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Lord Pearson of Rannoch: Perhaps I may put a question to the Minister. It is gracious of her to give way. When she says to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke that treaty change is not necessary to reform the common agricultural policy, will she agree that enlargement is not possible without reform of the common agricultural policy? While we are on that point, will she agree also that the President of France has assured the world, in the strongest conceivable terms, in the past fortnight that France will not tolerate any change in the common agricultural policy from France's point of view—it is very advantageous to France—until 2006? Of course, it may be just a negotiating ploy, but if it is so, does it not put the process back a bit?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: I am sure the noble Lord will accept it when I say that I have sat round negotiating tables in recent months and heard people declare one position with absolute certainty; and I have seen some very different outcomes—most notably in Doha only last week. If we were to insist on CAP reform before enlargement, we should make enlargement a hostage to those member states which are least keen on it. We must be careful about the way in which we approach this matter. We are approaching it very much in the interests of the United Kingdom.
Perhaps I may turn to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, in relation to Ireland. The Irish Government have asked us to go ahead with our ratification process. That may not suit the position of some Members of the Committee. I understand that. But the Irish Government are the democratic leaders of their country. They have asked us and our European partners to proceed with our ratification process, and we are proceeding, on the unequivocal mandate that we have as a result of this year's general election. I admired very much the unequivocal stance taken by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, rode to his rescue and said that he, too, was not too keen on enlargement. But whatever else the treaty is about, it has been very much in the public domain a treaty about successful enlargement. I believe that the Government have a mandate on which to proceed.
The noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, gave balance to the debate. He agreed with his noble friend about the "disgrace" in terms of the length of time taken for enlargement. He was right to say that if we wreck the treaty we shall delay enlargement even further. The noble Lord knows his noble friend far better than I do, but I cannot help feeling that his noble friend on the Front Bench will understand the weight of his remarks on that point.
The Government are right to resist these amendments, for the reasons which I hope I have spelt out clearly.
Lord Howell of Guildford: I am grateful to the Minister for setting out her reply so clearly to the
amendments, which, in the case of those in my name, are narrowly focused on the weighting issues. I listened carefully to the Minister's remarks, but I do not think that she explained how, in an enlarged Community, eventually the voting power of the United Kingdom will be rather less. I do not attach too much weight to the issue of less or more voting power. It is my personal view that the real problem lies in the over-centralisation of power in the European institutions. If there had been any beef behind subsidiarity, which turned out to be an empty vessel, or any determination at Nice or at other summit gatherings to return to nation states some of the powers that in today's conditions it is inappropriate to deal with centrally, even though it may have been appropriate to do so in the past, the problem of weighting and the feeling that powers were going to be taken and important decisions made at a high level against national interests would be much reduced.The arithmetic suggests that, while with the current members—the words that the noble Baroness used—the share of British votes is up, eventually, when the enlargement takes place, our share will go down. I do not know when that "eventually" will be. The Commission has produced an upbeat report about enlargement, suggesting that the whole thing can be tied up for 10 countries by 2004, which is not at all far away. At that point we shall have a shrunken role.
I do not make a major issue of that, but we should get it right for the record. The noble Baroness is right about current numbers, but for the longer term Ministers are not correct in saying that Britain will have a larger share of the votes.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, spoke with great authority and knows a great deal about the mood in the applicant states. We get different impressions from the different places that we visit. There is an opinion poll machine called the Euro-barometer—I find these things very inaccurate—that seems to indicate that popular support for the whole project is waning in a number of applicant countries. But if the noble Lord, Lord Watson, asks why we should believe such polls, he has a friend in me because I find that they can be extremely unreliable.
The generation who first took power after the velvet revolution, who hoped that enlargement would come soon, were driven by a very understandable essential impulse: they wanted to join the club of Western democracy, as expressed by the European Union, and to put as much political space as they could between themselves and the then Soviet Union. The older generation in many central European capitals remains of that view. Despite the new friendship and hand-clasping in Texas by the very skilled Mr Putin—whose Russian Government have been very helpful in the present global anti-terrorism campaign—there remains a deep feeling engraved in many minds by hideous memories that Russia is not the body to be politically associated with and the European Union will give some protection. Running alongside that is the equal wish that NATO should be enlarged still further.
We can see these debates unfolding. The Prime Minister recently made some interesting comments about whether Russia might become related to NATO in some form. This touches on that debate. The older generation wants to get away from Russia and join Western organisations, but the younger generation wants to wait and see whether the modern Russia is really as dedicated to dangers, expansion and territorial seizure as Communist and pre-Communist Russia was for hundreds of years or whether we have a new Russia. They are not sure that it is quite such a high priority to distance themselves from Russia. If they want to distance themselves, they want to ask a question that they did not ask at the beginning: what is the cost? They want to know how much they have to pay in the approval of the acquis to join the club. That mood is undoubtedly present. It leads to a lively debate. It is basically a pro-European—indeed, pro-European Union—debate, but it raises fundamental questions about the governance of Europe that were not addressed at Nice and towards which I do not believe that the Nice Treaty was helpful.
Of course I respect the extremely experienced views of my noble friend Lord Tugendhat. He speaks not only as an experienced business person but as an ex-Commissioner. His judgment is that the treaty is essential to enlargement. Other judgments are that the treaty may help if it works—as long as it works, as the noble Lord, Lord Radice, suggested. Some of my noble friends have argued all along that the treaty is heading for trouble and that before we are through we will have to think about recasting treaty arrangements to move the enlargement process forward.
We have probably quoted Mr Prodi too much and I know that the Minister is tired of my quotations from him, but he let the cat out of the bag when he said that if plan B is necessary and the Irish referendum does not turn Irish opinion round, we will have to come to other means of carrying forward these mechanical arrangements.
We feel that this is the wrong way to achieve the greater European unity and the re-unification of Europe that is now within our grasp. We are not convinced that giving a fair wind to the whole treaty, with all its warts and difficulties, is necessarily the best way to achieve that objective.
In the light of a number of comments, I shall not press Amendment No. 34, but I understand that my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke has another view on his Amendment No. 34A, which he will no doubt utter in a moment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Willoughby de Broke moved Amendment No. 34A:
- Page 1, line 12, after "Protocols" insert "(other than the Protocol on the Enlargement of the European Union)"
The noble Lord said: I am grateful to the Minister for answering my questions, but I remind the Committee that the Nice Treaty is dead at the moment. We are debating a treaty that is null and void, so it is
sensible to start again and see how it might be better drawn up. The Irish people may be asked to look at a very different treaty—as may we all. It may not contain all the centralising proposals that we have been discussing during the past two days of debate. It may be more tightly drawn. Agriculture is a central block on enlargement. If enlargement is what everybody wants, agriculture will have to be dealt with in the treaty. I have not had enough reassurance on that, so I shall test the opinion of the Committee on my amendment. I beg to move.7.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 34A) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 74; Not-Contents, 140.
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