Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR KIM
DARROCH AND
MR DAVID
FROST
25 MAY 2004
Q20 Mr Mackay: I was hoping that was
going to be a more straightforward question but clearly not. Let
me try one more really straightforward question. When we do eventually
have this referendum and if there is a no vote, would the Foreign
Secretary confirm that that is a vote on the Constitution and
not our membership of the European Union and that that would be
a non sequitur?
Mr Straw: The vote would be on
whether or not people approved the draft Constitutional Treaty,
self-evidently. What is also the case is that, just as a yes vote
would have had a wider consequence, so a no vote would have wider
consequences and people would need to think about that. We are
not at that position yet. It depends on the overall circumstances
prevailing at the time. People need to be aware that a no vote
would have consequences and the consequences would not be zero.
Q21 Mr Mackay: What would those wider
consequences be?
Mr Straw: It depends entirely
on what the wider circumstances are. This is why I am not wishing
to go down this route too much. We will know those much more clearly
if and when we sign up and if and when we have a referendum. They
would include the degree to which we could maintain a high level
of influence inside the councils of the European Union. Obviously,
it depends what other countries are doing all sorts of things.
What people must not believe is that not voting no is a kind of
free good. I would hope that if we get what we are seeking we
are able to persuade serious and sensible Conservatives like yourself
to support this document. I simply do not understand, assuming
we get what we are proposing here, how serious and sensible Conservatives
can object to the fact that national parliaments are going to
get a greater say. If you are a Conservative but not a serious,
sensible one and you want to leave the European Union, I do not
see how you can object to the fact that under the new draft Treaty
you have a very clear mechanism for leaving the European Union;
whereas at the moment under the existing treaties you do not.
There is something both for the sensible band of the Conservative
Party in this and also for those who simply want to leave the
European Union. There is plenty else in it as well. It does make
the system more transparent as well and, in my judgment, more
workable. People need to think about that before they suddenly
rule it all out.
Q22 Sir John Stanley: As you know, it
is the invariable practice that your Department provides this
Committee with a prospectus for the forthcoming Council paper
prior to this particular evidence session. We understand that
the session, because of your diary in particular, is taking place
some way ahead of the meeting of the Council and we do not have
the paper in front of us. Can you confirm that we will be having
the prospectus paper before the Council meets?
Mr Straw: Yes.
Q23 Sir John Stanley: I want to return
to the issue on which we had an extensive exchange when you last
came in front of this Committee for European business on 11 December,
for the Italian Council. You will recall that I asked you successively
whether or not the British Government's position was that there
should continue to be a veto in relation to foreign policy. I
have to say you gave us what I and indeed the Committee found
to be one of your more elliptical answers and, as a result, we
had to come back to you in our further list of questions. We put
this very precise question to you for written answer subsequently:
"Will the United Kingdom retain its right of national veto
over foreign policy, as was agreed at the Brussels Council, or
will the issue again come under negotiation on the basis of the
Naples text?" to which you replied, "There may be negotiations
on the Naples text but the Government's position remains as set
out in the White Paper that unanimity must remain the general
rule for CFSP."
Mr Straw: Yes.
Q24 Sir John Stanley: That is your statement
in answer to that particular question. It sits very differently
with what the Prime Minister said on the floor of the House of
Commons in his European Council Libya statement on 29 March.[1]
He said this: "On the details of the Constitutional Treaty,
I make it clear again that we will protect each one of the red
lines that we have set out on tax, social security, our abatement,
foreign policy and defence and our criminal justice system. Our
ability to determine those matters is part of our nationhood and
we shall insist on them." There is no way your answer that
unanimity must remain the general rule for CFSP can be squared
with the Prime Minister's statement in the House on 29 March and
I should be grateful if you could clarify to the Committee which
is the Government's position, yours or the Prime Minister's, because
they are clearly materially different.
Mr Straw: I do not have the Prime
Minister's statement of 29 March in front of me but I do remember
him saying it. I also listened carefully to what he said. There
is every consistency between the two. He said words to the effect
that we will stick by the position as we have set out. We have
set it out in paragraph 66 of the White Paper where we said, "Unanimity
must remain the general rule for CFSP[2]
as proposed in the final Convention text." Why did we say
"the general rule"? Because your party signed up to
Maastricht. You will recall that Article 23 of the consolidated
version of the Maastricht Treaty, which your party signed up to—
Q25 Sir John Stanley: We are very familiar
with this. We know all about this.
Mr Straw: Allow me to finish,
because I was patient listening to your question. "By derogation
provisions of paragraph 1 the Council shall act by Qualified Majority,"
and then the occasions when Qualified Majority is to be followed
is set out there. The Convention text, more or less, with some
detailed changes, but in principle stuck to the structure of Maastricht
in respect of CFSP, which is Unanimity Foreign Policy, some QMV
in respect of its detailed implementation. The Naples draft text,
which was issued in early December, moved away from that; we made
it absolutely clear that we wanted to move back to the Convention
text which protected our national position and is fully consistent
both with what we said in the White Paper and with what the Prime
Minister said.
Q26 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Minister,
all I can is that those important qualifications you have made
about elements of CFSP being settled by QMV, which you quite accurately
point out go back to the Maastricht Treaty, I do not in any way
dispute that, is not consistent with what the Prime Minister said
on 29 March to the House, where he gave the House an unambiguous
assurance that foreign policy was a red line. I have to say my
own view, listening to both of you, is I believe that yours is
a more accurate statement of where it lies on foreign policy than
the one given by the Prime Minister. The further question that
I want to ask you is, you have acknowledged that there is an area
of foreign policy, which your refer to as implementation that
can be settled by QMV, and there is an area of policy to be settled
by unanimity. The question I want to put to you is that it is
not a black and white issue between policy and implementation;
implementation can in part start veering into policy. Do you accept
that there is a grey area between implementation and policy, and
do you believe that there is need for any further clarity as to
what is going to be settled in foreign policy by QMV and what
is going to be settled by unanimity, and is it not the case that
in the current negotiations other Member States are moving towards
pushing out the frontiers of QMV at the expense of unanimity in
the CFSP area?
Mr Straw: I think that the basic
text for CFSP and the security and defence policy, which is set
out in Articles 39 and 40 and then expanded in Title V from Articles
III-193 onwards, are basically satisfactory. If the Committee
has in the next two or three days some detailed drafting points
we are very happy to take them on. The point about QMV is this—and
I do not share your anxieties, which would seem to be implicit
in what you were saying—that as the Convention text has
been proposed, as with the Maastricht the policy has to be decided
by unanimity. So, for example, let us take Zimbabwe, which is
a rather good example. There is a policy which I pushed through
which was that there was a policy of imposing sanctions on the
leadership of the Zanu PF regime in Zimbabwe. There was then an
issue of how we were to enforce that policy and it emerged after
a year of some difficulty where enforcement required there
to be unanimity. It would be to Britain's advantage that enforcement
would be better if it were implemented by QMV, so we proposed
when the matter came up for renewal—I think it was after
the first year—that we had QMV to decide on enforcement.
Very much to Britain's advantage; it was a bespoke decision. It
in no sense involved some grey area. We had the policy decided
by unanimity, and it was actually quite hard, let me say—it
does not always work to our advantage, you always have to go at
the pace of the slowest—but we got the Members on board,
then the question was what happens if you have to put on an extra
visa ban and things like this, we did it by QMV. So it is a policy
that can trigger—but does not always trigger—QMV implementation.
I think it is satisfactory. There are some people around the room
who will say that they want QMV to determine policy. They tend
to be some of the smaller Member States because on the whole the
smaller Member States, by definition, do not have the same kind
of global reach as the larger ones, but when you scratch the surface
you find that they like the idea but still want to preserve their
own national status, and then they move away from it. We have
made it absolutely clear that it is the Convention text that we
want. The Naples' proposal was unacceptable; our policy is clear
there, and this is to everybody's advantage within the European
Union.
Q27 Sir John Stanley: Could I put to
you finally, I think it is much easier to make a distinction between
policy and enforcement across most areas of ministerial business,
but to make a clear distinction between policy and implementation,
which is something much wider than enforcement, is much more difficult.
I think if you put your mind back to your time as Home Secretary,
if you think of the number of policy issues that become involved
in the issues of implementation you will understand the point
that I am making, and I just hope you will reflect on the quite
considerable difficulties of trying to make a distinction between
policy and implementation in voting terms.
Mr Straw: Sir John, I have now
served on the Foreign Policy Committee of the Council of the European
Union for three years, and I served previously and very actively
on Justice and Home Affairs. You either work by consensus or not
at all. On Iraq, perfectly obvious there is no consensus, so we
are split down the middle, and that was the end of it. So we had
debates about it but there was no common position. On the Middle
East there is a range of opinions that everybody recognises, that
it is in the interests of the benighted people of Israel and Palestine,
as well as of the European Union, for us to work together because
our basic policy is the same. So we come together, so you could
argue that we have a policy that is in support of two States,
and so on. Let us take the road map, that was implementation,
that was dealt with on a consensual basis, and it will continue
to be so. Some specific issue within that of enforcement would
be dealt with by QMV and, in my view, looking ahead as far as
one can see, foreign policy will continue to be dealt with in
this way. Everybody in the room knows that if the consensus is
broken it will weaken the European Union.
Q28 Mr Illsley: Foreign Secretary, can
I come on to the question of the role of national parliaments?
As you are aware the draft Treaty does include proposals for scrutiny
by national parliaments of European Commission legislation. Can
I ask, what is the Government doing to ensure that national parliaments
do have an opportunity to scrutinise and, if necessary, oppose
EC legislative proposals? Are we going to allow a vote within
the House of Commons, for example, to an opinion to oppose these
legislative proposals?
Mr Straw: In terms of detailed
procedures obviously we have not got there yet, but I hope that
if that goes through the parliament itself will come up with the
most effective procedures it can for operating that subsidiarity
protocol. The Government has very clear responsibilities to ensure
that there is an early feed of information on the draft proposals,
and of course the importance of that mechanism is that parliament
is involved in coming to a view about particular proposals at
a much earlier stage than it is at the moment, where it is at
a late stage. I want to ensure that the Government has an effective
machine for going through these proposals and for ensuring that
they are put before parliament as early as possible, and that
parliament then in turn has a very effective mechanism. The parliamentary
side is a matter for parliament, but you may be aware that I published
proposals earlier in the year, on 11 February, to improve the
way in which we, the British government, were held to account
for the conduct of European Union affairs. Those included proposals,
but no more because it is a matter for parliament, for strengthening
the Committee structure in parliament, building on the experience
of the Standing Joint Committee on the Convention, looking at
the role of the Select Committees, but also picking up a proposal
that we should spell out in detail what the work programme is
of the European Union. The first product of this was Prospects
for the EU 2004, which I published in mid-April. It got slightly
less coverage than we were expecting because it coincided with
the announcement on the referendum.
Q29 Mr Illsley: As a member of the Procedure
Committee who is involved in drawing up the European Standing
Committees A and B procedure, these were drawn up as a way of
scrutinising European Union documentation, but at the end of the
day one of the constant criticisms of our scrutiny of European
documents and of European directives was that the scrutiny came
at the end of the process and that there was no substantive resolution
or motion before either the Committee or the House. Although the
procedures will be for the House to decide upon, presumably through
the Modernisation Committee or the Procedure Committee, the resolution
or the motion put before the Committee or put before the House
on the subject of the determination will be the Government, of
course. Will it simply be a take note motion or will there be
some substance to it?
Mr Straw: Mr Illsley, let me make
this clear. I am in favour of parliament voting on issues, House
of Commons and the House of Lords, I think it is it is job; I
think if you cannot get things through if you are a Government
then you had better try harder, is the answer. I would just say
modestly that that applies to not only to EU stuff but also to
huge issues like whether or not we should go to war. I happen
to think that there should be more votes in the Commons rather
than fewer, and in Committees. I accept the criticism of the Standing
Committees. In Opposition I used to go along to them and they
were no more than a talking shop, they have not been particularly
effective. They will have to make these arrangements more effective
and say it is a matter for the Committee. Of course there are
appropriate circumstances where a take note motion in Committee
or a debate on the adjournment on the floor of the House are entirely
appropriate. We have a debate on the Middle East, for example,
it is hopeless trying to have a debate on a motion because people
will literally tear each other apart without coming to a conclusion.
Having a debate on Zimbabwe, it is probably a good idea to do
it on a motion of an adjournment; or on the Armed Forces. But
if it is a specific legislative issue we would have a vote for
it; if it had been decided here, so we would all have a vote on
it. I do not have a problem with that at all, in fact I am in
favour of it. Let me say, for the avoidance of doubt, I have not
consulted my colleagues about this but my view is very clear.
Q30 Mr Illsley: On the question of the
subsidiarity principle, it has been suggested that there is going
to be a system of objections which has become known as the "yellow
card" issue; what prospect is there of that developing into
a "red card" system where there will be a final veto
on subsidiarity?
Mr Straw: It is not impossible
that the language on this may be changed, but I think there is
a misunderstanding here about the "red card" and who
exercises the "red card", and it is this: the "red
card" is exercised under the QMV system, by national governments,
and to get an issue through anyway, assuming it requires QMV,
under the current system, as you know, you have to have half the
Member States, 232 votes under the least vote weighting system
and 62 per cent of the population. I do not know what the denominator
is for the 232. Under the new system it will be 50 per cent of
the States and 60 per cent by vote. I have thought about "red
card" a lot but you could not have a system where the number
of Member States and their populations required to block a proposal
at an early stage was different from the number of Member States
and their populations required to block it at a later stage. It
would be illogical if you ended up in that position. So it seems
to me to be the situation where what the subsidiarity mechanism
can do is to push the thing back to the Commission and require
them to reconsider it. I happen to think that is the best way
of doing it, and the number of national parliaments start kicking
up about the issue then there will be change, in my view.
Q31 Andrew Mackinlay: On the referendum,
if and when we have that, would you be favourably disposed to
the Referendum including the people of Gibraltar?
Mr Straw: I am sympathetic to
that. As you know, Mr Mackinlay, following the decision in Matthews
in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Government
extended the franchise of European Parliamentary elections to
Gibraltar. We have not discussed this collectively, still less
made a decision and, in any event, in the end it will be a matter
for parliament not for us. I am already on record on this in an
answer to a parliamentary question, that we are looking at it
as well.
Q32 Andrew Mackinlay: Croatia, I think
at this Council, will get formal candidate status, or perhaps
you can clarify that. It would be useful to have your view of
the prospects of the enlargement to take in this first major State
of the Western Balkans—I know Slovenia are now in—and
what domino effect that might have on the region. I wonder if
I could in that bounce off you the fact that there are a very
large number of Croatian citizens, I believe in both Bosnia-Herzegovina
and in Serbia. Would there be any consequences from that of Croatia
coming in and the rest of the region not?
Mr Straw: Would you mind if I
ask Mr Darroch to answer that?
Mr Darroch: It is true that Croatia
is likely to get candidate status at the June European Council,
but that is conditional upon continuing cooperation between the
Croatian government and International Tribunal on Yugoslavia.
Whether they get a start date for accession of negotiations in
June or that does not come in until a later European Council is
still open to question. As to the message that sends to the other
countries of the Western Balkans, all of them either have or are
negotiating Stabilisation and Association Agreements, which have
in them a perspective for eventual EU membership, so the prospect
is open to all of them. But I think apart from Croatia there is
not another one that is anywhere close to the sort of candidate
status that Croatia will be awarded in June.
Q33 Andrew Mackinlay: As of this afternoon,
all the indications are, are they not, that Croatia is fully cooperation
on justice and the like?
Mr Darroch: The last pronouncement
by the Chief Prosecutor of the War Crimes Tribunal, Madam Del
Ponte, was that there was full cooperation from Croatia with the
Tribunal.
Chairman: I would like to pursue enlargement
in detail later.
Andrew Mackinlay: Can I ask about mutual
defence?
Chairman: Yes.
Q34 Andrew Mackinlay: I cannot see the
problem on the mutual defence clause.
Mr Straw: The one we agreed or
the one in the draft?
Q35 Andrew Mackinlay: Perhaps you have
clarified it. It is the Naples one.
Mr Straw: The Naples one is fine.
Q36 Andrew Mackinlay: Then perhaps you
can clarify what the problem is on the new one?
Mr Straw: There is none. We have
discussed it; we had discussion in the autumn. The proposals in
here, which you will recall were 140.6 and 140.7, were unacceptable
to us for a variety of reasons, they did not accord proper status
until later, and so on. So they were subject of discussion.
Chairman: We will come back on enlargement
and related issues later. I would like to call Ms Stuart and then
Mr Hamilton, please.
Q37 Ms Stuart: Can I talk about the weighting
of votes and, before we move on to that, for the record I have
to say that there is a deep flaw in the Foreign Secretary's argument,
which we can pursue as and when we come to the referendum. He
simply cannot go on asserting and thinking there is a logic in
this of saying that this is a Treaty which has to be agreed by
all, that the referendum will only be on the Treaty, but then
of course there will consequences to a yes and no vote, given
that we are the fourth largest economy in the world. Then when
in last December Spain and Poland appeared to be blocking agreement
no one on this globe suggested that they should leave the Union,
but there seems to be a rather curious debate afoot saying that
if Britain does not agree then of course we always have an option
and that is to leave it. It is no good looking puzzled, the logic
of this is this is a Treaty with all 25 and there is not a logic
of the argument of a yes and no vote, other than that if a country
as large as Britain says no there is not a Constitution. Similarly,
there is a flaw in the logic of his argument on the role of national
parliaments, when he suggests that there is no logic in the "red
card" being based on QMV when as yet we have not agreed what
the new voting weight will be. So could I have some indication
as to where the current negotiations are in terms of what QMV
should be, what proportion of countries and people is agreement?
As I understand it, the latest discussion is around 55 to 65 per
cent.
Mr Straw: On your first point,
may I say through you, Mr Chairman, to Ms Stuart, that I did not
say what you suggested I said. I talked about consequences in
the wider sense, which for sure there would be—I did not
go beyond that. I also think that there is a great deal of scurrilous
speculation about the "what ifs" here, and the main
"if" at the moment is, will we get a deal? I hope we
do. If we do these things will tend to come together and the debate
will become much more concrete than it is at the moment. Your
second point, Ms Stuart, was about where we are on proposals for
voting. Where we are is this, that there is now a consensus around
the room in favour of the so-called "double majority"
system. So, as I recall yesterday, nobody was arguing any longer
for Nice—none of the 25 countries. The position, which I
spelt out, again reflected what we said in the White Paper, which
was we, from the UK's point of view, were content with Nice, but
we also would be happy with the principle of double majority,
obviously depending on the numbers. I did not directly contribute
to the debate on the numbers in terms of offering particular percentages.
There were a variety of percentages offered in the room. The Irish
Presidency are now going away to think about it and they will
come back with proposals in the next couple of weeks. If you are
asking me to speculate about this my guess is that they will come
up with figures higher both in terms of the proportion of Member
States and in terms of the proportion of populations necessary
in order that there should be a qualified majority, but I cannot
bank on that.
Q38 Ms Stuart: Do the British government
have a view as to what their own benchmark is as to what percentage
below which we would not be prepared to go?
Mr Straw: We do, but for very
good reasons you will have to excuse me if I say we are not willing
to spell it out in public.
Q39 Mr Hamilton: Can I move on to the
presidency of the European Council? The rotating presidency scheme
that we have had, since the beginning really, is widely regarded
as being unworkable now, with nations only being able to be present
once every 12½ years to 13 years. The Irish proposal I know
has gone some way towards alleviating this by strengthening the
President's control over the EU Foreign Minister and the Vice
President and giving the European parliament more power to influence
the selection of a Council President. Do you think that the President
of the Council will strengthen the power of Member States in relation
to the European Commission? You said earlier that the President
will be there working for Member States. Would it really strengthen
the power of Member States in relation to the Commission?
Mr Straw: Yes, I think it will
because as the Union has become larger, so in practice has it
become more difficult, in my observation, to maintain the coherence
of the European Council, when they give a direction by Member
States, not least because the personalities change every six months.
What you have inside the architecture of the European Union is
essentially a creative tension, a balance of powers, in a classical
political sense between the Council representing the nation States
and the Commission representing the EU as a whole, and so on,
and also the responsibilities of administering EU law. What this
has meant, in my judgment, is that the balance of powers have
become unbalanced and we need to get it back, so that it is easier
for a Council to see its own agenda driven through and it acting
both as a check and also a progress chaser of what the Commission
is doing. You cannot do that unless you have a pretty permanent
President with his own secretariat. So that is our view. There
are proposals, by the way, for changing the way the presidencies
operate, to have these team presidencies. I do not think the proposals,
which have come forward so far, are optimal. It is not a red line
at all for us. Some Member States have suggested that we just
have an Article which is enabling, but the details on how the
rotation should operate should be left for Council decisions,
just as the detail of Council formations, how many committees
you have should be left to Council decision, and my own view is
I am sure that must be sensible.
1 HC, Official Report, 29 March 2004, column
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