Examination of Witnesses (Questions 19-36)
MR BRENDAN
DONNELLY
9 MAY 2007
Q19 Chairman: Mr Donnelly, can I call
you Brendan?
Mr Donnelly: Yes, indeed.
Q20 Chairman: You have sent us a
very long statement, which we have all read with interest, so
maybe we can just start off with the questions, and they will
be very similar in some ways to the questions that we have to
ask everyone. Once again, the Annual Policy Strategy, certainly
to us, is the first indication of the Commission's likely proposals
for the following year and we know it feeds into the Work Programme
where people took quite a lot of interest in the past trying to
get ahead of the game. What do you perceive the role of the Annual
Policy Strategy Document to be, and also you might want to specifically
talk about this particular document, the 2008 document?
Mr Donnelly: I think I would put
it in the context of the general evolution of Commission policy.
I am not sure that 2008 is any different to 2007 or 2006, but
I think the principle that you pointed towards of getting in on
the game as early as possible is absolutely right. Throughout
the working year, throughout the political year, the European
Commission is constantly evolving and refining its priorities,
and one of the ways it crystallises these priorities is this Annual
Policy Strategy. So, it is an opportunity for the national parliaments,
among others, to get in, as it were, on the ground floor essentially,
in my view, by their interaction with national governments, but
that is something we can talk about later. I certainly think that
the opportunity to be pointed towards the areas in which the European
Commission expects to be active is very a interesting road map,
set of sign posts for national parliaments and for other interested
participants.
Q21 Chairman: To what extent do you
consider this year's Annual Policy Strategy Document to be a useful
planning tool for the dialogue that we have heard about between
the EU and other institutions, and how far overall do you think
this process is useful? For example, how far do you expect the
work programme to be affected by that dialogue with institutions?
Mr Donnelly: The dialogue with
institutions, or the `trialogue' if you include the European Parliament,
is something that is going on all the time. The European Commission,
on the whole, do not make proposals without having sounded out
the ground certainly for national governments and often with the
European Parliament. So, whilst it is important that we have this
crystallisation of the process in the Annual Policy Strategy,
I would say that I see it as being part of an on-going process.
The European Commission is part of a set of relationships and
it is interacting with them all the time. What I find interesting
about 2008 is the priorities which are set in energy and in environment
questions and in terms of security, in external relations, I think
are useful and worthwhile priorities.
Chairman: We will come to the proposals
contained in it later. We are really interested in this process.
Certainly I believe this is the first year this Committee has
ever engaged with the Annual Policy Strategy Document in any meaningful
way. In the past people tended to get on board, the earliest would
be the Work Programme. Now I think for many people in the institutions
that are not within the EU or the EP the Annual Policy Strategy
is beginning to rise above the surface. In the past I do not think
many people saw the process of the Annual Policy Strategy Document
in as clear a way as you have just seen it, but you may be looking
in different a direction from people who are trying to run a sovereign
parliament.
Q22 Jim Dobbin: Mr Donnelly, in your
introductory statement you did mention national parliaments and
the fact that we would be discussing this. National parliamentarians
are jealous of the roles that they hold anyway and the job that
they do. What do you perceive to be the role of national parliaments?
Mr Donnelly: I think the main
role of a national parliament, and it has an important and essential
role in the European Union, is to act as people who hold to account
their national governments. I think that sometimes national governments
have an interest in not making that too easy for national parliaments.
There will be nothing very surprising in that. You are either
the Executive with a majority in the House of Commons or you are
hoping to become the Executive with a majority in the House of
Commons. I think that fundamentally and logically the role of
national parliaments, but a vital role, is that of holding to
account their national governments, who are major actors, particularly
in the case of the United Kingdom, in the Council of Ministers.
It is worth pointing out that, of course, the Council of Ministers
has its own procedures of majority voting on many issues, but
the likelihood of the United Kingdom, on a matter of vast national
interest to itself, being simply outmanoeuvred and outvoted by
others is quite small. It happens very occasionally, but political
pressure coming from home, from the parliament, is something which
is going to stiffen the sinews, as it were, of the national government
and ensure that when they come back to you, when they have given
an account of what they have done, they have as good a story as
possible and one that reflects your interests.
Q23 Jim Dobbin: Have you been able,
through your experience, to differentiate across Europe between
the different national parliaments as to how they perceive this
accountability?
Mr Donnelly: I think there is
a convergence. I think more and more national parliaments are
coming to understand that they have an important standing, an
important role vis-a"-vis their own national governments.
We have always known that, for instance, the Scandinavian countries
were very eager to keep an eye on what their national governments
were doing. Because of the coalitions in those countries, it has
often been easier for them to do so; there have not been stable
majorities so it has been possible to threaten the government,
as it were, if they did not do what you wanted at the European
level, with walking out of the coalition. That was always something
that was threatened. For instance (and the Federal Trust has been
doing a fair amount of work on this question of accountability),
in Germany, whereas ten years ago the Parliament was pretty well
always prepared to accept whatever the Executive put before them,
now they have a much more critical attitude. So I think there
is a convergence on that.
Q24 Mr David: It is interesting that
you put the emphasis very much on national parliaments holding
national governments to account. Would you see a role (as I think
this inquiry is an example of) for national parliaments being
involved beyond that and having a direct relationship with the
European institutions?
Mr Donnelly: Yes, I can see that,
but I think it is something that, as it were, will have to be
earned. The institutional structure is very clear. You have the
Council of Ministers, you have the National Parliaments which
put pressure on members of the Council of Ministers, and if there
are serious and coherent policy positions being put to the Commission
or to the European Parliament from any source, particularly from
an authoritative source like the House of Commons, that will be
taken account of. The House of Lords, which over the years has
performed a remarkable service, in my view, of producing sometimes
slightly abstract but nevertheless very precise and knowledgeable
reports, is widely quoted and is very influential in the Brussels
system. I think the House of Commons could achieve for itself
such a position, yes.
Chairman: I think you might want to look
towards the subject committees and departmental committees to
have the time to do those kinds of reports rather than this Committee,
which has to deal with every document that comes from Europe and
very important topics like the contents of this Annual Policy
Strategy. Mr David Heathcoat-Amory.
Q25 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You mentioned
earlier the importance of the energy proposals, but, of course,
there is no energy chapter in the present treaties. There is one
in the European Constitution, and that may or may not be revived,
but as things stand it is difficult to see how the proposals on
the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan, including nuclear
waste management and an EU oil stock system, could be brought
forward on the existing treaty. Do you detect in this policy strategy
a straining at the leash, an anticipation perhaps that the Constitution
will be revived or at least a lot of its proposals brought forward
by other means?
Mr Donnelly: It is a legally arguable
question whether or not, on existing treaty bases, it will be
possible to bringing forward proposals. Assuming that it is not,
which clearly is an underlying assumption to your question, I
think it is true that the Commission probably expect that in the
not too distant future there will be some change to the European
treaties which will clarify the legal position on energy. That
would not necessarily mean that anything like the majority of
the Constitutional Treaty was going to be implemented in any form,
but I personally think it is extremely likely that in the successor
document, whatever it is, to the European Constitutional Treaty
there will be something on energy, that is entirely possible,
and that may well have been in the minds of the people writing
this document, not least because they know it is going to take
a lot of time and effort to come to any consensus on these issues.
Q26 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Does this
not feed popular prejudice, in my view well grounded, that the
Commission is always ahead trying to find new means, new legal
bases and a new constitution to bring forward measures that they
want, whereas the public want them to do better with their existing
powers? I remember a past president of the Commission, Mr Santer,
saying, "Let us do less but do it better." Has that
all been forgotten?
Mr Donnelly: I do not know if
Mr Santer has been forgotten, but some people perhaps think his
contribution was not an entirely distinguished one, but that is
another issue. Perhaps I can answer that by taking up a point
you made to Mr Kemppinen a moment ago. If the Commission put forward
proposals, it is not they who are going to decide on whether those
proposals are implemented or not, it will be the national governments,
and those national governments will be democratically elected
governments, responsive to others. So, when you put forward the
thesis that the European Commission put forward things that they
want but others do not, others have got plenty of opportunity
to say if they do not want those things in the Council of Ministers
and in the European Parliament. That I see as being the democratic
guarantee of the European Union.
Q27 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: A lot of
these measures will be decided by majority voting. So, even if
this Parliament and this Government decide no, we could still
get them because the Commission are proposing them?
Mr Donnelly: You would get them,
as it were, because there is a majority in the Council which has
decided. That is a difficulty always relating to majority voting
in the Council. If you say, as some do, and it is a perfectly
legitimate point of view, that you cannot have any democracy under
majority voting in the Council of Ministers, that is a radical
position, but that is not specifically raised by the Strategy
Policy Document, it is inherent in any majority voting within
the European Union, it seems to me.
Chairman: Can we turn to the proposal
contained within the Annual Policy Strategy Document, which I
am sure you are very familiar with? Mr Angus Robertson.
Q28 Angus Robertson: Does the APS
match your view of what the EU priorities should be for 2008?
Mr Donnelly: Yes, it does in its
content. In the note I circulated to you before, I think that
some of its presentation, some of the rhetoric employed in it,
is not very happy, but I think the priorities of migration, environment,
energy, internal security are very much the priorities. I have
some doubts about the Lisbon Agenda, which I have explained in
the note, not because I am against it, but because I think it
is too ambitious in its scope without the political mechanisms
in place to bring it about.
Q29 Kelvin Hopkins: Are there any
specific proposals which you are particularly keen on and, if
so, why?
Mr Donnelly: I would say the external
projection, the wider world. I think that what they have there,
the Doha Development Round, the EUA Summit, the cooperation with
Africa and with America, are important aspects of what they are
doing. I also very much welcome the internal security element
of the Commission's proposals. I think that is the right kind
of results-driven agenda. I have expressed my doubts about the
Lisbon Agenda and that sort of delivery agenda, but I think the
delivery agenda and internal security and the protection of Europe's
borders, not merely in a repressive sense, but also through working
with our partners and our neighbours, is very much the sort of
thing the European Union should be concentrating on.
Q30 Kelvin Hopkins: Under agriculture
and fisheries, has there been any suggestion that the Fisheries
Policy ought to be abandoned and repatriated to Member States?
Mr Donnelly: I am not aware of
any serious proposals on that.
Q31 Kelvin Hopkins: It is often raised
in our Parliament.
Mr Donnelly: I understood you
to be asking me whether there was any view other than in this
Parliament. I would not presume to lecture you on what goes on
in your Parliament.
Q32 Mr David: I would like to press
you a little bit more on your implied criticism of the emphasis
on delivery. I think that many people here would say that in a
sense the European Commission should be congratulated on stressing
things which matter to people, bread and butter issues, if you
like. Perhaps you would like to explain a little bit more why
you have got reservations about this emphasis on delivery?
Mr Donnelly: I think it is best
exemplified in the question of the Lisbon Agenda. The Union has
given itself highly ambitious targets in the economic and particularly
in the modernising field and it has not set out, in my view, the
central mechanisms whereby that would be a realistic task for
the European Union to set itself. It has left it up. The national
governments, perfectly reasonably, wanted to keep to themselves
the responsibility for this modernisation. Different countries
have done it at a different pace, in a different way and with
different success and in the context of rather different social
employment systems. So when, as it is clear, not all countries
have done as well as the best, the European Union, as it were,
have ascribed to itself a failure. We have not managed to modernise
all the European Union's economies. When you look at Germany,
for instance, which I think is now improving its economic performance,
it is as a result of national decisions and a national political
culture that it is where it is. The Lisbon Agenda, I think, was
an unhappy attempt to say people are worried about the European
Union. Let us show what it can do. It can turn Europe on its head
and make it economically enormously more productive and enormously
more successful than it was before. Some areas of Europe are doing
very well indeed; others are not doing as badly as people say;
but that is essentially on the basis of national decision-making.
Q33 Mr David: I think that is an
interesting comment. It has certain implications for proportionality
and subsidiarity. Would you agree with that?
Mr Donnelly: I am not by any means
saying that the governments which adopted the Lisbon Agenda should
have given to the European Union, to the European Commission,
enormous far-reaching powers to bring about a modernising agenda
throughout the whole of Europe. What I am saying is that, once
they decided not to do that, it seems to me rather paradoxical
to blame Europe if it does not happen, not least because countries
like Germany and the Netherlands, quite rightly, have national
governments who want to take credit for their economic success.
They are not going to ascribe the success to the European Union,
and who can blame them.
Q34 Mr Cash: On the question of better
regulation, Mr Verheugen has famously said that it costs the European
economy over 600 billion euros a year. This is a staggering amount.
I have to say, Mr Donnelly, that listening to you (and I know
from past experience you would be good enough to allow me to write
in one of your publications) the extent to which the European
Union is to be seen as a success or otherwise must depend on performance.
The reality is that reducing burdens on regulation is one of the
most essential ways of achieving it. How do you see this being
done in practice, given the Acquis Communautaire and the assumption
which underlies pretty well everything that you express, which
is because it is Europe you can leave it alone; it is fine; it
will find its own level? Surely you have to deliver things, you
have to make reforms, and the national parliaments ought to be
given the right (and you have talked about the fact that we should
earn the right, as it were, which I find pretty staggering in
the circumstances) to achieve repeal on a scale that matches the
requirements of the economy?
Mr Donnelly: Two points there,
if I may. On the question of reform, what I said is something
which I think would be attractive to many perhaps, particularly
in this House, that national governments have wanted to retain
to themselves an enormous margin of manoeuvre, an enormous right,
or maybe exclusive right, to set the terms of their own economic
modernisation and reform; and that means, inevitably, that there
will be different success and different failures in different
countries. That is decentralisation. The alternative would be
to have a much more centralised arrangement which would confer
much more power upon the central European institutions. That would
create, it seems to me, difficulties of democracies and accountability
just as great as any that we have discussed until now. On the
wider question of regulation, of course much of any figure, derived
by Mr Verheugen or anyone else, is dependent on assumptions, and
those may or may not be justified. One important assumption that
will need to be factored in is the burden of regulation on European
business very substantially derives from national decision-making,
and sometimes there is a European element which is pointed to
as a justification, not always rightly, sometimes it is very much
the domestically generated regulations that are themselves, if
you like, offensive or harmful. I think that the European Union
can in its majority, over a period of time, contribute to economic
reform and economic modernisation, and I think it is good and
right that it should do. Where I have some doubts about the rhetoric
of the Commission is how quickly and successfully it, with the
limited weapons at its control, can contribute to that process.
If you favour a more centralised European Union, then you will
favour more weapons for the European Commission and the European
Union to hasten on the modernisation process. The obverse of not
favouring such a centralised European Union is that it has to
be for the national governments to decide the pace and the nature
of their reforms.
Q35 Ms Clark: We heard some concern
expressed in the evidence session with the previous witness about
the proposals in relation to the Common Policy of Migration within
this document. We would welcome your comment on the appropriateness
of inclusion of proposals of this nature in this policy document.
Mr Donnelly: One specific question
is that of a common asylum policy. A point to make in the context
specifically of asylum is that this country is already very much
bound, as are all the other European countries, by various UN
conventions which, in theory at least, mean that they already
have a common policy which simply needs to be implemented. That
there should be proposals coming from the European Commission
for a common asylum policy does not seem to me quite as democratically
problematic as the suggestion in the question already, because
that is essentially the policy in place. As far as legal economic
migration is concerned, it has always been understood that that
is something primarily for the Member States. So, it is important
not to run together asylum and legal economic immigration. The
idea that within the Schengen area the European Union should do
more on a coordinated and coherent basis to police its borders
seems to be something that is very appropriate. If Britain ever
joined Schengen then Britain will benefit from participating in
that. That does seem to be a question that is much in the minds
of the electorate as a whole.
Q36 Mr Clappison: I agree with a
large part of what you said in your answer, but perhaps there
was an issue which arose in the first part of your answer when
you were answering about asylum. You said that we, and other European
countries, obviously, had already got their international commitments
on that, and you said that meant that it did not raise democratic
problems of accountability that arise in some other areas. Surely,
by the same token, that raises a question whether it is necessary
at all to have a European system of asylum. Is this not just another
example of the Commission looking at an area and seeking confidence
for itself in that area for the sake of it in order to enlarge
its own powers?
Mr Donnelly: I do not think in
this particular case that argument can be sustained. This is part
of a process in which the governments have all participated. The
governments have had plenty of opportunity to tell the Commission
if they thought that they were behaving unnecessarily in this
area. I think the point is that the general principles are clear
but the administration of questions like the right of return,
should you apply only to one country, can you apply to other countries,
what is the relationship, what is your position, if you have family
in a particular country and want to apply for asylum in another,
are the sort of administrative and day-to-day issues where I do
feel there is an important role for a common European policy.
Mr Borrow: I think Mr Donnelly has already
dealt with the points I was going to raise in answer to Mr David.
Chairman: Can I thank you. You have been
very concise and this has been a thorough but very focused session.
Mr Donnelly, I thank you for coming along. If there is anything
else you wish to write to us about that strikes you that may help
our investigation of the Annual Policy Strategy Document, please
do write to us again. Thank you for coming along and giving evidence.
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