EU Police and Criminal Justice Measures: EUC Reports

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, given the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and the other speeches, my noble friend on the Front Bench has a number of questions to answer. I can assure him that I shall not ask any questions; rather, I will try to sketch in some of the background that has led to the criticisms and problems that have been referred to extensively. I do not need to add to them.

When we see the manifestos of the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats, we may be able to analyse why some of these problems have arisen. They are not very far deferred but, when we see them, both manifestos may not read exactly the same. As a general comment on what has been said, it can be quite risky to live in the ivory tower where you think process is more important than outcome.

I was a recent member of Sub-Committee E. The two reports are very professional and admirable, and I am grateful to the two chairmen for the way in which the reports stayed with the evidence that the committee received with great accuracy and professionalism. In the light of the reports, particularly the first, it is quite surprising that the Government—if they had only considered the circumstances of the 130 and the 35 and your Lordships’ report—ever reached the decision they came to. We all agree that it is entirely sensible for the 28 members, 18 of whom are in the eurozone, to co-operate on the matters covered in the two reports. There seems absolutely no argument for not continuing that co-operation, whatever the political situation may be or may become.

As a subsidiary question, the Union does not seem to have a good way of repealing and reforming things, and it may not have been unreasonable to point that out at the time. However, the missing dimension is politics. I do not see how, after a 65-year journey from the beginnings of Europe, any decision now will escape political consideration as well as administrative and sensible co-operation consideration. The degree of political and constitutional change has been enormous since 1949—Strasbourg; Winston Churchill making his speech; the avoidance of war being foremost in everyone’s mind; some formidable political figures; the solution to the relationship between France and Germany, leading to the creation of the iron and steel community and so on; and always, of course, Soviet Russia and the threat of the Cold War.

The France-Germany dimension is now essentially solved. There may be a residual risk but it is nothing like the risk that was experienced by Europe from around 1870 until 1945. With that record, Europe had a lot to answer for, including the global reach of its colonial pretensions, from which we are still suffering today.

Does Europe have the capacity to start the third world war? I hardly think so. Then it was NATO and the Cold War, but if we look at the United Nations, which is comprised of nearly 200 countries, the picture has completely changed, and it does not need me to spell out the details of those changes. There is a big political question, but the question has changed from that of 65 years ago and indeed that of 30 years ago, before the Berlin Wall came down. What is the right place for 28 countries in a relatively declining Europe with around 5% of the world’s population? I do not think that the answer is self-evident, although sometimes when we consider matters European, there is an assumption that it is.

To me, this is no time for being inward-looking and thinking that these 28 countries are as important as they used to be and that nothing has changed in their relationships and potential relationships with the rest of the world. It is not a time when one can be confident that some journey to a Utopian version of western democracy will work. There is no doubt that there are people in the European system who, although they do not always tell us exactly what they are thinking, believe that they are on some Utopian journey to a version of western democracy. Past Utopian experiments have been patchy and some have been disastrous. There is not the same welcome for western democracy all over the world as we expected only a short time ago there might be. Indeed, one of our biggest problems is that there are quite a number of places we can name where there is no prospect of western democracy and the rule of law as we understand them. We have to think with great care about the European Union’s place in the wider world and not concentrate too closely on our own local problems.

The people of Europe are disenchanted, nervous and uncertain about what is happening. I have always been a keen European, but something is wrong: what exactly is it? Responses crying for the populist approach do not seem to answer the question, because who can draw the line with any accuracy between populism and being rightly in touch with public opinion? I associate myself with the big and uncertain question: where are we going? Are 28 disparate European countries to call for the end of the nation state? I think not. Will the world benefit from an inflexible European bloc? There must be doubts about that. We need, I think, a brand of political leadership of which there is no sign at present.