Council of Europe (UK Chairmanship)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:07 pm on 27 October 2011.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Robert Walter Robert Walter Conservative, North Dorset 2:07, 27 October 2011

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I will come on to say why I believe that there could be dangerous developments on this issue, particularly in relation to the Committee of Ministers, of which the United Kingdom is about to take the chair, and its voting procedures when European Union matters are under consideration. At the Dispatch Box earlier today, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, in relation to the eurozone countries, that it was against his basic view that there should be any form of caucusing within the Council of Ministers. I think that that is absolutely right.

I remind my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe that when he issued his statement yesterday on the UK agenda for the Council of Europe, he also issued a written ministerial statement on voting by European Union member states in multilateral organisations. The EU, of course, is not a member of the Council of Europe at the moment, but it aspires to be one. I therefore raise a concern that has been raised not only by EU member states, but more particularly by non-EU member states. If there was a judgment in the European Court of Human Rights against an EU member state, would the EU member states in the Committee of Ministers, when it came to enforcing that judgment, vote as a bloc or would they do what they do today, which is to decide individually how the judgment is to be implemented?