Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
28 OCTOBER 2003
MR DENIS
MACSHANE
MP, MR DAVID
FROST AND
MR RICHARD
CROWDER
Q1 Chairman: Minister, on behalf
of the Committee, may I welcome you and your two colleagues, Mr
David Frost, who is the assistant director, EU Internal, in the
Foreign Office, and Mr Richard Crowder, head of the EU Gibraltar
desk in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I think you were
last with us on 1 April when we took evidence from you on the
European Union. We look forward to another evidence session with
the Foreign Secretary on 10 December prior to the European Council.
The opening session on the Intergovernmental Conference was on
4 October in Rome. Today we propose to discuss with you some of
the key points arising, including the role of the Foreign Minister,
QMV[1],
and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. First, the background.
The Convention lasted for 17 months and we as a Committee had
a distinguished member of the Committee not only on the Convention
but on the praesidium in Ms Stuart. The negotiations resulted
in a compromise package between the federalists, the intergovernmentalists,
and the large and small countries, the new and the old. It appears
that France and Germany are now disposed to argue that the compromise
package as a whole should be accepted. Otherwise, once that carefully
negotiated package is opened, there is a danger of unravelling.
Others, particularly Poland and Spain, have threatened "a
fight to the death" over their voting weight in the Council.
Where do we stand in relation to the extent to which the compromise
package should be opened? Are we basically content or are we happy
to run the danger of unravelling?
Mr MacShane: I do not think we
would want to run any dangers but most of the 25 Member States
of the EU existing and those formally to join next May want to
see some changes. It was the Thessaloniki Council itself that
said the Convention's draft Constitutional treaty was a good basis
for discussion. I will not read all of the article but I have
here El Pais which says that London and Paris are not happy
with the Constitution. There it cites the French and British Foreign
Ministers saying that they want to maintain unanimity in key areas.
Q2 Chairman: Is that a diversionary
tactic or is there any truth in the El Pais assertion?
Mr MacShane: It is a newspaper
article. Each country has specific issues it wants to bring to
the table. For example, I had this morning a very useful conversation
with Mr Otto Schilly, the German Interior Minister. He is very
concerned about the number of commissioners that might finally
end up around the Commission table. Last week I met with four
Europe Ministers from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and
Slovakia. They also have very keen desires that they wish to see
in the final constitutional treaty. I think we are comfortably
in the middle of the pack. I quote this newspaper because it is
today's and it is Spanish. It says, "The United Kingdom and
France wish to maintain the veto on taxation and criminal law
issues." I report that to the Committee to say that Britain
is not alone.
Q3 Chairman: Is it correct?
Mr MacShane: Certainly I believe
that a number of countries believe that the contract between a
citizen and his or her elected government to take money from that
citizen—that is what we call "tax"—is something
that should be maintained within a national legislative framework.
Again, that has been a British position. We need unanimity on
the issues of tax.
Q4 Chairman: Are we prepared to compromise
that to the extent of the Foreign Secretary's comment on cross-border
taxation fraud?
Mr MacShane: The question of tackling
fraud is obviously a very important issue. We want to see stronger
European Union action on that but not to the point where it would
allow Brussels to intervene in the taxation matters of individual
Member States.
Q5 Chairman: What are the key areas
which we should insist on reopening from the conclusions of the
Convention?
Mr MacShane: What we need to see
is clarity in the final constitutional text. Every committee that
has studied this so far has concluded that the Convention's text
does rebalance the institutional relationship in a way that makes
clear the centrality of the member nation states of the European
Union. We are happy with the notion of a permanent or standing
chairman of the European Council. We want to see that the European
foreign affairs spokesperson or representative clearly is in a
chain of command from the Council of Ministers. We want to make
sure that in the areas such as I have already cited unanimity
is maintained in the final constitutional treaty.
Q6 Chairman: What are we not happy
with in the current draft?
Mr MacShane: When the summer political
season ended all we had was what we call part one and part two.
We now have part three and an awful lot of the detail literally
running into more than 200 pages of single space text. We just
want to get the wording right on that so that we all finish with
a constitutional treaty that we can take back to our parliaments
for their approval. We are one of 25. We are in the middle of
the pack.
Q7 Chairman: With all those aims
and with national positions restated, what effect will this have
on the proposed timetable? As I understand it, the Italian timetable
is for an informal summit of the heads of government and state
next month and some sort of final proposal at the Council in December.
Given the fact that negotiations are hardly yet underway, is that
timetable realistic?
Mr MacShane: It can be realistic.
Mr Berlusconi is meeting the Prime Minister tomorrow. Our wish,
as already announced by both the Prime Minister and other Government
ministers, is that we do try and complete this within the time
frame of the Italian presidency. You are right to draw attention
to the fact that there are probably fewer than 30 working days,
assuming that Brussels works Monday to Friday, between now and
the final European Council meeting scheduled just before Christmas.
With goodwill, with a willingness to compromise, I think it is
possible but it will require 25 nation states to be willing to
compromise and to move forward.
Q8 Chairman: You wrote in The
Guardian on 4 October, "We are 90 to 95% there . . .
it should not drag on . . . If it goes on and on it will turn
off voters." Do you hold to that?
Mr MacShane: I certainly do. If
it goes on into a large part of next year, I cannot express other
than my wish that we finish in December, but I cannot deliver
that. It would be foolish of me to say that one single government
can. If it goes on and on into 2004, yes, I think voters and the
citizens of Europe have been looking not just at the Convention
process but frankly almost a decade's worth of constitutional,
political and institutional discussions about Europe since the
Treaty of Maastricht. What I think they want is to see the governments
of Europe coming to a conclusion on this and then they want Europe
to get back to business. The most important business of Europe
is not with respect to drafting a constitution but putting Europe
back to work, growing, getting economic energy coursing through
all of the 25 Member States and that is the only way we will be
able to meet the bigger challenges that Europe faces.
Q9 Mr Olner: Even the most optimistic
view is that if there is ratification, even if that proceeds smoothly
at the conference, it still has to be ratified by the member countries.
Is there not going to be a tremendous vacuum left at the heart
of Europe? How will it function following enlargement on 1 May
if countries have not ratified it?
Mr MacShane: I think it is unlikely
that we will get parliamentary ratification, for example, through
by 1 May. As the Foreign Secretary made clear in his evidence
to the European Scrutiny Committee last month, Europe will continue
along the rules that currently exist as laid down in the Amsterdam,
Nice and other treaties. What this constitutional treaty does
is to allow enlargement to work more efficiently but of course
that is not going to enter into effect—you are quite right
to draw attention to this fact—until all 25 Member States
have ratified whatever is the final constitutional treaty that
is put to them.
Q10 Mr Olner: It all looks remarkably
good on paper. If one of the 25 has a referendum and they say
no, does that mean that those who say yes are on one track to
do things and those who say no are on another track and those
who say no come back and renegotiate? It makes trade union negotiation
look fairly straightforward.
Mr MacShane: You and I share some
experience of the latter and there are times when a straightforward
grievance procedure, wage procedure, disciplinary hearing was
child's play compared to European negotiations. It is a hypothetical
question but clearly if a treaty is not ratified it does not enter
into force.
Q11 Mr Olner: Have we lost the impetus
to get the constitution? Do we keep coming back each year saying,
"We were nearly there last time. Let's try and get it next
year"?
Mr MacShane: You are inviting
me onto hypothetical territory, which is not really my favourite
area to be on but in the past it is possible for countries to
re-examine their process of ratification, take a pause and decide
perhaps to vote again.
Q12 Mr Olner: You are confident that
the constitution will provide the basis for the European Union
to function smoothly?
Mr MacShane: I think this constitutional
treaty, when it is finally drafted, certainly will strengthen
the European Union's system of functioning, yes.
Q13 Mr Olner: You and I, as you have
alluded to, know a little bit about trade union negotiations and
we know full well that the language used in negotiations and what
is written down can make or break things. There is some confusion
about what the IGC is going to produce. Semantically, are we talking
about a foreign minister for Europe? Are we talking about a constitutional
treaty? Does the word "federal" keep getting moved into
it? The language does seem perhaps a little different to what
some of us would like to see.
Mr MacShane: I think the language
is reasonably clear. References to federalism are not included
in the treaty. It will be a constitutional treaty. It will be
a solemn treaty signed by 25 Member States and put to the ratification
process that you alluded to earlier. It will establish a very
clearly defined rule book for how the European Union should move
forward in the future. It is a constitutional treaty bringing
together existing treaties, changing and amending some aspects
of them and it will give us a clear set of rules in not quite
the shirt pocket size that one might hope for but it is a fairly
clear set of rules on what Europe seeks to be, what Europe should
be doing and how Europe should function in terms of the solemn
agreement by the 25 Member States to come together in a European
Union.
Q14 Mr Olner: And its implications
on UK sovereignty?
Mr MacShane: If anything, as most
of the parliamentary committees that have examined this so far
have indicated, it strengthens the role of the Member States and
the constitutional treaty actually refers to the idea of the Union
being anchored in the Member States, sharing that part of their
sovereignty that they wish to share, in order to add value that
can be delivered through having a Europe with a single market,
common environmental policies and other common policies, just
as we undertake our treaty obligations in the WTO and other international
organisations, believing that by pooling our sovereignty we strengthen
what is important for our country.
Q15 Mr Illsley: Minister, can I raise
the issue of the proposals on the European Council permanent president?
Given that there is opposition amongst the smaller states to the
idea of a permanent president as opposed to the rotating presidency,
are we likely to keep that within the proposed constitution? Is
it likely to last through the negotiations or is there some threat
to that?
Mr MacShane: I do not think so.
I think people do accept that having a standing chair of the European
Council would add value to the European Union's work. We must
make a distinction between a standing chair and the idea of team
presidencies. In other words, we do not just expect; we want individual
Member States to come together forming teams to take joint responsibility
for what is done within the presidency, the sectoral work on transport
and the environment and the rest of it. Having a single standing
chair initially for two and a half years, re-electable for another
two and a half years we think would give a profile to the Council
of Ministers which, as the Foreign Secretary rightly says, in
a sense, is the council of nations of Europe. It reinforces the
idea of Europe as an association of freely cooperating nation
states.
Q16 Mr Illsley: In June, the Foreign
Secretary suggested the idea that you could have the permanent
president and still maintain a rotating presidency, with a permanent
president working in conjunction with the country holding the
presidency. Are you now saying that that perhaps has been overtaken
by the idea of team presidencies?
Mr MacShane: Team presidencies
I think predated this summer. It is an idea that the British Government
has put forward. We have drawn up possible schedules and I have
argued certainly in all my meetings since I was named Europe Minister
about 12 months ago that this was the right way forward. The details
of that remain to be discussed. Talking to Member States that
a few months ago had a neuralgic reaction against the idea of
a standing chair on the European Council, I have to touch wood
but I think that opposition has gone away. Germany, which is not
a small country, this time last year was strongly opposed. I think
Germany now understands that this would be a helpful new person
within the European Union institutional framework.
Q17 Mr Illsley: You have just used
the phrase "a standing chair" which brings me on to
my next question: would this Government be more happy with the
term "chairman" of the Council as opposed to "president"
given that it was in the government's White Paper on the draft
constitution as a chair?
Mr MacShane: Since I have been
Europe Minister, I have used the word "chair" because
I think that accurately reflects the position. The problem is
that in German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish they have words like
"chairman": Vorsitzender, Vorsitter, Vorman. In French,
Spanish and Italian the word for "chairman" is "president/presidente",
so there is that sometimes helpful, sometimes unhelpful problem
of the different European vocabularies. Chair or president? It
is what the person does that really counts and indeed selecting
the right man or woman for that job.
Q18 Mr Illsley: You do not envisage
having to give any concessions to keep that position within the
constitution?
Mr MacShane: We are still in talks
on this but my strong impression is that that is now a done deal.
That post will be accepted and will be in the final constitutional
treaty.
The Committee suspended from 3.25pm to
3.40pm for a division in the House
Q19 Mr Chidgey: Can I turn to the
subject of the proposal for a European Foreign Minister? You will
be aware that Article 27 of the Draft Constitution states that
the European Council acting by qualified majority, with the agreement
of the President of the Commission, will appoint the Union Minister
for Foreign Affairs who will conduct the Union's common foreign
and security policy. This is an issue that has been raised in
this place on a number of occasions. The Government has already
on previous occasions expressed reservations about these proposals.
Now it appears to be warming to the idea. On the one hand, we
have the Foreign Secretary who previously rejected the title of
"Foreign Minister" and you have said that "EU Foreign
Representative" would be a better title. Can you tell us
at this time what is your opinion of the title of "Union
Minister for Foreign Affairs"? Will this be the final title
and is it acceptable now to the Government?
Mr MacShane: This is what is being
discussed at the moment both in the sessions we have with the
Italian presidency and amongst friends and colleagues. I referred
to the four Visegrad ministers, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic
and Slovakia last week, amongst whom there are some unhappy with
that title of European Foreign Minister. It is interesting to
note that the so-called founders of the European Community, Monet
and Schumann, quite deliberately avoided using language that seemed
to replicate government so it is the Commission, a high representative
and directives. I think this was quite an intelligent approach.
We will continue to maintain that position. What we will end up
with, we shall see: a rose by any other name. What counts is what
he or she does and the necessity for a clear chain of command
going to the Council of Ministers.
1 Qualified Majority Voting Back
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