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Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, this has been a debate characterised by the diversity of the contributions, and the seriousness of reflection on the events of the past month by a number of former Ministers and those who have held high authority in the Commission in Brussels. It has been the kind of debate that it would have been good to have replicated across the European Union prior to the holding of the referendums, and even in this country. It was a matter of some regret that, perhaps by an informal understanding between the parties, there was no such debate in our country on the eve of the general election.
Even at this time of deep reflection about the European Union's future, it cannot be forgotten that it has been an unprecedented success for its members. Anyone with a sense of history must marvel at the achievement of such a long period of stability, peace and prosperity as western Europe has enjoyed for the past 50 years. The EU has seen its members decouple themselves from their imperial past, transform peasant economies into sophisticated skills-based industrial societies and put down strong-growing democratic roots. The great majority of its citizens now enjoy standards of living and social protection which two generations ago were experienced by the privileged few.
Even at this moment of self-doubt, the European Union remains a powerfully attractive magnet to its near neighbours. They, like the states of eastern
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Europe which have recently joined the Union, are not attracted only by hope of access to its prosperity and the security of the Union's commitment to freedom, justice and democracy. They aspire to belong to a diverse Union without imperial ambitions; a Union which, when acting as one, can safeguard the interests of its members in the global councils; a Union whose actions in common can overcome the ineffectiveness of national policies pursued without "concertation" or in isolation and alone.
I have to say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, whose speech I found one of the most thoughtful in the debate, that I do not see the two Europes which he describes as being entirely in opposition to each other: the Europe in which freedoms and liberties are being pursued and the Europe in which a capacity to be effective is being pursued at the same time.
The economic success no doubt encouraged the members of the Union to look to it to promote other objectives held in common. The treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam recognised that when the Union speaks with a single voice and acts together it can be a powerful force for good. But to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, who queried the sense of there being a policy on development aid within the EU, I commend the report of Sub-Committee C of this House in which the work done by the European Union to give a greater bang for the buck has been described and taken forward. It seems to me to produce economies which are entirely to the benefit of the recipient countries.
The treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam laid down those goals and the support for democracy in the Ukraine and the dialogue with Iran over its nuclear capability are recent examples of this impulse. The good sense of the Union tackling together the relief of world poverty, the problems of climate change and environmental pollution, terrorism and cross-border crime seems to me to be manifest. The development of a defence capability to promote peacekeeping and to safeguard fundamental human rights, as in Macedonia, is a small but important step to sustain the international rule of law.
It is particularly important to remember that in the aftermath of the rejection of the constitutional treaty—and I do not doubt that that is what has happened—the evidence of opinion polls across Europe shows consistent and strong popular support for the Union's engagements in these tasks which it has set itself. The "No" vote was not a vote against Europe; it was a vote for a different Europe. The steps which are taken to redirect the Union must not turn Europe away from its goals. The mistake would be to confuse rejection of the means of European integration with the purposes of the Union.
As my noble friend Lord Thomson of Monifieth said, the word "crisis" is often overused in the context of the EU. The policy of the empty chair, the veto of Britain's membership, will be recalled as crises overcome. But it would be complacent to doubt the need for bold, new directions if the Union is to re-establish itself with its citizens as aptly designed for these new purposes.
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Some frank admissions would help to clear the ground. First, the provisions of the constitutional treaty were indeed worthwhile but would not have sufficiently reformed the Union's processes to diminish public criticisms to insignificance. The convention, of which I was proud to be a member and naturally disappointed with the outcome, went as far as its government members would allow, but it did not go far enough. There was no capture, as was earlier suggested in this House, by Euro-fanatics of the convention. It was, to some extent, an attempt to read the minds of the government representatives that characterised the work done by the convention's members. That may have led it to do not too much but too little.
By way of example, and with no personal animus, I recall the adamant opposition of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, to extending the rules of locus standi before the European Court of Justice to allow European citizens to seek remedies for harm suffered. Too often in the work of the convention such conservatism lay behind the proclaimed intention of all the governments to enable the Union to "reconnect with its citizens". I do not belittle what was agreed. Much of it should be carried forward, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, suggested in his maiden speech, the requirement of greater transparency in the proceedings of the Council. But a new agreement is required.
For a long time, the project of unification has been justified by its results: peace and prosperity. Today, the gulf between particular policy goals and their delivery is too wide to legitimise the processes of decision-making after the fact. The failures of intergovernmentalism lead to bad-tempered frustration at government level. But with the public, the sense is of a juggernaut which has stalled.
Take, for example, the issue of managed migration, a subject of particular sensitivity in the Netherlands where two nasty political assassinations were experienced which cast a blight over the ideals of that country. Despite the agreement at Tampere in 1999 setting out the Union's priorities, five years later the Commission felt obliged to report:
"The constraints of the decision-making process of the current institutional context preclude the effective, rapid and transparent attainment of certain political commitments. Moreover, the right of initiation shared with the Member States sometimes had the effect that the national concerns were given priority over the Tampere priorities".
Now, as a follow-up, we have The Hague five-year programme to continue the work. The Dutch have every reason to complain, as good Europeans, that 10 years is rather a long time to deal with an issue of such pressing and immediately felt importance. To take a more straightforward example, although everyone argues that better police co-operation is needed—there is some manifestations of it—for two years the appointment of a new chief for Europol was held up by intergovernmental wrangling. Turning to the much discussed Lisbon agenda mentioned by a number of
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speakers today, high-flown commitments were made in 2000. But as the much admired Dutchman, Wim Kok, reported four years later:
It is scarcely surprising that the Services Directive, of high importance, is mired in national disagreements which the Commission lacks the democratic authority to cut through.
I put it to noble Lords that to failures of output must be added growing dissatisfaction with the legitimacy of the inputs. Here to some extent I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, whose position on Europe could scarcely be further removed from my own. The public may be ready to acknowledge, as it should, that the creation of a single European market requires not only deregulation of economies in the member states but also their reregulation at European level since localised national policy actions would distort the efficient functioning of competition. But how is that exercise properly accountable? When agreements emerge in Brussels from the obscure intergovernmental "comitology", the public are less ready to accept that these agreements have to be imposed by executive fiat on their national parliaments. People are not wrong to worry that democracy in Europe is losing its way. They know that they may overturn their governments, but they are less clear that they can by their votes change policies subscribed to by their governments in this European context.
Euro-sceptics, of course, wish to return to the good old days—as they see them—when the nation state seemed to be in control of its destiny and accountable to its citizens. But that view underrates the impact of globalisation on our country and our vulnerability if we stand alone. Moreover, such a course would most likely lead to the unravelling of the existing Union's achievements, which are too often taken for granted and assumed to be unshakeable.
The Euro-sceptic case is essentially defeatist in denying the possibility of European democracy, much as it was denied by the ancien régimes for the nation states in Europe's Age of Enlightenment. To those who argue that there is no demos that feels a European identity, I would reply that democracy is about expressing, debating and ultimately making choices that serve citizens' interests. It was the Dutch and French judgment of where those interests lay that was being expressed in the referendum "No" votes, not an assertion of national identity on the part of two founder members of the European Community.
Therefore, at this point, I would cautiously advance the view that there is in a Union of 25 democracies no simple alternative to embracing democracy as the way ahead which will satisfy the Union's citizens. In particular, it must be very strongly doubted—notwithstanding the eloquence of the Leader of the House—that an Anglo-Saxon initiative leading to the announcement of a new policy consensus by the Council would do the trick. In their own ways, all member countries are seeking,
But Europe's citizens want to know how: how can we hold those who make the choices for us accountable for those decisions? Twenty-five national parliaments holding 25 national governments to account may be better than nothing. I yield to none in my admiration for the work done by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, which I have just had the privilege of joining. Surely he would be the first to agree that it is not viewed as a model, and one that would lead to great efficiency if spread across the European Union. It is not likely to be effective in producing agreed policy outcomes for Europe.
To the question of how one would go about extending democracy, I must reply cautiously. John Bruton, the former Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland—earlier referred to with disfavour—proposed to the convention that the president of the European Commission should be chosen by Union-wide direct election. For most member countries, a parliamentary route to the top executive offices would seem more familiar and better adapted to the development of accountability. It would, moreover, build on the existing authority of the European Parliament to dismiss the Commission.
At this stage, however, the initiative must lie with the Council, which would be wise to take its time. After all, the political Union is its creature, with its tasks well defined in the Single European Act, and in the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties. It needs to understand, however, what it means by the "democratic deficit", which was acknowledged at Laeken. It needs to be concerned that although the members were elected, and may be rejected by its citizenry, with consequent impact upon the direction of public policy at national level, no such democratic provision is made for Europe's citizens.
I recall Jean Monnet's famous dictum, "We are not here to create coalitions of governments, we unite peoples". Coalitions of 25 national governments, even when led by as adroit a ringmaster as our Prime Minister, will continue to see their broad aims frustrated by disagreements over ways and means. They must now recognise that Europe does not belong to governments; it belongs to its citizens.
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