Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
11 DECEMBER 2003
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR KIM
DARROCH CMG AND
MR JOHN
SAWERS CMG
Q1 Chairman: Foreign Secretary, may I
welcome you and your two colleagues whom we know very well indeed,
Mr Darroch and Mr Sawers, to our Committee hearing. We fully understand
that the length of the period with you has been truncated as you
have to leave with the Prime Minister shortly. Clearly, the deadline
is almost upon us in terms of the Intergovernmental Conference
and there will be a period of intense activity bilaterally, trilaterally,
multilaterally, and I believe you are travelling with the Prime
Minster this afternoon. There will be a working breakfast tomorrow
with several of the key leaders. President Chirac has been meeting
Prime Minister Berlusconi, and so on. Foreign Secretary, it would
be helpful at the beginning if you could give us a general overview
of where we are, whether it is your view that it is 50:50 that
this IGC will crack it, whether you fear that it will move on
to next year and the Irish Presidency. The subsidiary questions
which I shall be asking relates to whether, in your judgment,
the trilateral agreement on the ESDP1[10]
is such that what appeared to be a major boulder is now out of
the way and whether the key disagreement now is institutional—that
is, that the French and Germans are wedded to the Convention outcome,
whereas the Spaniards and the Polish people are wedded to the
Nice outcome—and how we seek to reconcile these. First,
would you give your general overview on the spirit in which we
approach the IGC and your judgment now on the prospects?
Mr Straw: Thank you very much,
Mr Chairman, and I am sorry that time is truncated. I will make
a general point, if I may, in giving this overview about the role
of Parliament, but I am far from under-exposed in parliamentary
terms on this question, and quite right, too. There have been
seven debates on the Floor of the House since the Convention text
started to become available in May. I have given evidence twice
to the European Scrutiny Committee at length, and I gather I am
the first Foreign Secretary to have done so. We have also, following
the success of the special Standing Committee that was established
so that Parliament's representatives like Ms Stuart and Mr Heathcoat-Amory
and their colleagues from the Lords basically could give evidence
to Parliament, built on that success. There have now been three
hearings of the IGC Standing Committee and I have attended two
of those. Any Member of either House can turn up and can interrogate
the Ministers on this. In addition, we are having this hearing.
There have been two or three reports from Commons' committees
and 13 from the Lords Select Committee, to each of which we have
issued a detailed response. In addition to that, of course, we
had the website established at the suggestion of Graham Allen.
It was interesting in the debate yesterday[11]
that on all sides there was general approbation for the open way
in which we managed to achieve discussion in Parliament. As I
was saying, the fact that in many areas there has been a far greater
level of parliamentary scrutiny has helped us in the negotiations.
If I take one area, which is energy, and there are many, this
was an area which became of increasing concern to parliamentarians.
They were able to make the points not in the corridors or in emergency
questions but routinely, on their own behalf and on behalf of
the oil and gas industry. I was able to weigh in on the issue,
although there had not been in any sense a "red line"
in our White Paper, and the overall result of this is that we
have now got satisfaction on the energy issue. I will come to
that in a second. This is not the subject of today's discussions,
but I do think that one of the important priorities for us as
Government, for me and for Parliament—and I would rely on
your advice as well as that of the Procedure Committee—is
to ensure that we build on this experience and involve Parliament
much more in the routine business of the European Union. This
is a point that Ms Stuart made yesterday in her speech when she
pointed out[12]:
"The House of Commons needs to be much more strategic and
involved much earlier when it comes to Commission proposals".
I am very clear that when we are involved earlier, we can often
get what we want. People think you are bound to lose in QMV[13];
you are not bound to lose. The earlier we become involved, the
more engaged we get and the more we are likely to get the result
for Britain. I am going to give a lot of thought to how we ensure
much better involvement by the Commons and the Lords on a routine
basis, including, picking up the other suggestion which Ms Stuart
made, which was that the Commission's work programme should be
the subject of a discussion.
Q2 Chairman: If I may intervene, in terms
of the role of national parliaments, I go back to my original
question: are you concerned that the amendment procedure, the
"passerelle" clause 24.4, will reduce the role of national
parliaments? What are you doing to enhance it?
Mr Straw: I will do that, if I
may, in one second, and I can give you satisfaction on that. As
I say, we need to look at the way in which Parliament is much
better involved in terms of individual dossier proposals but also
by building up the understanding in Parliament about the rhythm
of the work programme, what the proposals are, at a very much
earlier stage.
Q3 Chairman: What are the details? How
will you build up?
Mr Straw: For example, there is
a work programme from the Commission. I think this is formally
reported to scrutiny committees but it has not ever been reported
on the Floor of the House, nor to an equivalent of an EU Standing
Committee. I am speaking out of turn here but I have to broker
these proposals with the usual channels and the Leader of the
House. It comes with that caveat. I am the person, along with
my ministerial FCO colleagues, who will be in the frame on this
because we have the lead. I would anticipate that there would
be, as it were, a permanent Standing Committee on the EU, and
it would be better to have that on a regular basis, to which we
would make a presentation of the Commission's proposals and to
which, in addition to all the work on the Floor of the House,
Members of the House could turn up, without having to be a member
of the committee, in order to cross-examine us on that programme.
The effect of that will be not only to raise understanding in
Parliament but, through that process, to raise the importance
of these issues at a much earlier stage across Whitehall so that
we do not miss things and Parliament does not miss them either.
In addition to that, we have to ensure that on a specific issue,
which is the subsidiarity proposals which were one of the protocols,
there is a proper procedure and a standing procedure for handling
issues on which we as a national parliament, or you, want to raise
a yellow card.
Q4 Chairman: I am well aware that I posed
the question to you but the issue of the role of national parliaments
and the effect on their working of the IGC is so important that
I would like Ms Stuart to comment on this.
Mr Straw: I am sorry that I have
taken some time on that but I thought it was quite important as
a preliminary point. Could I just briefly give you an overview
of where we were? Allow me to do that. This is all subject to
final agreement but these are issues where we have made considerable
progress on the current drafts. We have made considerable progress
on energy. It looks as though the re-drafted energy proposals
are acceptable to the industry and to Ministers concerned. We
have made complete progress on the "passerelle" clause,
which was I.24, and on parliamentary lock-up on any treaty change.
The situation on the passerelle clause is that it is now in the
latest draft from the Presidency that a decision has to be made
unanimously in the Council and then it has to come to each parliament
and any one parliament can object within six months, and, if any
one parliament objects, then it falls. I have in mind, if we get
to a position of agreeing a treaty, that in the legislation ratifying
the treaty as UK domestic law, we will put into that treaty specific
provision by which Parliament itself would probably have an affirmative
order-making power so that again this is not left to chance and
Ministers, when they are in the room in Brussels or Luxembourg,
would know that not only do they have to agree but, as a matter
of domestic statutory procedure, they have to get Parliament affirmatively
to agree. Then on treaty change in respect of Part 3, the so-called
lighter ratification, again there was a curious proposal from
the Presidency, which was that it would be QMV in the European
Council but unanimity in terms of ratification. We have now got
unanimity in the Council and unanimity in terms of ratification,
and it remains to be seen whether we would always require new,
primary legislation for that or whether, in respect of these areas,
we also have a lighter procedure, subject to Parliament's agreement.
On defence, as you will be aware, we had agreed very significant
changes in respect of structured co-operation and of the mutual
defence clause, Articles I-40.6, and those that are triggered
by I-40.6 and I-40.7. These were going to be slightly amended
further to take account of the concerns of the neutral countries.
I understand that there are indications that these are now acceptable
to Finland and to Ireland. If that is the case, I do not foresee
any difficulty about those going through. On the European Foreign
Minister, our key concern . . .
Q5 Chairman: What about the third element,
ESDP? There were the three heads. One was the structured co-operation,
one was the mutual defence, and the third was the question of
the operational headquarters, which I think was being discussed.
Mr Sawers: The third part was
not, strictly speaking, part of the Intergovernmental Conference;
it was an issue for discussion between us and our partners. We
believe that there is now an understanding amongst the three.
We have conveyed that to the Italian Presidency. It is a proposal
really from Britain, France and Germany to the other members of
the European Union as to how to take forward the capacity of the
European Union to carry out operations in circumstances where
NATO is not engaged and in circumstances where there are not the
demands for the European Union to draw on NATO's assets.
Q6 Chairman: What has been the response
of Washington to that?
Mr Sawers: We have obviously consulted
the Americans closely on steps which they were concerned about.
I believe that the Americans now have a level of understanding
on all this.
Q7 Chairman: That was not the question.
It is not about the level of understanding. Have they expressed
any reservations about it?
Mr Straw: Mr Chairman, allow me
to make this clear. I am not going to go into detail about the
discussions that we have, which are necessarily confidential,
with a separate government, and that applies to any government,
if those are confidential. As Mr Sawers has just explained, and
we speak for ourselves, and they in the end must speak for themselves,
it is our understanding, that they are now significantly reassured
by the discussions that we have had with them, and also, for example,
by the very significant changes that have been made to Article
I-40.7. The Americans' fundamental concern, as was ours, was that
you might get two alliances developing with a mutual defence obligation
within the European Union and another in NATO. That is not going
to happen. The latest draft, I-40.7, makes clear that NATO is
the Alliance for mutual defence. I may just rattle through these
other ones. The European Foreign Minister: the concern there,
which is in Articles I-24, I-25 and I-27, was that this person
would be double-hatted. That is fine, as I said in the room; any
of us can wear two hats. What is much more difficult is to serve
two masters at one time, and the Good Book advises against that.
There was a real tension there. It is now clear on the face of
the draft presidency proposals, and this follows initiatives by
the UK, by myself, that the responsibility of the European Foreign
Minister is to the Council; it is the Council that sets the policy.
His role within the Commission is essentially subordinate. I can
go into more detail about that.
Q8 Chairman: You do not believe he has
responsibility to the Commission?
Mr Straw: If you will allow me,
in a moment, I will come to the text. Civil and judicial co-operation:
we have got satisfactory circumstances there. The EC's ability
to take on a supervisory role is now by unanimity, which is what
we were seeking. We said in the White Paper that there were aspects
of criminal procedural law where we wish to see unanimity in respect
of social security. The current proposal is that if any Member
State objected to decisions being taken by QMV in the relevant
Council of Ministers, they could insist on it going to the European
Council where the QMV procedure would be suspended essentially
unless and until the Council decided by unanimity to do otherwise.
We are examining that text in detail. Initial examination suggests
that it looks satisfactory, but we have to do that. There are
other areas where we have made progress on: primacy, enhanced
co-operation, external competences in the JHA field, and public
health. The issues, apart from the big issue you raised, which
are still to be sorted out tomorrow and over the weekend relate
to tax, own resources and economic competence. The one area where
I made it clear that we want to stick to what is in here is a
proposal to extend QMV in respect of common foreign and security
policy. There is still, in any event, a final veto provided but
we think the original proposal is better. If we can just deal
with your last point, and I am sorry to have gone on at some length
but you asked for an overview, and so I have offered it, I suspect
that the area of greatest concern to Member States will be over
the voting system. For us, we made clear that we could live with
Nice, and that is spelt out on page 33 of the White Paper, and
also that if a consensus emerged in respect of any other proposal,
then we would make a judgment about the balance between these
on which legislation could be passed and could be blocked. We
could also live with the proposal in the Convention text which
is for a double majority system, half the Member States and 60%
by population. Nice is extremely important to a number of countries,
but particularly to Poland and to Spain. Other countries, notably
Germany, wish to see a change because they felt that their particular
population size and contribution to the EU is not properly reflected
in Nice, and that is therefore likely to be a source of some difficult
discussions at Brussels at the weekend. However, and it is a point
that is often missed in this discussion, what is going to happen
in any event, and it is part of the draft Treaty and no-one has
proposed any amendment to this, is that Nice remains in force
until 31 October 2009, and so it will be in force any way. The
issue is not "what do we change tomorrow?" but "what
do we change in five years' time?"
Q9 Chairman: Foreign Secretary, that
is a very helpful overview. It raises a series of key areas: ESDP,
weighting and the role of national parliaments, which colleagues
will raise. One final point from myself: clearly there remains
a fundamental division between Spain/Poland and Germany/France
in terms of being wedded either to the Nice outcome or to the
Convention outcome. What are the means of bridging this? What
are your suggestions in terms of helping Spain and Poland? Will
it be more Commissioners? Will it be more Members of the European
Parliament? What are the options which you are considering?
Mr Straw: You will excuse me,
Mr Chairman, for saying that I am not going to give away our negotiating
hand on these. There is a number of proposals, as it were, around
and these include one which was presented informally by the Presidency
at the "conclave" in Naples 12 days ago, which is for
some kind of "rendez-vous" clause. Then the issue is:
if you had a "rendez-vous" clause where we were to agree
to defer the decision, what would the decision then be and by
what process? Would the default option be automatically moved
and only be reversed by QMV or by unanimity, or would it be the
alternative, and would there only be one choice to make, or would
there be a number of choices? That is where we are on that.
Q10 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
first of all, on what you have just been saying about defence,
the position you have outlined creates an EU independent military
operational planning structure, does it not?
Mr Straw: It needs to be seen
in the context of the . . .
Q11 Sir John Stanley: Can I just have
a straight answer? As a point of fact, does it not create an independent
EU military operational planning capability?
Mr Straw: It might do but in very
limited circumstances is the answer to that. What needs to be
borne in mind before everybody becomes apoplectic about this,
Sir John, is that the EU's defence tasks are in any case limited
to the Petersburg tasks and they are very clearly limited in any
event by the defence articles. That is laid down very clearly
in Article III-210. So we are not talking here, as some people
sometimes suggests, about a European army able to engage by virtue
of a European decision in an equivalent of NATO operations or
those of a nation state. It says, and this has not been the subject
of any amendment so far as I recall, that the tasks referred to
in Article I-40.1 shall include joint disarmament operations,
humanitarian rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks,
combat tasks in crisis management including peace-making and post-conflict
stabilisation. We already have, as you well know, an EU military
staff at Cortenburg; that is there already. That would continue.
Then there is the issue of whether we would run an operation.
In most cases, an operation would be run as now by a national
government if it was an EU autonomous operation. You will be aware
that there is a very clear hierarchy for operations which starts
with NATO and then, only if NATO does not agree or does not want
to pursue an operation, do you go to a Berlin-plus operation,
which is an EU operation but making use of NATO's assets; it would
also make use of NATO's headquarters. Then and only then if that
was not accepted or not appropriate, would you go to an autonomous
operation. I simply say—and I am aware of both the anxieties
and the scares on this—that what we have managed to achieve
is supremacy of NATO, the paramountcy of NATO in terms of being
the Alliance, and a very sensible set of articles, which I think
are reassuring to the most Atlanticist countries in the room.
These actually will not make that much difference, except that
we will be able to have structured co-operation over capabilities,
which is important, because everybody agrees that improving the
capabilities of Member States' defence forces is an important
priority.
Q12 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
you have given a very full elaboration of the original answer
but that does not disguise the fact that the British Government
has made a very significant change in its policy position. You
and the Prime Minister have made many references to the fact that
military operational planning capability should be on a single
basis in Europe and it should be within NATO. What I would like
to ask you is why the British Government has made what is a very
significant policy concession to French and German opinion?
Mr Straw: With great respect,
the current arrangements already anticipate that military planning
might be done there rather than in NATO. That is just a fact.
We have the Bunia operation currently underway in the DRC[14],
which has not been planned in NATO. NATO is not involved in that
operation. The EU military staff have been involved in that and
the operation is run, as I recall, by the French at the national
headquarters. The circumstances in which a major nation state
with its own large, operational headquarters is not available
or it is not appropriate for them to run their own operations
would be limited. We have not wanted to rule that out as a possibility
but, in my view, the circumstances would be very unusual in which
that happened.
Q13 Sir John Stanley: Much as I should
like to pursue that further, I am conscious that a lot of my colleagues
want to ask questions, and I want to cover one further area. In
the paper which you submitted to this Committee for this meeting,
Prospects for the European Council, Brussels[15],
you say in paragraph 2: "The Government supports the aim
of concluding the IGC in December this year, but only on the basis
that our essential objectives are met." Then you go on to
say, and I quote; "These include our insistence that unanimity
remain for Treaty change, and in other areas of vital national
interest such as tax, social security, defence, key areas of criminal
procedural law and the system of own resources." Why is foreign
policy not included in the "red line" areas?
Mr Straw: That was a direct quote
from paragraph 66. What we said in paragraph 66 of the White Paper
was that unanimity must remain the general rule for CFSP[16]
as proposed in the final Convention text. Unanimity is the general
rule. Although we regard the later proposals as unsatisfactory,
unanimity will still be the final decision-making framework for
any decision, even under this draft text, which we have to regard
as unsatisfactory. The text is very clear in here. Sir John, when
we are responding to questions from your Select Committee, we
assume that each of you has read the White Paper and that it is
recognised to be a statement of Government policy.
Q14 Sir John Stanley: Are you saying
to us that, as far as the British Government's position, you are
insisting on the same degree of protection of the independence
of our foreign policy as defence policy?
Mr Straw: I have said what I have
said. Unanimity must remain the general rule for CFSP as proposed
in the final Convention text. Sir John, you will be aware, because
I think you voted for it, that in Maastricht there is an element
of QMV written into the Articles, which allows for QMV to operate
in an area which I think there has been no objection to by Conservatives,
in terms of how to operate a particular policy agreed by unanimity.
For example, I proposed that there should be QMV operating in
respect of the method by which the EU sanctions on Zimbabwe were
enforced in order that no one country could operate a reverse
veto about being tough on those sanctions, and that makes every
sense. That is written into the Convention text, but in terms
of setting the policy for foreign policy as for defence, that
should be by unanimity.
Q15 Sir John Stanley: If the present
text is agreed, to what extent will British foreign policy be
subject to a greater degree of influence and control by the majority
than it is as of now?
Mr Straw: I do not actually think
that it would do but we want to make that clear because there
is, in any event, and no one is arguing about this, a provision
by which any Member State can simply stop any QMV consideration
of any kind, including, let me say with respect, how to enforce
sanctions on Zimbabwe, by simply saying that it is of vital national
interest. Then it goes to the Council and it is dealt with by
unanimity.
Q16 Sir John Stanley: Are you assuring
the Committee, Foreign Secretary, or are you not that, if the
present text is agreed, there will be no further extension effectively
of a majority degree of control over our foreign policy than there
is now?
Mr Straw: Sir John, you will have
to look at the present text—and I am sure you are familiar
with this—and compare that with the existing Maastricht
text. That is a matter for you. You asked me a question as to
whether . . .
Q17 Sir John Stanley: I am asking for
the Government's policy, the Government's view.
Mr Straw: That is as to whether
we would be able to maintain control over our foreign policy?
The answer to that is "yes".
Q18 Sir John Stanley: That is not the
question I put to you. The question I am putting to you is whether
there is any lessening of the degree of independent control that
we have if the present text is agreed compared to the present
Treaty arrangements?
Mr Straw: There is a change in
the methodology. Are we able to insist that we have an independent
policy? Yes. I invite you to read the clauses. Just read them.
Sir John Stanley: You do not need
to be abrupt and say "read them". I do my homework.
Q19 Mr Pope: I would like to ask about
a referendum, if I may. A number of other Member States are going
to ratify the Treaty by referendum. My question is a simple one.
If it is good enough for the Danes, Irish, Portuguese and Spanish,
maybe the French, why is it not good enough for us?
Mr Straw: Each country has its
own constitutional methods and they vary from country to country.
We are normally a country which says that we have our own constitutional
arrangements; they are singular, they work for us and we are a
parliamentary democracy. It is unusual to hear other countries'
constitutional arrangements prayed in aid here. What we have developed
here is an arrangement by which we now have a referendum, to join
or to leave a new institution. We had one in 1975 in respect of
leaving the European Union. That is the only UK-wide referendum
that I can think of that we have had. We have them in respect
of new institutions like a Scottish Parliament or a Welsh Assembly,
and so on. In the end, it is a matter of judgment but the judgment
has been consistent, by governments of both parties, that changes
to treaty texts should be decided by Parliament, after examination
in Parliament. No one has been able to contradict this point and
however you look at the text here, it is impossible to argue that
this involves a more significant change in the nature of our relationship
with the European Union than did the Single European Act or Maastricht.
It simply does not. There is a whole string, as former Conservative
ministers have pointed out, and we did not have a referendum then
and there is therefore no real argument for a referendum here.
We are not going to sign up to this document unless we have it
changed in the way in which we seek. There is some progress being
made in that regard. Let me say that it also remains to be seen
how many other countries decide, in the event, to have a referendum.
10 Please refer to the further memorandum submitted
by the Minister of State for Europe Back
11
HC Deb, 10 December 2003 Back
12
HC Deb, 10 December 2003, Col 1127 Back
13
Qualified Majority Voting Back
14
Democratic Republic of Congo Back
15
Please refer to the memorandum submitted by the Secretary of State
for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Ev 25 Back
16
Common Foreign and Security Policy Back
|
