European Council

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

As the Prime Minister has said, we need to look at how transitional arrangements should operate in future. In his Financial Times article, my right hon. Friend suggested the idea of looking at a new entrant’s GDP in relation to average EU GDP. However, he made it clear that we are not necessarily wedded to that proposal, and are keen to hear ideas from others.

It is clear that simply relying on a somewhat arbitrary number of years and saying that all restrictions will fall away automatically at the end of that period will not restore public confidence in the enlargement process. I profoundly believe that enlargement has worked to the benefit of Europe as a whole, including the United Kingdom, so I want to see public confidence restored, and looking again at transitional controls is one important way to do that.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that if the Prime Minister were here—I wish he was—he would join me, as I hope the Minister will, in wishing the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, a speedy recovery from her serious skiing accident.

Will the Minister take it from me that I am a very strong pro-European—always have been—but even I am very concerned that this miserable little Council meeting seems, according to his statement, to have spent so little time on the real problems that the European economy still faces. I am talking not about the eurozone, but about the heath of our economy. Only two weeks ago, Angela Merkel made a very important speech about the rift between the rich or super-rich and average, ordinary people being a danger to democratic institutions.

My last point is that we seem to be sleepwalking towards enlargement with three other poor countries, which concerns my constituents and me.

[Mr Lidington]

On the hon. Gentleman’s last point, there is no question of sleepwalking. There is a very rigorous process of accession negotiations, each stage of which succeeds only if every EU member unanimously agrees that the relevant standards have been reached by the candidate country. Even on the most generous estimate, it will be a fair number of years before any of the current candidate countries are in a position to be ready to join the European Union.

I happily concur with what the hon. Gentleman said about Chancellor Merkel. She is a formidable leader of Germany, and a good friend of this country as well. I am sure that the whole House will wish her a very speedy recovery from her skiing injury.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about debates on the economy, this Council had been designated for a long time as the occasion for the first discussion at Heads of Government level on defence and security policy for several years. There is a limit to the number of significant issues that can be pushed into a single summit meeting without doing injustice to their importance. There was a very good discussion of some broader economic issues at the October European Council, and I am absolutely confident that the Heads of Government will return to the economy in 2014.