Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
RT HON
DES BROWNE
MP, MR ANDREW
MATHEWSON AND
MR HUGH
POWELL
8 JANUARY 2008
Q280 Robert Key: Just say no!
Des Browne: I do not believe so,
but with all due respect, Chairman, it is the most hypothetical
of hypothetical questions and it may have been better if I had
just said that to you.
Q281 Robert Key: Secretary of State,
you referred a few moments ago to the Turkey-Greece-Cyprus problem.
At the moment that seems to be creating a tremendous impasse and
poisoning of relations, preventing closer co-operation between
NATO and the EU, which is very important considering the strategic
significance of Turkey to NATO. Does the British Government see
a way through this? Indeed, does the British Government even want
to find a way through that impasse?
Des Browne: I believe that we
do. Finding a way through that impasse probably lies in a United
Nations initiative of some description. We continue to encourage
and work at diplomatic levels and at other levels and bilaterally
to try to find some way through it, but it is not easy. The most
important thing is that we find in the meantime a way of ensuring
that the diplomatic difficulties, which are very real, do not
get in the way of delivery on the ground, and thus far we have
been able to do that.
Q282 Robert Key: How do you view
the relationship of Malta with NATO and the EU? That is also part
of the equation. If you talk to people not in the Westminster
village but in Turkey, and if you talk to people in Malta, they
certainly find this a difficult relationship. Do you not have
a view on Malta's position?
Des Browne: I wish I had thought
about it before I came in! I may have somebody with me who has
got a strong view on Malta's position who might be able to share
it with you, Mr Key.
Q283 Chairman: Mr Powell, do you
have a strong view?
Mr Powell: No. Clearly Malta is
trapped in the technical position of not having the sort of security
agreement with NATO that would allow Malta to participate in the
Berlin Plus arrangements, and it would be difficult for Malta
to get such a security arrangement without also addressing Cyprus
having such a security arrangement, and that gets you into the
Turkey-Cyprus problem. So Malta is in that sense a bit of a victim
of the Turkey-Cyprus problem. Are we devoting major attention
to solving Malta's problem? Not exactly.
Mr Mathewson: It is worth a comment
that at one time Malta was a member of Partnership for Peace,
it has had a different relationship with NATO, and there is no
inherent reason why it could not re-establish that different relationship
with NATO.
Q284 Robert Key: Does the British
Government support the application from Malta to rejoin Partnership
for Peace?
Mr Powell: I am not aware that
it has done so.
Q285 Chairman: From a defence point
of view and from the point of view of the difficulties that Cyprus
causes to the relationship between the European Union and NATO,
was it not a mistake for Cyprus to have become a member of the
European Union?
Des Browne: I think the answer
to that is that has been a consequence of Cyprus becoming a member
of the European Union.
Q286 Chairman: A foreseeable consequence.
Des Browne: It was a consequence.
I do not believe that you should describe Cyprus's membership
of the European Union as a mistake. The fact of the matter is
these issues would have to be resolved in any event.
Q287 Chairman: The membership of
Cyprus of the European Union makes it less likely, I would suggest,
that these issues will be resolved.
Des Browne: I would have to give
that some thought to indicate whether or not I agree with that
and I have not thus far. I do not think it would be helpful for
me to work that out as we speak.
Chairman: Okay, then moving on to the
Reform Treaty, Bernard Jenkin?
Q288 Mr Jenkin: That also would have
meant that it was a mistake giving the EU a defence role in the
first place because these issues would never have arisen had that
not have happened at St Malo. Can I ask about the implications
of the Reform Treaty for NATO. We have got legal personality for
the European Union granted by the Lisbon Treaty which will allow
it to sign military treaties; is that correct?
Des Browne: No.
Q289 Mr Jenkin: No? Because not even
NATO can sign a military treaty.
Des Browne: As far as the defence
aspects of the European Union are concerned, the Reform Treaty
makes no difference to its capacity. The European Union only has
the capacity in defence issues that its individual Member States
give it, so any decisions would have to be taken by unanimity.
Q290 Mr Jenkin: The question of how
decisions are made is a separate issue. At the moment the European
Union does not have legal personality and therefore it cannot
sign an international treaty, unlike the European Community can
in respect of trade.
Des Browne: I am saying that in
the context of defence, which is what you asked me, the fact that
the European Union has a legal personality is irrelevant to any
issues that are raised in relation to defence.
Q291 Mr Jenkin: Does the fact that
the Lisbon Treaty inserts a new mutual security guarantee into
the European Union Treaty not result in a duplication of exactly
what NATO does? Does NATO not provide a mutual security guarantee?
Des Browne: Interestingly enough,
exactly like the mutual security guarantee that is in the NATO
Treaty, the mutual security defence clause in the Reform Treaty
relies on UN Charter 51, so this is just an expression of a legal
basis which exists in any event in the context of UN Charter 51.
Q292 Mr Jenkin: There are enjoinders
to support unreservedly the position of the European Union and
that does not exist under the UN Charter or even NATO.
Des Browne: The Treaty makes it
clear in that very context that for its members NATO remains the
foundation of their collective defence.
Q293 Mr Jenkin: In a declaration.
Des Browne: That is part of the
Treaty though. Mr Jenkin, if we are going to have a very detailed
legal dissection of clauses of the Treaty then we should do it
clause-by-clause. You should tell me precisely what clauses you
are talking about and what parts of them and then we can read
them in the context of the whole of the Treaty.
Q294 Mr Jenkin: May I ask a very
general question.
Des Browne: Of course you may
but I just make the point to you though that if you choose to
quote one part of the Treaty to me and I quote another part to
you, which is part of the same Treaty, it is not an answer to
say that it is a part of the Treaty.
Q295 Mr Jenkin: I think you have
underlined exactly the difficulty about discussing this. There
are going to be different views. The Commission is going to take
different views and the European Court of Justice is going to
take different views and different Member States are going to
take different views, but in the end the Government's key assurance
is that Common Foreign and Security Policy and defence remain
fundamentally intergovernmental, governed by unanimity, and the
European Court of Justice is not involved. If it emerges over
time that the European Court of Justice has developed a creeping
competence into some areas and that decisions are being taken
or being asked to be taken by qualified majority vote when we
would have expected them to have been taken by unanimity—for
example, when does a decision to implement a mandate in Bosnia
under qualified majority voting actually become a new mandate—that
is rather a grey area, would you not agree?
Des Browne: I do not recognise
that as a possibility under the Reform Treaty.
Q296 Mr Jenkin: You do not but this
is the point, there is a disagreement. The fundamental question
I want to ask is—
Des Browne: With respect Mr Jenkin,
I do not accept that there is a disagreement. You have a view
on this and I have read your view and the context of the document
that you published recently.
Q297 Mr Jenkin: I am very flattered.
Des Browne: But I do not know
anybody else who agrees with it.
Q298 Mr Jenkin: That is very interesting!
Des Browne: If you know of other
people in other countries who agree with it, if you share that
with us then there may well be a competition of view.
Q299 Mr Jenkin: We all agree that
Sarkozy wants to make European defence a great priority of his
new Presidency. Angela Merkel talks periodically about the need
for a European Army. There is a dynamic to this. You may be right
or I may be right, but if it emerges that QMV and creeping competence
of the European Court of Justice is creeping into this, then it
would require a re-negotiation of the Treaties, would it not?
If it turned out that I was right and you were wrong it would
mean a renegotiation of the Treaties.
Des Browne: It will not turn out
that you are right and I am wrong.
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