EU: Treaties

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord’s last words are the key to the matter. The treaty on the table is designed for the 17, although others may go along with it. It will be debated in the various Parliaments. It is designed for the 17 and involves degrees of surveillance and control that are not congenial from the British point of view; we believe that we can best proceed not by being within and making constant objections and delaying the whole process of the 17 that want to go ahead, but by being supportive from outside. That is the position, which seems perfectly sensible and constructive.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, do the Government agree with their own lawyers who have advised that it is illegal to allow the ECJ to police something that is not in the treaties—in this case, the proposed fiscal compact’s debt brake rule? Would it not be wiser to insist that the eurozone follows its own law in the hope that that brings an orderly end to the euro, with a return to national currencies at agreed initial exchange and interest rates? Is that not the only sensible way forward?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is letting his vivid imagination roam into the future. We have not reached the situation that he describes; perhaps we never will. I have made it clear that we reserve our position on how and which institutions should be used and how they may usefully be used to police the new intergovernmental treaty. These matters are yet to be decided; the position, I repeat, is reserved.