European Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:02 pm on 15 June 2000.

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Photo of Francis Maude Francis Maude Shadow Secretary of State (Foreign Affairs) 2:02, 15 June 2000

I will not, if my hon. Friend will forgive me. I am keen to make progress.

Even if the charter does not start as a legally binding text, experience shows that that is how it may end up. Social laws started off as a social charter—a statement of general principles—and developed into a social chapter, complete with costly, binding regulations. Before the Minister for Europe gets excited about my having signed the Maastricht treaty—[Interruption.] I am aware of that; I remember it. That is not a staggering revelation, though the Minister will recollect that, as a result of our negotiations, the social chapter did not apply to Britain. That was the beginning of a model for a more flexible Europe, which he would do well to study.

Precisely because I know what tends to happen—the integration process goes ahead inch by inch, step by step—we are particularly concerned about the charter. There is a real danger that it will turn into a charter for interference in national law and for job-destroying regulation that could turn centuries of common law in this country on its head. This country's legal system is different from those of other countries and we must not allow that to be overset.

If the IGC contains elements that would transfer powers from Westminster to Brussels, which the loss of the legislative veto, the institution of the ESDI in anything like its current form and the charter of fundamental rights would clearly all do, the public should have the right to vote on them in a referendum before they are enacted. I would expect the Foreign Secretary to be a strong supporter of that because, like us, he wants the public to be brought into the argument. He favours talking to them like grown ups on these matters, as he wants to do on the single currency, though he is frustrated by the Chancellor.

Last Monday, it was decided that reinforced co-operation will be on the IGC agenda. Does the Foreign Secretary agree with the view of some formidable pro-Europeans on the continent that that should be taken seriously? He may remember that Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt said: It is obvious that full integration is not a realistic goal for thirty countries that are very different in their political traditions, culture and economic development. To attempt integration with that many countries can only lead to complete failure. Does he agree with the compelling analysis in an editorial in The Economist a few weeks ago entitled "The Void in Europe", which said: the EU's main modus operandi—that all should move together or not at all—looks unworkable. Different countries have different aims, and for perfectly good reasons, not the least of which is that their electorates feel differently about the whole process of European integration … A multi-system Europe, in which groups of countries proceeded to integrate and co-operate in different ways according to their different choices, would offer a more stable and viable way to run a large, liberal community of 30 or more countries … ? The right hon. Gentleman said nothing about that issue which, we now know, will be on the table at the IGC later this year, and he did not say what the Government's view was. Does he agree that, while Britain should certainly seek to retain the veto, we should not, in principle, exclude others from proceeding with schemes of closer integration which we would not wish to join ourselves. Is that not the right way to draw the poison from the relationship, which, in reality, is the enemy of public support for Britain's continuing membership of the union?

The IGC comes at a crucial time. As I said, there is a fork in the road for the European Union and a choice has to be made. Only if there is the right vision will the right choice be made. One route at the fork leads to an open, flexible Europe that celebrates diversity and does not seek to suppress it. That could be a network Europe, made up of nation states co-operating closely—perhaps more closely than now. The British public so clearly want that that I wonder that Ministers should even try to contest it.

At the fork is another route, of uniformity and uniform integration, in which national vetoes are all but abolished. That is being proposed by the European Commission and is supported by some Governments. The European Union, with eyes bigger than its stomach, would start tasks but not complete them and a tangle of subsidies and protective practices would still be in place. There would be an unreformed budget and agricultural and fisheries policies from a bygone era. It would be an EU with its own Government, taxes, foreign policy, criminal justice system, constitution, citizenship and currency. We are being dragged further into that bloc Europe or single European superstate because of a pathetic failure of vision and will on the part of the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. It is time that they stood up for Britain.