Orders of the Day — European Communities (Amendment) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:11 pm on 4 July 2001.

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Photo of Francis Maude Francis Maude Conservative, Horsham 4:11, 4 July 2001

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I must make progress.

There was an active debate in Ireland about the merits of the Nice treaty and the Irish people said no. Which part of that answer did the Government not understand? It is a pretty simple, straightforward answer.

On the point made by Mr. Hendrick, by agreeing a rigidly integrationist treaty, which the Nice treaty is, we—I mean we collectively, we the European Union—have set enlargement back, for two reasons. One is that more integration sets up more hurdles for the applicant countries to jump. The second is that, as the Irish referendum result itself confirms, proceeding further with the process of integration generates a degree of political controversy which slows the enlargement process.

There is plenty of evidence that enthusiasm in some of the eastern and central European countries for accession to the EU is dwindling. The central European correspondent of The Times recently observed:

"Some 68 per cent. of Poles now believe that the country should delay enlargement rather than surrender important positions."

Given the delicacy of the political situation in a number of the countries of eastern Europe—the case that all of us make for enlargement is that it is a way of stabilising those countries and bringing them into the family of democratic free market nations—we should be concerned about that.

The correspondent went on to say:

"Czechs are beginning to think aloud about what would happen if enlargement failed."

Those concerns about enlargement are genuine. They are nothing to do with the Conservative party objecting to the Nice treaty or the result of the Irish referendum. They are due to the fact that the negotiations about enlargement have been extraordinarily protracted and the big issues have simply not begun to be resolved.

We cannot accept the Bill or the treaty in its current form and we will oppose it. We will ask the House to vote for our reasoned amendment. As I said earlier, it would be wrong to proceed with the Bill at present. The Foreign Secretary has clarified for the House that the treaty will fall unless all member states have ratified it.