Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-26)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP AND MR
DAVID FROST
15 SEPTEMBER 2004
Q20 Mr Connarty: I was very pleased with
the reassurances you gave us on the subsidiarity issue and I am
sure you and the department will work hard to make that come true.
On the meetings of the Council, we were all buoyed up with the
idea that the Council will meet in public but it says that it
will meet in public when "it deliberates and votes on a draft
legislative act". Given the suspicious nature of the public
and politicians as to whether the EU has a secretive way of working
as well as a public way, a lot of the decisions may be taken in
COREPER or in the Article 36 Committee rather than in the deliberations
of the Council. What assurances can we have and how will you seek
to help us to ensure that in practice there is not a secretive
process going on and that things are deliberated properly in public
at the Council level?
Mr Straw: Not just for your benefit,
Mr Connarty, but for the benefit of the public, the requirement
to meet in public in respect of legislative acts applies to the
functional councils, the agricultural councils, the home affairs
councils, and does not apply to the European Council because that
does not have any legislative power itself, although obviously
it directs that legislation should happen. On the detail, I will
ask Mr Frost to come in but my understanding is that on legislative
acts it has to be a Council of Ministers which passes the legislation
rather than COREPER on its behalf, although of course it is the
case that the more that COREPER or other informal groupings have
negotiated the text the less debate there will be in the room
when the text comes to be voted upon.
Mr Frost: That is right. What
happens now is that by and large the cameras are turned on when
a vote is about to happen in the Council and what the Treaty now
provides is that the Council meets in public when it deliberates
and votes and I think once this Constitution comes into force
there will have to be a discussion about precisely what that means,
but there is a clear extension provided for in the Council over
and above what happens now and there is a requirement for deliberation
to be in public as well as the vote.
Q21 Mr David: But that deliberation would
not extend to COREPER?
Mr Frost: No, because the legislative
act happens at Council level.
Mr Straw: I think, if I may say
so, it would be a bad idea if it did, because what COREPER is
able to do in private is to broker deals.
Q22 Mr David: It would be very interesting
to see, though, would it not?
Mr Straw: Well, or boring!
Q23 Mr Connarty: If something comes as
an "A" item there is usually not any deliberation?
Mr Straw: Yes, that is true. Bear
in mind that this also happens in the House of Commons. There
is quite a lot of what in EU parlance are called "A"
items which come up at the beginning or end of every day more
and more, things we vote on in writing in the Lobby on a Wednesday.
That is just how it is.
Q24 Mr Connarty: I think there will be
some disappointment on the part of the public.
Mr Straw: There might be, but
a lot of the "A" items by definition are uncontroversial
almost all round. Our Parliament does not spend its time debating
things on which we agree. At the start of public business every
day a whole stream of things are voted through. As I say, a lot
is now done under so-called "modernisation" by remote
control, where we do it by the equivalent of a postal ballot.
Q25 Chairman: The real demand, as I can
remember, in the early years for the Council to meet in public
was because of the deals that were going on in secret. Indeed,
we suspected that ministers may be telling their own parliaments
that they have got this view and will vote in that way and in
the alternative they will negotiate the other way in secret. So
that is why the demand came about.
Mr Straw: And it is absolutely
right. Decision-making bodies, including councils of ministers,
cannot be properly accountable unless people are seeing what is
happening at the point where it is happening. There are other
reasons why, when it comes to negotiation in the room, it is actually
necessary for it to be done in private because if the positions
that people are taking and on which they then have to move are
the subject of public focus it would be far more difficult to
get agreement.
Q26 Chairman: Well, Foreign Secretary,
it is now nearly four o'clock. It is unfortunate and what happened
today was outside anybody's control, but I really appreciate your
offer to come back and we will go through the rest of our business.
If I could suggest that we write to you with the outstanding questions
we have and invite your response and then when we re-arrange a
meeting we will add a supplementary to that.
Mr Straw: Of course.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
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