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Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a good point about the inefficient way in which European institutions work. It is important to bear in mind that the current 20 council configurations will soon be reduced to nine: general affairs and external relations; economic and financial affairs; justice and home affairs; employment, social policy, health and consumer affairs; competitiveness; transport, telecommunications and energy; agriculture and fisheries; environment; and education, youth and culture. Some power will be devolved to those configurated bodies.
I agree that harsh and populist rhetoric from whatever quarter does not assist in resolving those problems. I repeat my agreement with my right honourable friend Mr Blunkett, who said that we need a rational and informed debate on immigration, which may well be economic migration rather than asylum seeking. I must say that Mr Letwin gave a civilised response to that; he is also eager to have that debate. The debate itself will be of benefit to the way in which we conduct political affairs in this country, and its conclusion will be of benefit to those who want to migrate and who have skills to offer this country.
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that, far from being disappointing, the summit revealed remarkable progress on a wide range of subjects. Far from adopting a dogmatic approach, the summit showed
that pragmatism has been able to secure significant progress on matters that five or 10 years ago would have been thought to be in the world of fantasy? I shall give two examples. The first, of course, is the gradual introduction of a co-ordinated and integrated management of external borders.But on another issue frequently debated in this House, namely European security and defence policy, is there not pragmatic progress without much dispute on a police mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina—taken over from the United Nations, I think the communique states—and in Macedonia, taken over from NATO? I hope that the Official Opposition will take the opportunity to welcome that, but does not the summit represent pragmatic progress across a wide range of matters?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, my noble friend is right. In fact, wanting to know something about the topic, I read the conclusions of that document, which I commend to any of your Lordships who have not had that pleasure. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and my noble friend. The statement does not necessarily do full justice to all of the work that was done.
If one considers ESDP, the operation in Macedonia to which my noble friend referred continues. It has been enormously successful when we consider not only the alternatives but the situation that we know existed only a few years ago. I agree with my noble friend. That pragmatic, incremental approach has been extremely valuable. That continued approach is one reason why so many countries want to join the European Union. If my noble friend had asked me 15 years ago whether I could ever contemplate a time when Poland, Romania or Bulgaria might be seeking to join us, I would have thought that he had taken leave of his senses.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord accept from someone who laboured in those rather arid vineyards for some time congratulations on the procedural and administrative changes that have been made to the working of the Council? They will seriously improve the way in which it sets about its work. The reduction in specialist councils was long overdue; there were far too many of them with far too little to do. That will cut down the bureaucracy.
The decision to set out the medium-term objectives of the European Union on a systematic basis—an idea that I believe was first proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, many years ago and which has taken a long time to come to fruition—will also bring an element of clarity to the way in which the European Union goes about its work. The changes that have been introduced are extremely important.
I express some sadness at the fact that the vast majority of the British press seemed to think that they were reporting the World Cup in the Far East rather than a serious discussion of the European Union's immigration policy. To my mind, the outcome was a reasonable compromise between several conflicting
objectives. It was good to see that the European Union had not totally lost sight of the fact that it must provide refuge for people from countries in which they are persecuted or are in danger of their life. We should not introduce an immigration policy that comes down on such people. At the same time, however, there are serious matters that must be dealt with, and it is hard to see how they could be dealt with effectively by individual states taking separate and different action. The remit to take things forward collectively represents the only way. I hope that the Government will not tire of pressing for early decisions on that matter.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am most grateful for the knowledge and expertise that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, brings to the debate. He will agree that arid vineyards can, sometimes, be productive; the arid vineyards of Rioja Alta produce excellent wine. The noble Lord is right that, in 2002, there is no sensible prospect of individual solutions operating other than to everyone's disadvantage in the difficult area of immigration and asylum.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, following the recent summit, will the noble and learned Lord say how any asylum seeker can be assessed as being non-genuine, unless he or she has been carefully interviewed and until such time as there is a common EU definition of who and what is a refugee?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, there is a fairly widespread understanding of what a refugee is and of what an asylum seeker with a well founded claim is. I agree that one must be careful, subtle and decent in interviewing those who may or may not be genuine; they are entitled to civilised and decent treatment and behaviour.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, there has been great emphasis on asylum and immigration. Can the Minister clarify exactly what was agreed at the summit? As I understand it, co-operation between police and immigration authorities is to be enhanced immediately. Is it also true that work is to begin immediately on the establishment of a common European Union corps of border guards, complete with their own command, uniforms and, probably, arms, and that that corps is likely to be operative in five years' time?
I ask that question because Antonio Vitorino, the justice commissioner, said that co-operation would start with co-ordination but evolve in the medium term—four to five years—into a fully fledged European guard force. How does that square with what Mr Straw said? He said:
- "Such is the opposition to the principle of a European border force that it will not feature, except as an acknowledgement that discussion took place".
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, no member state is calling for the EU to move immediately to a European Union border police force and nor does the declaration made at Seville. Seville did call for an immediate increase in joint operations, more co-operation between national immigration liaison officers and more common risk assessment and training. The Commission was also called on to produce a study on burden sharing. Those are all rational, sensible moves and are fully supported by the United Kingdom. Indeed, we called for them before Seville.
The example of Sangatte demonstrates that it is in all our interests to strengthen external borders. There is no question of the United Kingdom's abandoning or weakening its national border controls. In the longer term, we have nothing against a European border police force, if it is capable of being effective in protecting the external border.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, referred to the Italian study. Even that study does not call for an immediate move to European border police; it calls for groups or—not my word—nodes of national immigration officials to consider different aspects of strengthening the external border, which would cover airport security and other joint operations, with a central secretariat to co-ordinate the work in Rome. Some think that such ideas are unduly bureaucratic, but it is important that national immigration officers work together.
There are other ideas. The Austrians, the Belgians and the Finnish are making proposals relating to contact points, the extension of immigration liaison officer networks, technical support, rapid responsibility and joint operations. The Commission is proposing joint operations, risk assessments and training and the pooling of surveillance equipment.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord always presents himself as a person of great optimism, but does not he become a little depressed, at times, at the way in which agreements with other European countries are broken with impunity? Has France made the slightest attempt to implement the spirit of the Dublin convention, which assumed that people arriving in a Community country and appearing to be asylum seekers would have their application processed and would be granted asylum or returned to the country from which they had come or their country of origin?
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