Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 379)
THURSDAY 10 JANUARY 2008
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne QC DL
Q360 Lord Wright of Richmond:
I am sorry. "Personalities" is the wrong word.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: Where the Quartet
will be then and whether that is an instrument which will continue
to be the most useful one and how the European Union's role in
it will be is speculative.
Q361 Lord Dykes:
I was very struck by your words in the June all-day debate last
year when you said in your speech when you were Commissioner,
"I saw that it was getting more difficult to reach agreement
even with the mini-enlargement that took place at that time. The
deliberations were steadily getting more cumbersome and will get
worse." Indeed, no doubt you keep in touch with former colleagues
and friends in the Commission and so on and you hear people saying
that kind of thing. Very much too one hears that said in the Council
of Ministers by various officials. In a way we could say that
the situation might be worse in the Council than in the Commission.
They are a small addition in terms of economic power, as we know,
the ten new members and the two as well but nonetheless important
and significant each individually and collectively. Do you see
that becoming easier now for them joining in at this stage to
row with the collectivity with these new arrangements in the Treaty
or do you see some awkward customers there, or do you feel that,
if you take the pervasive disease of too much national chancery
politics in the Member States, holding back the development of
the Community and collective decision making, do you see the troublemakers
being more in the existing, original countries before enlargement?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: As far as the
Commission is concerned, the point that you quote me on is the
one I was talking about in saying that the reduction in the numbers
will reduce the problem of the endless tour de table and
hopefully increase the actual working time for reaching agreement
and deciding things. As far as the Council of Ministers is concerned,
that is not true because everybody is in the Council of Ministers.
On the other hand, the change in the voting arrangements, which
frankly give more power to the larger countries and less to the
smaller ones, makes it more difficult for them to be trouble makers,
as you put it, in the sense that the chances of them being outvoted—which
is the ultimate sanction—are greater. I think it will have
that effect.
Q362 Lord Harrison:
You have already indicated that you do not think it is necessarily
desirable that the elected Commission President should reflect
the majority grouping within the European Parliament presumably
because you think the best person for the job is the person who
should be alighted upon. Do you think the Treaty will change the
relationship between the Parliament and the Commission in other
ways, especially as the Parliament now has greater and extended
powers?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: From the point
of view of the Parliament wanting to increase its role, most of
the job has already been done with the greatly enhanced role of
the Parliament in the legislative process and the fact that already
it is involved in the choice of members of the Commission and
the President and its capacity to sack the Commission and so on.
The balance as compared for example with when I first went to
Brussels has already shifted radically. I do not think the Treaty
will make a very big, further difference as far as that is concerned.
Obviously with more qualified majority voting there is a slightly
greater role in the legislative process but I think most of that
change has already been effected.
Q363 Lord Wade of Chorlton:
Some of the evidence we have received has suggested that the Treaty
might create a situation in the Parliament where the Parliament
becomes more politicised and there is more development of political
views within Europe which are represented within the Parliament.
Do you believe that is a likelihood?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I thought it was
pretty politicised already so I cannot see how it can become more
politicised. I do not think so. On this question of the appointment
of the president, "take account of" is not just a compromise
formula but a quite reasonable thing to say. For example, if you
have a candidate who is outstanding but is not attached to any
political grouping, an outstanding European figure, it would be
ridiculous to say that he must not be chosen as the President
because he does not reflect the majority in the Parliament or
the leading party in the Parliament. Again, you might have somebody
who has a mild, non-extreme past in a particular political party
but who is acceptable to the other parties. I think "take
account of" gives the flexibility but at the same time a
nod in the direction, in effect saying it has to be acceptable
to the Parliament, which is about right.
Q364 Lord Harrison:
The evidence that Lord Wade and the rest of us heard in terms
of the Parliament becoming more politicised was that at the moment
perhaps the view is that Parliament still retains national interests
as expressed through the Parliament, but that that itself would
change. The particular political groupings stretching across national
boundaries would come to the fore and that in turn might make
the change in the dealings with the Commission.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I am not sure
whether such a change would be a good one or a bad one. That change
has been expected for decades and it has been incredibly slow
in coming. I used to attend the EPP in the good old days when
there was no question of the Conservative Party pulling out of
the EPP. There we saw quite openly in the discussions in Strasbourg
divisions between particular national groupings which often burst
out from the EPP framework. We have waited a long time for there
to be a situation in which the political parties do not take much
account of national differences and I certainly do not see anything
in the Treaty which will accelerate that process.
Q365 Lord Maclennan of Rogart:
Would you anticipate that the extension of the budgetary responsibilities
of Parliament, obligatory and non-obligatory expenditure, could
result in any development of their influence over priorities of
expenditure for the Union?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: Yes, I think that
is possible but again it is an evolving trend from a position
in which the Parliament really had no say to one in which it has
had more say and now perhaps a little bit more. The essence of
the whole thing is that in all of these areas this Treaty is pretty
incremental with a pretty small increment too, compared with the
Maastricht Treaty or the Single European Act. We are really talking
about very small changes indeed. The most important changes are
in the numbers, in the area of foreign policy and things like
that which do reflect the necessities brought about by two factors.
One, the greatly increased size caused by the addition of the
Central and Eastern European countries and, secondly, the desire
that the European Union should be able to play a more effective
role in the world where its Member States do reach agreement than
it has done up to now. You should maximise the chances of the
Member States reaching such agreement. Those are the changes and
they are changes which I regard as wholly to the good. I do not
think that they in any sense amount to the creation of a constitution,
nor the deprivation of Member States of their sovereignty, quite
apart from the fact that Britain has the special position through
all the opt ins and the opt outs, the arrangements, protocols
and so on with which you are so familiar.
Q366 Chairman:
Could I come back for a moment to the Commission? Was it your
experience when you were a Commissioner that individuals were
leaning over backwards not to give the impression that they were
there as national representatives? One has the impression nowadays,
particularly after the 2004 enlargement with the ten coming in,
that some of the smaller countries amongst the new members do
regard their Commissioners as being their national representatives.
I wonder whether this trend is becoming bedded down now, where
it is almost accepted, which leads me on to the second part of
this question. When the time arrives when the United Kingdom does
not have a member on the Commission, as will happen eventually,
will we take this with good grace or are we likely to go the way
of many of the other Commissioners and decide that we no longer
have a proper national representation and have to find other ways
of getting our views across in the Commission?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: On the first point,
I hope I am not telling tales out of school but to look back to
the halcyon days when everybody perfectly reflected what was in
the Treaty and had some kind of platonic, objective view of life
is a little unrealistic. It varied. Some people really did think
what was best for the European Union. It was their duty to listen
to what distinguished Permanent Representatives like Lord Kerr
said but to make their own minds up at the end of the day. Others
were to a greater or lesser extent influenced by what national
governments asked them to do and of course in many cases they
were appointed by a national government and then there was a change
of national government. There was that complication as well. I
do not think it was all completely cool and objective as it theoretically
should have been. Whether it has got worse I am not really in
a position to say. I cannot see anything in the Treaty that will
make it worse than it is currently. On the question which is perhaps
even more important of what we will feel like if we do not have
a Commissioner, I think there will be a loss. Although in principle
the job of a Commissioner is to exercise his own judgment for
the benefit of the European Union as a whole, he is expected to
be able to say that this, that or the other provision may be wonderful
for everybody else but, for the following, specific reasons, it
would be disastrous in my country; or to say, "You may think
this is utterly trivial but it is hugely beneficial for my country."
That has happened as far as Britain is concerned with time sharing,
of all things, where we were the keenest to push the legislation
on the subject and others really could not understand what it
was all about. Similarly, it is the job of the Commissioner to
go back home to listen but also to say in his own country what
the Commission is up to and what the European Union is up to and
to expound it. I used to do that a lot and, my goodness, with
the media as they are, it was jolly necessary to do that. If there
is not a Commissioner, there will not be a single figure of the
same authority to do that in that way, so there is a loss. That
is why in the book that you kindly referred to which I wrote I
did not come up with the solution which is reflected in the Treaty
of just saying, "In some countries in an arbitrary or systematic
way we will no longer have a Commissioner at any given time."
I came up with a different scheme of having senior and junior
Commissioners so that the Commission would not continually grow
in size but there would always be somebody who was a Commissioner,
like a junior minister. I worked out a particular way of handling
that which may have been right or wrong, but that is all theoretical
because that is not what happened. I think it would be ridiculous
to pretend that there will not be a genuine loss to this country,
as to every other country, when we do not have a Commissioner.
Q367 Lord Jopling:
Do you not think that when countries know that they are not going
to have a Commissioner for a period of time what will happen is
what often happens in negotiations in both the Council and the
Commission, that countries gang up together? Do you not think
there will be a likelihood that if, say, the United Kingdom does
not have a Commissioner for a period, people will come to a friendly
arrangement with other countries where they will tend to scratch
each other's backs when they go through the period when they do
not have a Commissioner?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I think that will
happen and it will be a good thing. It is the only thing that
should happen. I do not want to exaggerate this because I was
asked the question and I am answering it. I am not saying it is
going to be the end of the world. Supposing for example we say,
"Okay, the Danish Commissioner. Let us hope that he will
represent British interests." That may work very well in
the Commission itself but if you are talking about coming to Britain
and what the Commission does and why, listening to British industry
and so on, if only in terms of sheer time, you cannot expect him
to do the same job as a British Commissioner would do.
Q368 Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean:
I think you have brought out a very important point. You talked
earlier about the smaller Commission being more effective and
therefore having support. That was a very compelling argument.
What we have now is the real politique, not what goes on
in Brussels but what goes on in London and importantly what goes
on in the British press. I do not know enough about the foreign
press to know the ins and outs of how they report on everything
to do in Europe but I certainly get the impression that our press
are peculiarly Eurosceptic. It seems to me that what you are suggesting—and
there is a real possibility of this—is growing Euroscepticism,
not within necessarily the informed part of the body politic but
amongst the press and the British public. It would be disastrous
if we had a Danish Commissioner coming here. In and of itself
my instinct would be to say, "No. Keep away and we will try
and deal with it." I wonder whether you feel that in the
longer term the gains that you described about a smaller Commission
will not be completely undermined by not having our own Commissioner.
There is one other point which may seem trivial but it seems to
me to have some impact. If we are the first of the big countries
not to have our own Commissioner, it would be a much worse position
than if the French and the Germans had already done it. I wonder
if you agree with that?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I do agree with
the last point and I hope good sense will ensure that that does
not happen. That is not asking too much. On the broader point,
I do not think the advantages would be outweighed by the disadvantage,
although obviously from my own experience I am bound if anything
to exaggerate the importance of the relevance of a British Commissioner
in Britain. Let us not get carried away with it. This raises a
much wider point which I hope to have the opportunity to talk
about in a lecture I am giving to the LSE on 7 February. It means
that if there is not a Commissioner doing it there is a heavier
responsibility on the Government itself to do it. Without wishing
to get too controversial or partisan, that is a responsibility
that has not always been fully discharged.
Q369 Lord Dykes:
I will not refer to who it was but there was one national leader
who said that the Commissioner would be an excellent representative
of their own country, coming back to the previous theme. We are
all nowadays beset by the increasing complexity of the national
political economies in Europe and elsewhere in the whole world
but particularly in Europe where one often gets a sense that even
a well intentioned, efficient and intelligent government is just
beset by the difficulties of solving problems and so on and the
tussle between the parties gets more and more artificial because
of that. Do you think there is a secular sense in which these
great, leading matters like environmental policy, economic policy
and currency policy and all that need more and more to be decided
within the European Union by friendly sovereign governments working
reasonably happily together and making collective decisions? Will
that be helped by this Treaty or will the situation remain the
same and there is no secular sense and it is not affected by the
Treaty?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: One of the most
important things about the passage of this Treaty which I strongly
favour is that it will put an end to constitutional and institutional
debate for several years. All are agreed on that. (I see not everybody
is agreed!) It will put an end to serious proposals and serious
intentions of anything happening. I cannot stop people in an academic
or even in a political context giving their views but in practice
it is not going to happen. That really means that the decks will
be cleared. Let us remember for how long the decks have not been
cleared and for how long we have been bogged down in discussions
which are important and necessary even but nonetheless mean that
the main thrust of Europe's attention has been diverted or channelled
in this direction. Hopefully when the decks are cleared we will
have a greater focus on things like energy supply, climate change,
the environment, things which everybody knows cannot be done effectively
on an individual, national basis and have to be done together.
If that happens and it is seen that the European Union is able
to make progress in that area and to do so in the international
domain, that would be generally good for the country, for people,
for Europe but also seeing that that is happening will play a
part in reversing the tide of Euroscepticism because people will
see that there are things that they regard as important which
can only be done and are being done through European cooperation.
Frankly, just to show that I am not too tainted by the theology
of the Commission, I would just add that it does not matter whether
what is done is done through a European Union instrument, directive
or recommendation or something or whether it is done through consensus
emerging as a result of discussions within Europe and then implemented
in each country in a slightly different way through national action.
What matters is that it should be done and I believe whether it
is done through a formal, European process or through consensus
leading to national action it is more likely to be done if we
get this out of the way and get on with the next vital business
that faces Europe and the world.
Q370 Lord Roper:
You answered in the final sentence to Baroness Symons on the question
of the situation in the absence of the Commissioner about the
increased responsibility of the government. I was going to ask
you whether you thought it would not mean increasing the size
and perhaps some of the responsibilities of the Permanent Representation
so that they would have the capacity to do some of this communication
and reporting back work to people in the UK and perhaps a different
kind of representation.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I think that would
be difficult although there is at least one person here who will
have a more informed view on that. First of all, it is very easy
to underestimate the sheer grind of detailed legislative work
that takes place in COREPER and the heavy concentration that that
requires; and the fact that that representation has to deal with
people coming to Brussels, wanting to talk about what might happen,
what should happen and what they do or do not want to happen.
To ask COREPER and the Permanent Representative most particularly
to play a significantly enhanced role in the presentation of European
issues back home is not realistic.
Q371 Lord Roper:
We have to think of some different machinery?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: Yes. I thought
what you were going to say was that the role of the Europe Minister
should be enhanced. That I think is a much more fruitful avenue.
It is not so much a question of institutions but of political
will because it is very easy for governments—and I deliberately
put it in the plural to avoid party controversy—which are
faced with what they know is necessary and desirable but may be
unpopular to prefer for the brunt of the argument to be borne
by somebody who is not a member of the government but is a recognisable
British face.
Q372 Lord Roper:
On the other hand, it was easier in the time when you were a Commissioner,
when there were two British Commissioners coming from two major
political parties, for them to come back and communicate effectively
both with the people in and around the major government party
and the major opposition party. The shrinkage to one Commissioner
has already made that part more difficult.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I have not personally
experienced that shrinkage. What was useful was that two Commissioners
coming from different political families, to use the European
phraseology, would nearly always be saying the same thing and
that was quite effective if, coming from those different backgrounds,
you were saying the same thing back home. I agree with that.
Q373 Lord Kerr of Kinlochard:
I share your view that the Permanent Representative cannot be
given a role in explaining the Commission's proposal. The role
of Permanent Representation is to encourage Commission proposals
of the kind which the national authorities would wish and negotiate
on them when they appear and, if they are not optimised, to optimise
them for the national interest. You cannot do both jobs. You cannot
sell the national policy to the Commission and sell Commission
policy to the nation as an official. I would like to know whether
you agree that another way of tackling the problem perhaps more
successfully than by beefing up the role of the Minister for Europe
would be to think about politicising the Commission office in
the Member States and giving its occupant a higher profile, an
observer a seat in the Commission, and a role in explaining the
Commission proposal in the national capital. I feel you are quite
right: there will be a problem for the Member States from whom
no Commissioner comes, but I think it has to be solved by some
change to the Commission's own machinery for explaining what it
believes, not to the national machinery for influencing the Commission.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: That would only
work politically if it is done in a completely overt way during
the periods where there is no Commissioner and to say, "There
is no Commissioner. We are the voice of the Commission and therefore
we have the right and the obligation to do what the Commission
would otherwise do" and to have a nationally known and recognised
political figure doing it at that time. It is important that that
should not happen when we do have a Commissioner because, as it
is, there is political objection from Eurosceptic quarters if
the European Commission representation in London suggests anything
or gives money to people for a conference or something of this
kind. We have all experienced that. I do not think you would want
me to give ammunition in that direction. There would be a wholly
new situation where there is no British Commissioner and we would
be justified in saying quite openly, "The voice of the Commission
needs to be heard and here is a British person who is not a Commissioner
but is a political figure doing that job in London and in the
rest of the UK."
Q374 Baroness Cohen of Pimlico:
I would like to turn our attention to the impact of the Reform
Treaty on the Council of Ministers. Do you think that the new
system of qualified majority voting is likely to be significant
in practice and will it be to the UK's advantage?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: It will not have
a big difference but it will have some difference. The difference
it will have will be of course wholly to Britain's advantage because
we will have a higher proportion of the votes. I do not expect
a big thing from it. One of the benefits is that it will be more
transparent, more explicable, more rational in appearance but
in terms of the actual difference in the decisions it will be
beneficial but slight.
Q375 Baroness Cohen of Pimlico:
What do you feel about the effects of the declaration on blocking
minorities? I cannot help feeling we are going to find ourselves
as a blocking minority some of the time.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I hope that that
will not be a customary position for Britain to find itself in.
To be fair, you would think from the discussion in the British
press that this happens all the time. If we look at an unblocking
minority, at the number of occasions on which qualified majority
voting has been exercised and we have been overruled, we have
been overruled less than most of the other Member States under
the present arrangements. Although this looks good, I do not think
in practice it is going to make a huge difference.
Q376 Lord Maclennan of Rogart:
We have heard it said in evidence that the Council proceeds by
consensus rather than by voting normally. Do you think the transparency
of the Council's procedures, when it is sitting in a legislative
capacity, might force or induce or encourage members to vote where
before they have not voted and have arrived at a consensus?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I am inclined
to agree with you and I have never been an enthusiast for the
transparency of voting for exactly that reason. I know it is politically
incorrect to say that and we all should believe that everything
should be transparent but I think the Council of Ministers is
in some ways more like a Cabinet than a legislature, even though
formally it has legislative powers, and that the position in which
there was haggling and negotiation rather than the necessity to
take up public positions was on the whole a good arrangement.
Q377 Lord Jopling:
Going back to blocking minorities, whilst I suppose it is politically
incorrect to talk about Luxembourg compromises, do you envisage
that some delegations will have, as the UK delegation has had
in the past, a standing instruction that where a delegation claims
to abide by the national interest other delegations will join
in with that and support it and therefore create the block? That
is the way the classic compromise works. Do you see that continuing
so that an individual delegation of vital national instruments
can be protected? I know we have been rolled over on that.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I think that will
happen so long as it is not abused. If countries do it in a very
restrained, limited way, that system could continue and it will.
If on the other hand, particularly if it is the same country doing
it all the time, they frequently have recourse to something which
even to somebody from different countries is manifestly not of
supreme national interest, that system will not continue to operate
and the more formal arrangements will apply.
Q378 Chairman:
If I may come back to QMV, Professor Simon Hix, whom you know
I think, has written to us expressing some quite grave concerns
about the new voting formula. He says, that as to the population
based part, it over-represents the four largest states relative
to the power that they should have in a truly equitable system
while the state based part of the formula over-represents the
six smallest states. He says, "Put another way, citizens
in these ten states"—those that benefit most from the
population and state based parts—"are far more likely
to be on the winning side in the EU than citizens in any of the
18 other states and this could have considerable long term consequences
for the legitimacy of the EU in a large number of states."
What is your reaction to that?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: I cannot pretend
to have done the statistical analysis that the Professor doubtless
has done before coming up with that conclusion. I would be surprised
if I came to the same conclusion but I cannot convincingly refute
it in the absence of joining in the statistical game.
Q379 Lord Kerr of Kinlochard:
Would you not agree that in any case the present voting system
gives a considerable under-weighting to the population base?
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: Absolutely.
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