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There will be real problems for the workings of the Council when there are 27, 28 or more members, and for the patience of representatives of larger states, because they will have to listen to the representatives of smaller states. I sometimes wonder whether our next Prime Minister will have the patience to sit and listen for long hours as the heads of Governments of smaller states, of which he is dimly aware, go on at great length.
I wish that the committee had been a little more critical about the number of Commissioners, which is a taboo subject. We have to break that taboo. People in Brussels now say that no one will ever give up their Commissioner, but that is part of the treaty that we would wish to break. It is in Britain’s interest for there to be a small and efficient Commission, even if that means that, from time to time, there is no British Commissioner. I wish that the British Government would say so.
The consensus of the report, which I welcome and with which I agree, is that we must be committed to a long haul in the western Balkans that ends in full membership, that we should maintain continued negotiations with Turkey, which is also a long haul that may or may not end in full membership, that we should strengthen the neighbourhood policy both to the east and the south, and that the necessary institutional changes must follow, including the extension of scrutiny to implementation within the EU after states have joined.
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Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, like all other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, and his team on another most authoritative and informative report. Although there has been a time lag before your Lordships’ House has been able to discuss it, the timing has turned out to be extremely apposite. This a good moment to look at the issues raised. I must confess that I am concerned about all such reports that tackle the issue of the future shape of Europe and what kind of Europe we want.
I shall put my concerns in the following way: of course there is a case for an integrated European bloc—if not a superstate, which we are told is not on the cards, then at least a tight-knit grouping which is mainly western European and may be extended to the geographical areas of historic Europe, but with substantial features of political union. It would be a harmonising, gathering and integrated body. That is what Jean Monnet and many others wanted and what many leading Europeans still want today. They want an efficient, strong-centred, integrated entity that is capable of turning out fast decisions and of reaching a unified world view. We have heard that case put by some noble Lords in this debate. With that goes the idea with which not all people wish to be associated of a much better protected Europe, maybe even a fortress Europe, which in this age of global challenges has somehow to defend itself. That vision finds a clear echo in the pronouncements of Monsieur Sarkozy, who is to be the new French president. He has spoken explicitly about the need for more protection of Europe against outside forces. That is one view.
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By contrast, there is a different case for a wider and more open association that stretches far outside western Europe and far beyond the Europe of geographical definition, including not only the east and west Balkans, which are in our idea of Europe, but Turkey and, in due course, Ukraine, Belarus and even Armenia and Azerbaijan. All those countries have aspirations to join the EU, which would then reach deep into central Asia and be more Eurasian than European. Such an arrangement could certainly share the so-called brand value of the Union, as one witness to the committee described it. However, it would not be economically uniform in any way; indeed, it would be deeply divided, with vast contrasts in incomes and cultures. Realistically, it could never be the tight-knit body that the old federalist Europeans dreamt of. It would be bound to be more confederal than federal, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said.
Whatever has happened regarding past enlargements, that prospect for the years ahead means that you can have one Europe or the other, but not in the end—or even from now on—both. Nor can the fundamental differences between those visions be papered over for much longer by calling it variable geometry. There comes a point when the variable geometry stretches so much that there is no geometric pattern left. The position to which we and Europe are now moving is a matter of careful choice. My noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry commented on that in a typically profound speech and I am not sure that we can continue to fudge the issue.
My concern is that this excellent report only touches on that central, old dilemma between deepening and widening, but it does so in a new context. That is mentioned specifically in paragraph 157, which is probably the most significant section of the whole report. However, the report sails on past, without recognising that now is the time for that issue to be addressed and for strategic choices to be made on the kind of Europe that we want. The report simply states that there should be no boundaries to Europe or to the EU. That is okay and, in a way, it is realistic so long as one does not then argue in the same breath that the EU should, at the same time, become more integrated and more centralised with tighter rules, more efficient decision machinery and more political integration, as, I am afraid, the report is slightly inclined to do in the paragraphs that follow the crucial paragraph 157. We have reached the stage where it cannot; nor, anyway, is it so obvious that more efficient decision-making procedures are necessary or beneficial.
In practice—here, the report is on very good ground and makes an interesting section—the already enormous enlargement and widening, up to 27 members from the old 15, nine or six before that, has all gone rather smoothly with no real sign of slowing the Brussels speed or capacity for reaching new decisions and making new laws. On the contrary, as the Economist recently pointed out, more regulations and directives than ever are now flowing from the Commission and there is no slow-down there, as the committee rightly confirms in its report from the evidence it heard and as my noble friend Lord Stevens of Ludgate reminded
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I now come to the subject of Turkey, on which some fascinating comments have been made. In one sense, it is indeed a real and immediate problem. Turkey is huge, as noble Lords have said; it has the second biggest army in NATO; it has moments of deep turbulence, as now; and there appears to be a growing anti-European Union sentiment, which mirrors the strong antagonism from within the EU to Turkish membership that is growing more evident, especially in France. There is also the intractable Cyprus issue. I do not intend to go into that in detail now, partly for reasons of time but also because some thorough and illuminating comments have been made on it in the debate. However, as one commentator put it—I am not sure whether it was in evidence to the committee or whether it was in the Economist, but it was an unfair and insulting comment—Turkey is,
That is the sort of view that informs the very anti-Turkish feelings to be found in parts of continental Europe.
With wonderful irony, it seems that the present—and successful—non-secular, Islamic-inclined Government are more pro eventual accession to the EU and the so-called secular movements, which in some ways seem to be allied with the military organisations, are most opposed. As Turkey is a central player in the Middle East jigsaw and is inextricably involved in the Kurdish problem, which means being involved in the Iraqi and Iranian problems, there is no doubt that, if these things were to happen now, the EU would be brought into the centre of these tortuous issues even more than it is already, as the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, reminded us. In one sense, the situation is immediate, extremely worrying and complex but, in another, it is not such a problem for the simple reason that it is all years away—at least a decade.
As the noble Lord, Lord Roper, asked, in 10 years’ time, what kind of EU will we have? I predict that it will be quite different. I believe that a much looser, wider version of Europe, with less centralism and fewer ambitions to be a bloc, a superpower, a counterweight to the United States or whatever the phrase is, will by then have prevailed, and the integrators will have been finally defeated. I am not quite with my noble friend Lord Stevens in saying that the EU will have ceased to exist but it will certainly have changed and adapted. It will have to have done so in a very big way. This will prove to be a correct response to world events because, as, for example, Monsieur Vedrine, the former French Foreign Minister, pointed out the other day, Europe will by then no longer be setting the global agenda at all. The pacemaker’s baton will have passed to Asia.
We need a good, friendly and co-operative European neighbourhood, and we must never tire of working for that. But it is the rising powers of Asia and elsewhere that will really count. That is where the wealth and the political power already increasingly lie. The world is no longer Euro-centric; it is not even
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I sum up my feelings on this subject by saying that a wider, enlarged, flexible and open Europe will be a great help and benefit to our neighbourhood, as—in many, although not all, ways—the European market, the European Community and the European Union have been of benefit so far. But it will never make the European Union a world power or a cohesive superbloc, and nor should wise politicians try to push and divert it that way. There is no bullet to bite, as one Euro-phile official misguidedly urged on Britain the other day.
Therefore, in 10 years’ time, it may be far easier for Turkey to join the European Union, as it will have changed. The choice for the type of Europe that we want will then, by default and by the power of global trends, have already been made. It will indeed turn out that there is no alternative, as one of your Lordships said, to progressive enlargement. Perhaps unintentionally, that seems to be the central and realistic message of this report, and that is why, like others, I strongly welcome it.
8.07 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): My Lords, it is always an exceptional privilege to hear the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, as it was today when he introduced this important debate. In a remarkable overview, the noble Lord—Julian Grenfell, if I may refer to him as such—made a genuine, nuanced and sensitive analysis, which results from considerable expertise. I think that the House will thank him for it, and I shall try to address what he described as his lessons.
I also thank the European Union Committee for its report, which is a valuable contribution to the debate on enlargement and the future of Europe. I wholeheartedly endorse its findings. Enlargement remains one of the EU’s most successful policies and it is one to which the United Kingdom has made a strong contribution. Full credit is due to this House for its support in that.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, with, as ever, a penetrating analysis, introduced the very real concept of strategic choice. We are not at the point of final choice; nor am I clear that some of the contradictions between the strategic directions can be resolved at this moment. However, it is absolutely clear to me that that debate will have to be had. It will be not just about the consequences of economic differentiation, important though those are, but also, in a cultural sense, about the essentials of a social Europe and how will they be understood across a terrain as large as the one that the noble Lord has painted.
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As this debate has demonstrated, EU enlargement covers a wide range of topics. I shall focus on a few themes: the success of past enlargements, the challenges ahead and the need to ensure a flexible yet rigorous approach to accession. The Government and all the major parties have favoured enlargement—a sensible, careful process—for reasons that we need to discuss briefly. They are not, I know, the mischievous reasons entertainingly advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate; none the less, I hope that he will bear with me as I express ours.
The noble Lord, Lord Roper, made the point that we do not celebrate enough what has been achieved. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, made the same point—as did my noble friend Lord Dubs—although he said that the contribution made by the United Kingdom to the outcome of the success was perhaps not the predicted one when people saw a much smaller Community but have had to adjust to a much larger one.
Enlargement has been at the core of the development of the EU. It enabled the peaceful reunification of Europe after the Second World War and across the Cold War divide. It continues to be the engine for security and prosperity. Of course, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, least of all with the phantom that he raises of new imperialism. With the greatest courtesy, I say to him that we crossed the Rubicon long ago—as I recall it was in Italy and certainly not on the route to Turkey.
The security issues, touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, require a special relationship with those places where wars and ethnic conflict have not yet been resolved. I would have thought that, since the Dayton accord, we have all understood exactly what was involved in that and what one had to do to secure peace. Each round of enlargement has helped. It has brought new jobs, new markets and new investment opportunities. With a population of 490 million, the EU now represents the largest internal market in the world. Together we are better able to respond to increasing global competition.
For the United Kingdom, the economic benefits of the 2004 accession are clear. Our exports to the A10 were worth almost £8 billion in 2006, compared with £4.6 billion in 2004. Exports to Poland alone rose by 67 per cent in 2006. UK firms such as Tesco, Unilever, Vodafone and BP are successful investors in new member and candidate countries. Our labour markets have benefited from increased output and jobs.
I know that some in the media will continue to peddle their fears of mass immigration to the United Kingdom, but I suggest that this House understands the reality in a rather different way. Migrants have contributed to our growth and tax revenues while gaining new skills. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate, may be right about the impact of the age structure as a factor. That is an extremely important and interesting point but, even without that, the preliminary economic analysis shows that this has been a positive development.
Enlargement, more than any other policy, has transformed poverty to prosperity and conflict to peace across Europe. While the path to accession
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It is right to focus on economic benefits, but the figures do not always tell the full story of EU membership. For centuries, Europe has been disfigured by conflict. Tens of millions of innocent Europeans died in two world wars. Again, in the 1990s, Europe witnessed ethnic genocide in the former Yugoslavia. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, summed it up throughout his speech, particularly by saying that it is the movement to democracy—and the quality of Europe’s democracy—that is critical for success in overcoming these scars.
It is easy to take Europe’s stability for granted. In the last half of the last century, we forged a different way so that today’s young Europeans will be the first generation who do not listen to tales of what their grandparents did during the war, fearing that they, too, might have to make those terrible sacrifices in conflict. Over the past 50 years, more and more of us have decided to share mutual security arrangements and to build close trade links. Of course, national rivalries do not vanish easily, but they are now insignificant compared with international co-operation. President Clinton rightly described the new architecture of Europe as the greatest and most successful example of fixing in place peace and community.
As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, EU membership has fostered democracy, the rule of law, trade and deep commitment to human rights. My parents’ generation chose that path and succeeded. Indeed, some Members of your Lordships’ House were party directly to that success. In my view, all of them are to be congratulated. I hope that we have the ability to build on their vision, which is why I have no time for the scepticism that denies the achievement of that period. Of course, there are practical challenges ahead. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, was right to emphasise accountability in those challenges. I agree that the enlargement process needs to be robust and based on the Copenhagen criteria. As the committee notes, this should not prevent us from tailoring our approach in the light of experience.
We have learnt lessons from the fifth wave of enlargement; for example, in the administration of justice and the fight against crime and corruption. We recognise how difficult it can be to tackle those issues. That is why European leaders agreed last December to ensure that those issues are focused on early in the negotiation process. There are, for example, now defined benchmarks for justice and home affairs issues. These new requirements will help—not hinder—Turkey, Croatia and the western Balkans as they move towards EU membership. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, demanded stronger scrutiny, and those are the areas in which stronger scrutiny would be invaluable.
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That brings me to Turkey. We should be more rigorous in pursuing the terms for enlargement here, but that does not mean that we should set impossible conditions. The accession process is a compact. It requires commitment from the candidate to be matched by a firm commitment from the European Union that, if the standards are met, accession will ensue. The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, raised the issue of risk in all this. Although the boundaries of Europe are perhaps wisely not defined—I am not sure that I understood the point entirely—as prescriptively as he was suggesting, I strongly share his balanced judgment of the advantage. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, also made that point about borders. Incidentally, the borders are defined not only in geopolitical terms, but often through popular culture—through competitions in things such as football or singing, or what passes for singing—and they spread across into wider areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, called for a pause in this context. Like others, I fear that much progress will stop if we have the kind of pause that was advocated. I am quite certain that a decade of debate is quite a pause in its own right, as we work through those issues. So we welcome last December’s European Council reaffirmation that it would honour existing commitments to Turkey and other countries in the enlargement process. A Turkey anchored in the EU will make all Europe more secure, stable and prosperous. The prospect of membership alone has already brought positive change.
In recent years, Turkey has abolished the death penalty and is working hard on a zero-tolerance policy toward torture and on improved rights for women and minority groups, although it is clear to me that there is much further to go in all those respects. Those reforms must continue and, unfortunately, we should acknowledge that the pace has slowed. As the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said, we have to continue to urge the Turkish Government to address those areas of concern.
Before accession, Turkey, like all prospective members, must fulfil its contractual obligations, specifically by opening its ports to Cypriot shipping under the Ankara agreement protocol. EU Foreign Ministers have been clear that failure here will affect the overall pace of negotiations. But it makes sense for Turkey to move ahead on technical chapters of the negotiations while it works towards meeting the political conditionality. All those factors, as my noble friend Lord Dubs said, have to be weighed in the balance as we move forward.
A number of noble Lords spoke of the recent events in Turkey surrounding the election processes and the unhelpful—as the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, specifically reminded us—intervention of the military. My noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, also mentioned the issues of political Islam and the difficulties in maintaining a secular state, as those pressures are expressed. The capacity to create and sustain a secular state with a people who are overwhelmingly Muslim is one of the things that, if we can get it right, will add specific political and historical value to Turkish accession.
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As to Mr Sarkozy, I am aware that his comments have been received with dismay in Turkey. He has made no secret of his opposition to its membership of the EU, and his position hardened during the recent campaign. He has spoken of launching an early debate in Europe to reconsider Turkey’s accession negotiations. He has raised alternatives, such as privileged partnership and so on. We will have to have that argument. The reality is that the door is currently open to Turkey, Croatia and other countries in the western Balkans, and those countries have to show that they are ready to walk through that door and are capable of doing so. The process that I have just described is precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, was calling for. It is a point at which careful thought about how to carry this forward is essential. I do not entirely think that, as the noble Lord, Lord Roper, suggested, in several years’ time, but within the decade, there may be another French president. There may or may not be, but there will not be another French people. Those arguments will have to be held, as the noble Lord recognises. As he suggested, in doing so, we must have a dialogue with other Europeans.
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