries. It did not state what X was. Is X one country or a
number of countries? The second is what have we banked on energy?
We seemed to completely lose it and the presidency proposal was
not acceptable to the UK. We then put amendments down. What did
we bank on that issue?
Mr MacShane: As far as energy
is concerned, in effect, there is no change on existing arrangements.
What we succeeded in doing was getting language that we put forward
with the help of our Dutch colleagues that certainly satisfied
the energy industry. I could find the exact words if you want.
Q28 Mr Connarty: The Committee has seen
the words.
Mr MacShane: That is a presidency
declaration. The presidency declaration puts into writing what
everybody formally agrees. We did not get that far on Friday and
Saturday because it stopped where it stopped. On the passarelle
clause, there is now clear language that says if the national
parliament makes known its opposition within six months of notification
of a change, a European decision shall not be adopted. One parliament
can knock it out so in effect it gives each parliament a veto
which is why I say I welcome some of the developments that in
my view were leading to a strengthening of the authority of national
parliaments. That I am able to read in quotes because it is a
formal presidency declaration, so we have it in writing.
Q29 Mr David: On the issue of national
parliaments, that is something new which I personally welcome.
Some people have suggested that one of the things that has become
evident over the last few weeks is that perhaps the mood in Europe
is somewhat different than members of the convention took it to
be. It was said therefore that this hiatus that we have, this
period of reflection, gives us a chance not only to bank what
we have but also maybe to think about some new ideas, like increasing
the role of national parliaments. Reflecting this new mood, perhaps
we ought to look at the issue of subsidiarity again more closely
and perhaps introduce in partnership with other states new suggestions
about how that subsidiarity principle could be made more real.
Would the British Government support such a move?
Mr MacShane: Yes. We feel very
strongly that one of the lessons from the whole process is that
you cannot build the European Union against a nation state. It
has to add clear value to what a nation state does just as nation
states are hugely strengthened by pooling parts of their sovereign
power in partnership under a constitutional treaty with other
countries. I feel very strongly that we, as the oldest Parliament
in Europe, should be taking a lead on seeing how we can build
parliamentary scrutiny into European decision making. As you know,
a constitutional precedent was set on the initiative of the Foreign
Secretary. A standing committee was created to hold hearings while
the IGC was taking place. I think I am right in saying that in
no previous treaty negotiations has Parliament created a standing
committee to which negotiators were accountable and had to report.
We are very grateful for the raising of the energy issue, which
emerged through that process. I regret that there was not a great
level of participation, though I salute honourable Members who
did diligently turn up to that committee. I think you may need
to look at a version of that for continuing its work. You and
I have had discussions, Mr Chairman, about the possibility of
more Scrutiny Committee meetings taking place either in other
capitals or in Brussels itself, with commissioners having to be
accountable, the need to build links with other Parliaments and
national assemblies. An awful lot of what happens in Europe does
not start in Brussels. It starts in London, Paris or Berlin or
wherever and the best legislation is that which you are there
at the beginning of to shape, rather than reacting when it is
already a done deal. This will mean almost a revolution in the
way we do some of our business. What is sauce for the Westminster
goose is sauce for 24 other parliaments' gander in that they will
also ask that commissioners be accountable to them and might want
to exercise oversight or even veto rights on issues which may
be of high importance to us. The main thrust of your question
is absolutely right. The one lesson I have from being a little
more than a year in office as Europe Minister and coinciding with
the second half of the convention and the IGC is that Europe ignores
national parliaments and national wills at its peril.
Q30 Mr David: You would be favourably
disposed towards any suggestion that might be made to strengthen
the draft constitutional treaty by having greater powers for national
parliaments included?
Mr MacShane: There are two separate
issues. We always wanted what was colloquially known as a red
card system but we failed to persuade other members of that. I
am not sure it is particularly helpful at this stage by ourselves
to introduce new demands in the context of a resumed IGC, if and
when that happens. Independently of that though, I think there
is a huge amount that the House of Commons or Parliament as a
whole can and should be doing, obtaining better interpretation,
travel and translation services, linking up with other European
committees and other national parliaments, doing more work directly
in Brussels, so that at every stage we are there before suddenly
an issue arises at the last minute and it is difficult then to
unpick. I do pay tribute to the IGC standing committee's work
and Members from all parties in really representing the interests
of the North Sea energy industry and there, frankly, MPs were
ahead of the executive and they served Parliament, their constituents
and important national interests exceptionally well.
Q31 Mr Steen: I come to this convention
business with a certain simplicity because I was always convinced
and I was told that the purpose of the convention was to deal
with the 25 countries. We cannot possibly have the same rules
and regulations that we had for 15 so let us have this convention
with just one or two nods and the whole thing will work like clockwork
with the 25. What happened was not that but the conclusion was
to codify all the treaties and simply call it a constitution.
Some people were saying it is just tidying up the treaties and
putting it into one treaty, which is the attractive way of doing
it. The other way was a constitution over all national parliaments,
the United States of Europe. It strikes me that either the UK
Government has been hoodwinked, which I cannot believe, or that
the Spanish and the Poles are alert to what the whole aim is and
they are using the voting business as an excuse to kibosh the
constitution. As I understand it, there hardly ever are any votes.
When we were talking to Mr Kinnock, he said, "There have
not been any votes. Everything is by consensus." If everything
is by consensus, what are the Spanish and the Poles doing talking
about votes? The reason is they have spotted that this is—I
would not use the word "plot"—but a manoeuvre
by the French and Germans to further their cause of the United
States of Europe. Am I right? Bearing in mind Agatha Christie
was a constituent of mine, you will understand why I am asking
these questions. Secondly, we have talked about the Poles and
the Spanish. What about all the other countries? What about the
Latvians, the Estonians, the Cypriots, the Maltese? They are no
fools. What are they doing in all this because we have not heard
a word about them.
Mr MacShane: I do not know if
she was a constituent of yours when she disappeared and I do not
know whether it is Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, that well known
federalist, who should solve these problems for us. After the
not very satisfactory Nice Council procedures—you have heard
the Prime Minister talk about those and that was a view commonly
held across Europe—that decision was taken at Laeken to
initiate the convention proceedings. There were some things that
we think did go in the right direction, namely a standing chairman
of the Council and getting rid of the six month rotating presidency,
which were positive. You are right to say that votes are very
rarely used. I do not think I have seen one in my short time as
Europe Minister. Perhaps I will be lucky over the passage of years
to see what a vote in the Council looks like. The pressure that
is out there that the votes can be exercised—they do not
come to vote because people know four or five countries are so-called
blocking minority—is real. There are issues that we consider
to be of importance that we either do or do not want to get past
that are advanced or not because people can count the votes. The
Estonians, Latvians and Cypriots are all very keen to join the
European Union. They have voted overwhelmingly in referenda, not
in Cyprus but in the other countries, to join despite the enticements
put to them by people who invited them to say no. Estonia is a
rigorously taxed, competitive, low tax economy and jolly good
luck to it. It is doing very well. Others were very happy with
the other arrangements. When we arrived in Brussels, it was also
clear that France and Germany were not going to move so in a sense,
if the object is to award hero status to a country that stopped
the weekend at Brussels where it was stopped, you might as well
give it to France. The Sun or The Daily Mail should
declare President Chirac to be the hero of the hour, but I do
not think that would quite fit in with their ideology. Poland
certainly is determined to make a huge success of its membership
of the European Union. It is as committed to European Union membership
as this Government. All the accession states see the European
Union in very positive terms and in due course they may consider
that some of the arrangements under the existing constitutional
treaties, the reference to an ever closer union, the Nice voting
weights, the turning of the presidency every six months, may not
be to their advantage but the future will answer those questions.
Q32 Mr Tynan: When I look at the text,
Mr Berlusconi says that delegations have agreed and there is unanimous
political agreement on these subjects that they would not be reopened
and then you have the contradiction from Prodi who explicitly
rejected the claims. Could I ask a question as regards the red
line issues, in particular on the basis of what decision was reached
as regards qualified majority voting in respect of criminal justice?
Mr MacShane: To my knowledge,
we did not get to that discussion. We were largely happy with
where we were on criminal justice. For example, we were not going
to see a European public prosecutor created. We were quite happy
with the development of Eurojust, but in the statement that Mr
Berlusconi made, this famous oral statement, he referred to maintaining
unanimity in the criminal justice field. He said that the majority
of states wanted to keep unanimity on the financing of the EU,
so we would consider that that also was a bankable assurance.
To revert to earlier points, I have to tell you how it was. It
is not a written declaration; it is a note taken but 24 other
governments were there and all heard the same remarks.
Q33 Mr Tynan: It says that the IGC only
had 90 minutes in plenary session and the rest was on bilaterals
and institutional points. The question I asked was regarding qualified
majority voting. Was there a decision reached as regards criminal
justice and whether qualified majority voting was applied or not?
Mr MacShane: What we told the
presidency was, as far as Britain is concerned, we want to maintain
unanimity in these areas. Other countries also told the presidency
that. In bilaterals or trilaterals with other leading partners
who have a different perspective, we would spell out quite clearly
that unanimity was vital for us. No unanimity, no treaty, if you
like. Since the intensity of discussions was on the voting issue,
we then passed to what Mr Berlusconi said as the President in
office of the European Council at the meeting. He said that there
is a consensus that unanimity is upheld in these areas. Those
are the bankable statements that we refer to.
Q34 Mr Tynan: Qualified majority voting
would not apply to criminal justice?
Mr MacShane: That is what Mr Berlusconi
said but we are back to the problem of nothing is agreed until
everything is agreed. This is the difficulty with this procedure.
It is not step by step. You rewrite a text; you amend it; you
republish the amended version; you revisit it. It is a parallel
process that allows people to maintain positions up to the moment
when perhaps they have to come to some form of compromise. I cannot
repeat enough that what you saw was what you got in the White
Paper. Those are the positions that Britain took forward. I pay
tribute to our diplomats and negotiators. The Foreign Secretary
spent an immense amount of personal time on this. All during the
autumn, we continually repeated that this was what we needed to
bring back a constitutional treaty that would go through the House
of Commons. I said that myself at a lower level in the bilaterals
that I had. Our ambassador said that. Our diplomatic and EU expert
said that. The last concluding moment was Mr Berlusconi announcing
in the name of the European Union or the Council that there was
agreement that unanimity should be maintained in those areas.
I think it was a tribute to the very hard, professional work and
very dedicated political work of the Prime Minister, the Foreign
Secretary and the diplomats who serve our country very well.
Q35 Mr Marshall: I am sure it is not
lost on the great minds in the Foreign Office and Number Ten Downing
Street that if the Irish fail and the Dutch fail and the Luxembourguese
fail, the hot potato falls to us.
Mr MacShane: It will be rather
tepid by then, will it not?
Q36 Mr Marshall: It could still be very
hot, particularly in June and July 2005. I wonder if the Government
is looking forward to that situation but, more seriously, what
concrete suggestions, instead of all this airy-fairy discussion
we have been having, would the British Government put forward
to seek to resolve this impasse?
Mr MacShane: In his speech yesterday,
the Foreign Secretary talked of a period of reflection. I do not
think two or three days after we are just back from Brussels it
is appropriate to announce here significant new initiatives. I
am certainly not mandated so to do. Personally, I want to think
and reflect on this. We all have to go away and look at the whole
convention procedure, look at the six months of the IGC and see
how we come back to this issue. I think it would be useful to
bring all the texts into one constitutional rule book or treaty
that everybody could understand. I certainly personally attach
quite a lot of importance to having a standing chair of the European
Council, if we can achieve that, and having a greater voice and
strength for national parliaments. If we achieve none of these
things, we are back to where we are today, with everybody complaining
that national parliaments do not have enough role. After the Nice
and the Amsterdam Treaty, honourable and right honourable Members
of this House said that they were inexorable steps towards a super
state. After the Maastricht Treaty, honourable and right honourable
members of this House said that Maastricht represented the open
door to a superstate. In my own party, since they have left the
House, old friends, like Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill, have said
that we were opening the door to a superstate of Europe 25 or
30 years ago. I have not quite seen it happen but I do think that
we will need to reflect seriously over the next few weeks and
discuss with our Irish friends and our other friends (I think,
principally, we will all take a Christmas and New Year break)
on how we go forward. However, I do not have in my pocket any
new British initiative today to report to the Committee.
Q37 Chairman: Minister, it would be fair
to say there are some of us concerned that there seemed to be
an indecent haste to get an agreement under the Italian Presidency.
Some of us were advising last year that because Mr Berlusconi
wanted a Rome Treaty is not necessarily the reason for rushing.
It may be that those who were pushing for an earlier settlement
may well have done more harm than good.
Mr MacShane: Mr Chairman, I completely
agree with you and I think the Foreign Secretary also made the
case "better no Constitutional Treaty than a bad one".
I think he gave extensive evidence. I believe he has been the
first Foreign Secretary to come before your Committee and in
extenso explain his position. He has set up this IGC Standing
committee and he has gone out of his way, if I can pay a personal
tribute, to report to Parliament. We have had eight substantive
debates in the IGC, something like 16 Parliamentary reports on
it and a very great number of parliamentary committee hearings.
Yes, I think festina lente—make haste slowly—is
a good watchword. Europe has been through crises like this before;
the 1960s was not a sunny period of the founding six but moments
of the most enormous crisis with the so-called "empty chair"
crisis initiated by General de Gaulle. We will come through this.
I certainly welcome the chance to think a bit more and talk a
bit more. I regard all four countries that have been most named
in the last few days, France, Germany, Spain and Poland, as indispensable
partners for Britain, and would not wish, as it were, to take
forward positions in the face of bitter hostility of any one of
them. I have respect and admiration for all those countries as
they struggle to defend their national interests and build a stronger
European Union.
Q38 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Following Mr
Tynan's earlier question about criminal justice, the Government's
White Paper, which I have here, only gives the harmonisation of
criminal law procedures as a red line issue, but we know the Government
was concerned much more widely than that because of the amendments
that it tabled in the Convention. I have a copy of the very strongly-worded
amendments at that time, objecting, for instance, to all the articles
about asylum, the harmonisation of civil law matters and, also,
the inclusion of a European Public Prosecutor, because even though
it will be by unanimity we will still be constitutionally committed
to it if it goes into the final text. So in the Convention the
Government had a lot more red lines, and I would like an explanation
of what happened between the Convention and the White Paper which
dropped all but one of the red line issues. Given that we may
come back to this negotiation on the Convention late next year,
the White Paper will clearly then be very out-of-date. So it may
be an opportunity for us to raise matters, as the Poles did, quite
late, after discussion in Parliament and with our electors about
new matters which do concern us, particularly as we know that
they very much did concern the Government when the Convention
was on.
Mr MacShane: Mr Chairman, there
are different areas being slightly mixed together there: asylum,
criminal law, European Public Prosecutor and criminal procedure.
The Government was successful with other partners in removing
the reference, for example, to a "single legislative council",
in removing the reference to a European Public Prosecutor and
on asylum, of course, we want the possibility of opting in to
majority decisions where it is in our interests. We do not think
we would have got movement on Sangatte or movement on setting
up a European database—it is called Eurodat—which
has allowed us to return home people who, in the jargon, are called
"asylum shoppers". These were all areas where we wanted
to defend what was in British national interest, and in some of
those areas QMV would have been appropriate. The different amendments
put up during the Convention discussion reflected also negotiating
positions—some of them were small, some of them were technical.
I know Members and Right Honourable Members who were on the Convention
want to revisit what happened up to June last year, but looking
forward to 2004 I think we will bank what we have achieved—and
those are in the Presidency declaration, as I have said—and
where we think QMV may be useful we will defend that position,
but always in a way that is fully accountable to Parliament. At
the end of the last IGC Standing Committee hearing, Mr Chairman,
I said to Mr Cook, who chairs it: "Goodbye. That's it. We
have had our meetings, it is all over." I spoke too soon.
So I am sure if the Right Honourable Gentleman—and he has
come to those meetings and been very assiduous—has continuing
concerns they can be dealt with in that context.
Q39 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I am sorry, I
still have not got a reply. If these were government objections,
even to the QMV advantage, which the Minister is now saying is
a good idea, that was not the view of the Government last summer.
I am still not clear why that was whittled down to one sole objection
in the White Paper. There is only one red line left out of all
the government objections and all the unsuccessful amendments
tabled during the Convention. I just want to know why the Government
changed its mind in the few weeks, in some cases, between the
tabling of those amendments which are very strongly worded—the
Right Honourable gentlemen, the Member for Neath, was using language
like "unacceptable" and "this is a fundamentally
important amendment" at that time in the Convention and then
it suddenly gets magically forgotten. I think we are owed an explanation
for the dramatic change in the Government's negotiating position.
Mr MacShane: With respect, Mr
Chairman, paragraph 83 of the White Paper says that the Government
"believes QMV would not be appropriate for criminal procedure
law"; paragraph 84 "Government will not give up UK's
right to carry out frontier controls and the protocol for safeguarding
the UK position" and paragraph 85, ". . . see no need
for the creation of an EEP [European Public Prosecutor]".
So the message from the White Paper was, I think, pretty robust
that the Government believed unanimity was in the wider interests
of Europe in the crucial area of criminal procedure. Historically,
in the contract between the citizen and the state, the citizen
allows the state to take away his life, his liberty and his money.
Well, we have abolished the death penalty, but we still put people
in prison and we still take away money—they are called "taxes"—and
our view was that those contractual relationships should principally
remain ones between national Parliaments and national Governments
and their citizens; it should not be transferred to Brussels.
I think we have very strongly maintained that position.
1 See Ev 12 Back
|
