Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500-519)
RT HON
DAVID MILIBAND,
MP, PAUL BERMAN,
SHAN MORGAN
AND MARTIN
SHEARMAN
12 DECEMBER 2007
Q500 Mr Horam: Yes, but it is not
just the Government themselves. We can all collapse with exhaustion,
as you say, at the end of this—
David Miliband: No, it is a twofold
thing. There are good things in the treaty, and it says "enough
is enough, let's get on with the real business."
Q501 Mr Horam: In weighing these
two things—what you might call political will to deliver
things on the one hand, and institutional tinkering of this kind
on the other—how important is institutional tinkering? Are
we all wasting our time on it? Is it not very important at all?
Could we have done all those things without institutional tinkering?
David Miliband: No. I think that
the changes that have been proposed are sensible in many ways.
The six-monthly rotating presidency is not a very efficient way
of running a Union of 27. The reduction in the size of the Commission—
Q502 Mr Horam: I am thinking of the
foreign policy aspects of the treaty.
David Miliband: Well, on foreign
policy, there are very few changes from the status quo. The European
Scrutiny Committee says that "the largely intergovernmental
nature of the CFSP and ESDP will be maintained, with no significant
departures from the arrangements which currently apply under the
EU Treaty."
Q503 Mr Horam: You are comparing
the constitutional treaty and the present treaty.
David Miliband: No, I am comparing
the status quo and the current version.
Q504 Mr Horam: Well, you have a major
change. You have the double-hatting of the High Representative.
You have the creation of an external service.
David Miliband: We can argue about
whether those changes are major or not. All I am saying is that
the ESC said that the fundaments of the status quo are preserved.
The double-hatting, or the merger of the two posts into a single
post, is a worthwhile reform. However, if you are saying, "Do
we need to wait for that reform to address the issues in Kosovo
today?", my answer is no, we do not.
Q505 Mr Horam: In your view, what
are the concrete ways in which, if we adopt the Lisbon treaty,
the UK can realise its goals as regards the EU as an actor on
the international stage?
David Miliband: Solely in respect
of foreign policy?
Mr Horam: Yes.
David Miliband: Well, let us take
as item one in that question the creation of the new High Representative
post. We do not have to quibble about whether you call it major:
leave the adjective to one side. It is a worthwhile reform.
Q506 Mr Horam: Why?
David Miliband: While it is true
that the two people who have been responsible for external relations
have, at various points in the last 10 or 15 years, found ways
to get on, actually, two people doing one job is not a very sensible
way of proceeding. I therefore think that is a sensible rationalisation,
and is worthwhile in that respect, and—
Q507 Mr Horam: And?
David Miliband: The External Action
Service will bring some streamlining.
Q508 Mr Horam: In effect, it is a
question of efficiency, or effectiveness?
David Miliband: I think efficiency
and effectiveness will be enhanced by the changes that are brought
in. However, in the end, the Common Foreign and Security Policy
is going to require a change of outlook on the part of the EU,
first, because we are going to have to recognise that threats
to our security and prosperity come increasingly from beyond our
borders, rather than from within, and, secondly, because of political
will, which you rightly referred to, when it comes to questions
like Kosovo. It will be very instructive to see the extent to
which Europe learns the lessons—and I would guess that there
is a pretty unanimous view on this—of its weaknesses and
failings in the 1990s, and whether it can learn from that history.
I think that speaks to the political will that you referred to.
Q509 Ms Stuart: Following on from
what Mr Horam said, on the foreign affairs and defence side, most
of what we want to do we could actually have been done without
the treaty, and I just want to use one example: the European Defence
Agency. That was an idea which came out of the original constitution,
but we set it up anyway, whether the treaty was signed or not.
Is there anything in the treaty that we want to achieve, which,
because it is intergovernmental and requires unanimity, Heads
of Government could have done anyway, without that document?
David Miliband: I think the example
John Horam gave of the merger of the two roles obviously requires
treaty change. That is something that would not otherwise have
happened.
Q510 Ms Stuart: Could not Heads of
Government have done that by unanimity anyway?
David Miliband: We can have a
legal answer from Paul Berman.
Paul Berman: Double-hatting is
excluded, because Commissioners cannot serve in other roles. In
order for a Commissioner—in this case the Vice-President—to
serve in a function in the Council one has to have treaty change.
Q511 Ms Stuart: Is that double-hatting
of an occupation or a function?
Paul Berman: The prohibition on
the Commission double-hatting is about not taking instructions
from other institutions. If you work for another institution or
take instructions from it you need to make provision for that
exception. That is what the Treaty of Lisbon does: it explicitly
allows the High Representative to take instructions from the Council.
David Miliband: But not the creation
of a Tsar, merging the posts of President of the European Council
and— [Laughter.]
Chairman: We will have questions on that
later.
Q512 Ms Stuart: Can we move on to
the overall point that the Chairman raised? I hate to do this
to the Foreign Secretary, but may I remind him of a function he
had before he became Foreign Secretary, when he was still in No.
10, and was one of the Sherpas to the original Laeken declaration
that started all of this off? Do you think we have even begun
to fulfil the aspirations of what was in the Laeken declaration
regarding policy, institutions and delivery?
David Miliband: For the record,
I was not a Sherpa for the Laeken declaration. However, a reflection
group was established before the Laeken Council of which I was
a member. That group produced no conclusions, I am pleased to
say, or at least no written conclusions that may come back to
haunt me. I remember having this argument during those discussions.
The group involved Jacques Delors and Jean-Luc Dehaene, and their
argument was that institutional reform is the route to relevance,
and respect and admiration for the European Union. My argument
was that it was about the delivery deficit, not the democratic
deficit.
We have not achieved our goals. If I asked whether
you could think of a way for an institution to make itself unpopular,
high on that list would be spending six or seven years talking
about its internal structures, which are at best opaque and difficult
to understand. So you are right: it is a question of political
recognition, and opportunities for political progress have been
missed because of this great institutional hoo-ha.
Q513 Mr Purchase: I want to move
to the politics of this. You mentioned the big thing—delivery.
I agree with you absolutely. I also know, however, that the machinery
must be in place, regularly maintained and oiled, in order to
provide the vehicle on which we do the big things. So I do not
regard it as tinkering; I regard it as proper, sensible development
of administrative policy in order to deliver what you quite rightly
say are the important things. It does seem to me, however, that
you have to explain to us how you reconcile support for these
big things—the coherence and the concentration that we need
in order to get them. How do we reconcile that with our oft-stated
intention to maintain an independent foreign policy?
You may tell me that it is just because that
is what the Daily Mail and The Sun says, that we
are worried about electors and so on, but I puzzle in my own mind
about how we can declare ourselves in favour of the big things—I
will paraphrase—and yet at the same time say, "But,
hang on, we have to be independent." I do not see how the
politics work.
David Miliband: It is absolutely
right to raise the point because it goes to the heart of the question
of foreign policy in the modern world. How can one have an "independent"
foreign policy in an interdependent world? That is the question
you are asking, and it is absolutely right to do so. John Horam
used the word "tinkering" and that is not a word I would
want to associate myself with. We have ended up in difficulties
in the past. The answer is that when one comes to efficiency and
effectiveness, there are two aspects. One is the oiling, the efficiency
of operation; the other is the legitimacy of the operation.
It seems to me that, notwithstanding all that
we hear about globalisation and the interdependent world, the
site of legitimacy for citizens is the nation. That does not mean
that they do not have concerns beyond national borders. It does
not mean that they do not want to apply their values beyond national
borders. It is, however, to the nation state that people owe and
commit a significant part of their sense of identity. I think
that any attempt to produce foreign policy that negates that sense
of identity would be quite dangerous because it would corrode
the sense of legitimacy.
There is no question that you could increase
the efficiency of the UN if you had less power for nations, but
you would severely corrode the legitimacy of the decisions that
were then taken. That is why it is right that the UN has nation
states at its heart. It is right that Britain keeps the role it
has in the UN at the moment. If you ask whether that involves
compromises in the search for consensus, of course the answer
is yes. Does that mean that we have to redouble our efforts to
find consensus that works? Yes, but I would be wary of believing
that there are administrative or "oiling"—to use
your phrase—mechanical reforms that got us out of the fact
that different countries and different people disagree about foreign
policy ends and goals.
Keeping a national foreign policy is important
in getting the right blend of legitimacy and efficiency. That
is not to say that our foreign policy does not change, now or
in the past. I have often said in the last six months that foreign
policy used to be about foreigners and that home policy used to
be about what we did at home. No more. In an interdependent world,
foreign policy is about things that come back to haunt our security
and prosperity at home.
Q514 Mr Purchase: That is the whole
point. The idea that any country in the world has an independent
foreign policy at the present time, save perhaps for America,
is a chimera. Why do we not recognise that the great role that
we could perform in terms of world peace, prosperity and interdependence,
is to come out straightforwardly and say that we are seeking a
foreign policy that chimes with the needs of this society and
this world that we live in?
David Miliband: I hope we can
say that. Perhaps I misunderstood the question. By independent
foreign policy, do you mean, should we be able to decide on our
own foreign policy as a country? I think the answer is yes. If
by independent foreign policy you mean, should we pretend that
the outside world does not exist, then obviously the answer is
no, we should not do that. We should frame our foreign policy
in the context of the real world in which we live, which is a
world of interdependence, and a shared planet where issues of
resources, security and so on are shared issues, not issues where
one can retreat behind a national or regional fortress. I am sorry
if I misunderstood.
Q515 Mr Purchase: I was looking for
the vision, which, I think, as well as the delivery, will connect
Europe to its community.
David Miliband: That is a very
fair point. In the midst of discussion of delivery and democracy
we have to remember what are the purposes of our interventions
and how we are trying to promote stability in our terms—social
justice and equal opportunity—around the world.
Chairman: Unfortunately we have to move
away from the vision and into the minutiae now. Before we do,
we will have a brief intervention from Sandra Osborne.
Q516 Sandra Osborne: I am very concerned
about public credibility regarding the treaty in the UK. For the
first time in 10 years as an MP I have had the subject raised
on the doorstep—the only matter with regard to Europe that
I have ever had raised in that way. It may well be people who
read the The Sun and the Daily Mail, as Ken was
saying. I think that people understand the difference as regards
an inter-related foreign policy, but they are continually told
that UK sovereignty over foreign policy is going to be taken away,
and it is easy to promote that fear. If the Government cannot
counter that fear in some way, is that not going to affect credibility
further down the line on the big issues that you are talking about?
What are the Government going to do about that?
David Miliband: The first thing
that we can do is to be as open as possible in the way that we
answer questions and engage in debate, both in Committees like
this and in the House itself. We will have plenty of time to go
through the details of the treaty.
You and I are in politics. You have got to believe
that explanation is our biggest card. Explanation and persuasion
is the business that we are in. We do not write headlines and
we do not publish newspapers but we do have the power of our arguments.
There is a wider case, which is that the country
faces a very big choice. Does it want to look at the world around
it and think that it is so complex and fast-moving that we are
better off trying to divorce ourselves from it? Or do we recognise
that there is not a divorce from issues of economic instability,
terrorism and climate change? The critical choice for this country
is how we engage with those issues, both bilaterally with other
countries and through multilateral institutions like the EU and
the UN. I think that second course, of committing ourselves to
engage through all the networks that we have is the right thing
for the country, but it is a big choice and maybe it speaks to
the sort of explanation that you point to. It could possibly be
one of the unexpected virtues that could come out of our extended
discussion over the next six months of the treaty.
Q517 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
a press article that I am sure you are intimately familiar with,
one which I hope is your bedtime reading, is the former President
of France, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's article in The
Independent on 13 October headed "The EU treaty is the
same as the constitution". The question I want to put to
you, since nobody disputes that, is why, Foreign Secretary, have
the British Government not taken the honest path of saying, "We
are going to change our policy on a referendum. Even though we
had a commitment to it in the general election, we are going to
go back on that commitment," and be honest with the British
people about it and defend a decision not to have a referendum
even though the treaty is effectively the same? Why, instead,
are the Government continuing to perpetuate, frankly, this deceit
on the British people by going through the pretence that the treaty
now is radically different from the one that was before the Parliament
and the British people before the last election? Why have the
Government not been honest on this?
David Miliband: The Government
do not agree with Giscard d'Estaing, that is the simple reason,
for very good reasons, which I am happy to rehearse, but which
all 27 Heads of Government accepted in June 2007 when they said
that the constitutional treaty had been abandoned, and which the
Chairman of this Committee referred to in his opening remarks
when he talked about the failure of the constitutional process.
The truth is, it is the constitution that was abandoned. The constitution
sought, for the first time in European history, to re-found the
European Union. That project is a perfectly legitimate project
for people to believe in, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing believed
in it, but the people of Europe, who voted in France and the Netherlands,
did not believe in it. So the constitution that was promoted and
to which he dedicated several years of his life has been abandoned.
That is why we do not believe that we are in the same situation
as we were in before those referendum defeats for the constitution.
While it is important, of course, to have respect
for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, you only have to look at
the comments of the Danish Prime Minister, not a former Danish
Prime Minister, not a Danish Prime Minister who was in power until
1981, 26 years ago, but a Danish Prime Minister who is in power
now, whose Council of State and Special Committee of Justice looked
at the treaty. The Danish Prime Minister commented yesterday,
not in Le Monde or anywhere else but in his own Parliament,
that they had examined the reform treaty that has been put forward,
and—this is the quotation from the Justice Ministry—"It
is the Justice Ministry's conclusion that for Denmark"—a
country which has a stronger version of the treaty than we do—"the
Lisbon treaty does not transfer new powers." On this basis,
the Justice Ministry concludes that Denmark can ratify the Lisbon
treaty by normal procedure.
That is the existing Prime Minister of Denmark,
so I hope, Sir John, this is not going to come to you saying that
I am dishonest and you are honest. I hope that it can at least
be taken forward on the basis that we have different views of
the content of the reform treaty. We believe that the reform treaty,
for the reasons set out at great length in my letter to the Chairman,
is not the same as the constitution. It is perfectly legitimate
for you to argue that it is, but I hope that you will accept that
it is legitimate for me to argue that it is not.
Q518 Sir John Stanley: I simply say
to you that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing says in the first
sentence of his article: "The difference between the original
constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach,
not of content." He continues for the whole of his article
to indicate that the essential content is the same.
David Miliband: The fact that
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing asserts it does not mean that
it is right.
Q519 Sir John Stanley: Would you
accept that, just because you assert the contrary, it is not necessarily
right?
David Miliband: Exactly. Let me
try to make the argument, not just the assertion. I rest my argument
on three points. First, in structure, the reform treaty is different
from the constitutional treaty. I defy anyone to say to me that
collapsing all the pillars—which is what the constitutional
treaty does—and maintaining a separate pillar for foreign
policy is the same. It is not. So in structure, the reform treaty
is different from the constitutional treaty because the reform
treaty amends existing texts rather than re-founding the union.
Secondly, in terms of content, the reform treaty
is different. It is different in part because of the red lines
that have been achieved for this country, which make the treaty
different in this country than in other countries. But it is also
different for other reasons that we can go into.
Thirdly—and importantly—the reform
treaty is different in consequence from the constitutional treaty,
because the reform treaty ends the debate about whether Europe
is going to have year after year after year of constitutional
and institutional reform, or whether we are drawing a line under
that period of reform and moving on—as Ken Purchase said—to
the big issues. The proof of that third point will be in the declaration
that comes out of the European Council on Friday. That will announce
the establishment of the Reflection Group, while making it absolutely
clear that, for the foreseeable future, institutional reform is
off the European agenda rather than on it. So in terms of structure,
content and consequence, the reform treaty is different from the
constitutional treaty, and I hope you accept that there is not
just an assertion of difference, but a founded argument based
on three points as to why it is different.
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