Mr.
Francois: I note that under the so-called plan
D—for democracy—element of communication in Europe,
projects were interlinked with the European year of intercultural
dialogue. As British taxpayers’ money has gone to pay for that,
could the Minister name some of the projects undertaken in the UK in
conjunction with it, and tell us how they
went?
Caroline
Flint: I am happy to provide the hon. Gentleman with
information on some of the projects. I do not have it to hand at the
moment, and I would not want to try to discuss projects without having
information on them. However, I am sure that he will be reassured by
the fact that the document clearly deals with the criteria for such
projects. The organisations that apply for funding have to show that
they are responsible, that they are financially correct, and that there
is no question about their capacity to do the project. There is a
rigorous process in place, but I would be happy to provide the hon.
Gentleman with more information on the projects and share it with the
rest of the
Committee.
Mr.
Francois: In that case, may I try another question? The
European fund for the integration of third-country nationals was
another programme with which plan D was integrated. Can the Minister
tell us about schemes in the UK related to that programme, how much
they cost and what happened to
them?
Caroline
Flint: Again, I am happy to provide such information.
There are many projects, and, as the Minister for Europe, I know that
many of the issues that they deal with, whether climate change,
multiracial communities, or education and skills, are often taken up by
domestic Departments as well and supported through some of their
programmes. Today’s debate is about how the principles in the
documents operate and what they provide for, but I am happy to write to
the hon. Gentleman and give him particular details about the many
different projects. I am afraid that I do not have the information to
hand
today.
Mr.
Francois: I humbly suggest that part of the purpose of
today’s debate is to examine the spending of €88 million
of European taxpayers’ money, bearing in mind that the UK is one
of the largest net contributors to the EU. Therefore, may I try the
Minister on this question? At the end of the plan D projects, people
from across the EU were brought together to discuss the conclusions.
They made a series of recommendations to EU leaders, and annexe 2 on
page 37 states:
“They
call upon the EU Heads of State and Government, both in their capacity
as European but also as national leaders, to heed those
recommendations”— which
the annexe
outlines— “and
thereby encourage the development of active European citizenship,
without which there cannot be a truly political
Union.” Do
Her Majesty’s Government support
that?
Caroline
Flint: We support the role of the European Union to
contribute to better information to enable our citizens to make
informed choices about how they can benefit from the EU, and to enter
that debate, and for those at EU level also to be able to hear that
debate. That does not take away from what national Governments do, and
is clearly also a role. We support information as appropriate, and that
is what the documents attempt to
provide.
Mr.
Heathcoat-Amory: The Minister is being a great deal more
trusting than her predecessor on the Commission’s expenditure,
because page 15 of the document states that he believes that
“discussions...highlighted
the need for a more systematic consultation of Member States on the
EU’s Annual Communication priorities, prior to their
adoption” and
that that was to ensure that they were
“the agreed
priorities of the European Union, and not just those of a single EU
institution.” The
European Scrutiny Committee also expressed concern about whether it is
right that the European Commission, with its acknowledged mission to
create a unified Europe and so on, should be able to spend money
without reference to member states. I ask particularly about the
devolved expenditure to the Commission’s representative in the
United Kingdom, who has £150,000 to spend this year. Will the
Minister provide a full list of those projects, in the light of her
predecessor’s stated concern about whether the
representative’s priorities are the same as ours? Her
predecessor wanted to ensure that they were, so will she do the
same?
Caroline
Flint: Of course we want to ensure that the money provided
is spent well and meets our objectives, particularly in the areas of
work in which we are engaged with the EU—climate change is
one—of an open and informed debate by those in the UK with many
different views. During the weeks ahead, I hope to discuss with the
Commission in London its role. I have already looked into some of the
areas, such as the grants provided for 2007-08, and the evaluation of
how funding might be provided in 2009-10. I am happy to take those
matters forward when I have discussions with representatives here in
London.
Mr.
Heathcoat-Amory: Will the Minister send us a
list?
Caroline
Flint: I am happy to send a list, if I
can. Motion
made, and Question
proposed, That
the Committee takes note of Commission documents 13829/07 and Addenda 1
to 3 (Communicating Europe in Partnership) and 8163/08 (Debate Europe);
recognises the importance of communicating effectively with European
citizens; and welcomes the measures taken to further improve the
co-ordination of the European Union’s work on communicating with
the public. —[Caroline
Flint.] 5.28
pm
Mr.
Francois: I shall come to the two documents, but I want
first to press the Minister on the point about timeliness. I accept
that she is new to her post, but there has been a long-running debate
about the time it takes for papers to get to these Committees when they
have been referred for debate by the European Scrutiny Committee. The
matter has been raised on the Floor of the House, and I see an
ex-Deputy Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland
(Helen Goodman), on the Government Front Bench, who will be familiar
with the
matter. If
we are to improve the transparency and scrutiny of European documents,
it is not acceptable to receive the papers so late in the day. Now that
the Minister has responsibilities for these matters, may I make a
plea—I have asked for this before—that she ensures that
if anything is referred to a European Committee for debate, all the
members of that Committee receive the papers a working week in advance?
I think that that request is reasonable, and it is ironic that we are
debating “Communicating Europe” when it took so terribly
long for the Foreign Office to communicate with us 50 yd across the
road at the House of Commons. Perhaps she will take that on board,
examine the matter and see whether she could do better in future.
Otherwise, there will be even greater cynicism about our ability to
scrutinise the massive amount of paper that comes from Europe. I hope
that she accepts that that is a reasonable
request. Document
13829/07, “Communicating Europe in Partnership”, of
October 2007, followed the European Council of that June, which agreed
the draft mandate for the intergovernmental conference that eventually
produced what is now known as the treaty of Lisbon. It states, at page
21 of our
bundle: “These
events opened a new phase, with ratification of the new treaty to be
followed by the European elections in June 2009. The European Council
underlined the crucial importance of communicating more and
better”. Right
from the beginning, the fate of the document was linked to the fate of
the Lisbon treaty and the European Commission’s obvious desire
to help ratification. Lisbon crops up several times as we go through
it, but I shall return to that
matter. The
document proposed a number of measures intended to amplify the European
Commission’s communications and further co-ordinate them with
those of the member states. Those measures included suggestions for the
further use of Eurobarometer opinion polls, so-called management
partnerships with member states and an inter-institutional
agreement linking the European Parliament, the Council and the
Commission. Unfortunately for those who came up with the idea, the IIA
was found by the EU Council’s legal service to require a new
legal basis. However, as the former Europe Minister’s letter of
September 2008 explained, a way
was found to write the proposal into an existing body and submit it to
the Council for approval. That was done in April 2008 and followed up
with detailed guidelines in
October. Given
that history, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm again
that the agreed guidelines on page 198 of the bundle are a purely
political
agreement.
Mr.
Francois: And that the Commission understands them to be
political, and will not attempt to give them legal force by a mechanism
sometimes called “Commission creep”. The Minister says
yes, but would be grateful if she made that absolutely clear when she
replies. The
second document, 8163/08, “Debate Europe”, was produced
in April 2008. It was intended to build on existing plan D for
democracy projects such as those run by the European Movement and Notre
Europe involving deliberative polls, as well as projects in the UK such
as those run by the Bevan Foundation, the Community Development
Foundation and Forward Ladies Ltd. The document states that the
existing
approach “will
continue with certain adaptations in 2008 and 2009, during the
ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty and with due regard to the
next European
elections.” To
that end, it includes a number of proposals such as internet debates,
the creation of a European public space in London, and building on
other projects such as the European political foundations and the
European fund for the integration of third-country
nationals. One
of the most potentially significant proposals in these documents is on
page 190 of the bundle. That is the increased use of Eurobarometer
opinion polls in a new “strategic manner”. The EU has
used opinion polls to inform its policy making for some time, and that
is not necessarily a bad thing in principle. However, the methodology
used is not often explained. The chosen method is called deliberative
polling and was devised by James Fishkin of Stanford university in the
United States. Under that system of polling—as politicians, we
are all interested in polling—the individuals questioned are
first provided with briefing materials and then, over the course of a
weekend, discuss the issues in a controlled environment. They are
polled at the end of the process. It is argued that that academic
methodology creates better-informed
decisions. However,
many questions remain about how the European Commission uses the polls,
and in particular their results. Those questions will increase if the
Commission now intends to use them in a so-called “strategic
manner”. An article in The Economist of 21 February 2008,
entitled “Ask a Silly Question”, is mentioned in one of
the European Scrutiny Committee’s reports. It cast doubts on the
methodology behind Eurobarometer polls. [Interruption.] I hope
that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East is not accusing
The Economist of being a rabidly Eurosceptic
publication.
Mr.
Purchase: I only say this to the hon. Gentleman: I read
The Economist religiously every week and it sends me to sleep in
the same way that what is happening now is sending me to sleep. My
enthusiasm is waning further with every second that he remains on his
feet.
Mr.
Francois: I am terribly sorry if I am not entertaining the
hon. Gentleman; I am just here to scrutinise the spending of millions
of pounds of British taxpayers’ money. If he cannot bear to
listen to the fact that some of it has been wasted, I am afraid that
that does not cut much ice with me.
The
Economist said this about Eurobarometer
polling: “In
an infamous incident last year, the commission trumpeted a poll showing
80 per cent. support for the European satellite navigation system,
Galileo, and 63 per cent. support for spending billions on it, though
only 40 per cent. of respondents had heard of Galileo before they were
telephoned for the
survey.” That
is a good example of the weaknesses in the system that the Commission
relies on and that we, the taxpayers, have in effect been paying
for. There
are many questions about how those polls could be used under the
scheme. Therefore, I ask the Minister to explain further her
understanding of how they are used in practice. She gave us a sort of
commitment that she would try to find out whether any polling results
would be released in the run-up to the 2009 European elections. I think
that she undertook to write to the Committee on that point. I wonder
whether she could confirm that that was her answer and that we can all
expect something in writing from her on this
issue. Another
concern is the inclusion in the presidency conclusion of a reference to
schools to help to communicate the idea of Europe. In its report of 15
October, the European Scrutiny Committee
stated: “Neither
the Commission, nor in this instance the Minister, has satisfied us
that the Commission is genuinely
open-minded”. Therefore,
it is difficult to see how communication from the Commission could be
used in our schools in a balanced and even-handed way, if other people,
who have perhaps a different vision of the development of Europe to
that of the Commission, are not allowed to have a say in that matter
too.
I would be
grateful if the Minister could explain what she thinks this proposal to
use schools will mean in practice. Furthermore, could she also reassure
us that any use of our schools to help the European Commission to
communicate its idea of Europe will allow for equal weight to be given
to other points of view, or, as the documents put it, to “other
visions” of the European
Union. We
are discussing the European Commission’s communication
strategies. However, communication is a two-way process. The European
Commission needs to improve its communication with the people of
Europe, but it also needs to listen to the clear voices of those people
when they have been allowed to express themselves. The people of
France, the Netherlands and Ireland did exactly that—expressed
themselves—when they were asked in referendums whether they
approved of the European constitution or, as it has now been renamed,
the Lisbon treaty, and they said “no” by large
majorities. Unfortunately, however, they do not appear to have been
listened
to. We
have heard much about plan D. As both of the documents refer on
numerous occasions to Lisbon, I would quite like to hear from the
Government about plan R for the referendum that they promised the
British people in the first place. Was not the real objective for plan
D to help to build support for the ratification of the Lisbon treaty? I
say that because if one looks at the conclusions of
“Communicating Europe in Partnership”, they say that the
plan was to:
“launch a
follow-up communication Plan D, as well as a new set of Plan D civil
society projects, with the overall objective of supporting the
ratification process for the Reform Treaty and increasing participation
in the 2009 European Parliament
elections.” We
have no objection to there being good participation in the European
Parliament elections; all of us would like to see a high turnout.
However, the Conservatives are very opposed to the Lisbon treaty and
therefore we are also very opposed to the spending of taxpayers’
money, including British taxpayers’ money, to try to support its
ratification.
Mr.
Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): I am
listening most carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. Does he know
how the €88 million that has been allocated to plan D has been
divided out among the various countries? Does he have any evidence of
Ireland and France receiving a disproportionate amount, bearing in mind
the votes on the two treaties that he has
mentioned?
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