European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in our debates on the Bill. It is hard to single out individual Members, but I would like, as always, to express my thanks to the members of the European Scrutiny Committee for their work, particularly the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). In this afternoon’s debate and throughout our proceedings my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) has been active, concerned and sincere in the questions and challenges he has posed to those on the Front Bench. I would like to thank the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) for her support for the Bill and that of the official Opposition. I also wish to put on the record my gratitude for the outstanding work of Government officials not only in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, in putting together this legislation.

The enlargement of the European Union and the establishment of the single market are two of the EU’s greatest achievements. Both are initiatives for which the United Kingdom can claim considerable responsibility and in which it can take great pride. The EU, alongside NATO, has been an instrument of peace and reconciliation that has helped to spread and entrench democracy and the rule of law across Europe, including swathes of our continent where those traditions and values were crushed for most of the 20th century. The single market has opened up prosperity and opportunity to hundreds of millions of people, to the mutual benefit of us all.

That is why the United Kingdom supports further, conditions-based enlargement. Croatia’s accession will further demonstrate the transformative power of enlargement, marking the historic moment at which the first of the western Balkan countries that were involved in the wars of the 1990s as Yugoslavia broke up joins. Croatia’s accession negotiations were closed in June 2011 following six years of significant reform. As I have explained, Croatia has faced the most demanding and challenging negotiations of any candidate country. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made clear when he visited the Balkans this October, the Government fully support the ambitions not only of Croatia but of all countries of the western Balkans one day to join the European Union. That is a further reason why we believe that it is so important that Croatia’s accession is a success; it is blazing a trail that we hope that other countries of the western Balkans will, in due course, follow.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that Croatia should have had to face a very high test to join the European Union. Does he regret that when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, they were not subject to the same rigour?

[Mr Lidington]

When I talk to Bulgarian and Romanian Ministers, they are the first to say that the current situation is deeply unsatisfactory. They feel at times that they are treated as second-class members of the EU, while other member states feel that the standards required at the time of accession were not fully met; hence we have the co-operation and verification mechanism. It is to the credit of Štefan Füle and the European Commission that they have learned from that experience. Chapter 23, in particular, was created explicitly to avoid any repetition of what happened with Romania and Bulgaria.

We have strengthened things even further in the light of our experience with Croatia. The policy now adopted by all member states and the Commission is that for future candidates, beginning with Montenegro, chapters 23 and 24 will be addressed first in any accession process, opened early but then kept open until practically the end. That means that justice and home affairs reforms, including impartial administration of policing, will be taken through national Parliaments and put into law. It also means that as the years of accession negotiations continue, we will see a track record built up so that at the end nobody can be in any doubt that the criteria have been met and that the country concerned is truly committed and ready for the obligations of membership.

That brings me on to the questions from Members on both sides of the House as to whether Croatia is ready. I will not repeat what I said during our debate on the last group of amendments, but I do want to respond to the comments of the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) about Croatia’s record in dealing with immigration and the management of its immigration and asylum systems and border controls.

Croatia has made substantial progress to deliver the necessary reforms required in border management and migration policy. The implementation of Croatia’s new immigration Act began in January, bringing migration legislation in line with that in other European countries. Croatia is already co-operating both with its immediate neighbours and with the EU on the return of illegal migrants and has apprehended 2,370 illegal migrants during this monitoring period. Croatia drafted a new migration strategy in July. We expect it to be finalised by the end of the year and adopted in early 2103.

In 2006, Croatia adopted an integrated border management action plan. This provided a comprehensive framework for the preparation of the external border once it joined the European Union, and it has kept its priorities under review and has been ready to amend them as it has moved towards accession. Croatia already has 81 fully functioning border crossing points. We have made it clear, as has the European Commission, that completion of the remaining BCPs is a priority and the Croatian Minister of the Interior has given us an assurance that they will be completed.

Although there is still work to be done over the next few months, Croatia has put in place strong foundations to manage migratory pressures. The most crucial outstanding requirement is the reconstruction of the two land border crossings at Klek and Zaton Doli in the new corridor between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Intensive work is now under way to ensure that those border crossings and the other outstanding BCPs are complete prior to accession, and our understanding is that the work on the outstanding BCPs will be completed and delivered next spring, ahead of Croatia’s planned accession date.

Our judgment is that there is no cause to fear that Croatian accession will lead to an impact on the United Kingdom through illegal migration, asylum or human trafficking. Let me explain our reasons for that judgment. First, there will continue to be border controls between Croatia and neighbouring EU countries after accession. This will continue until Croatia fully implements the Schengen acquis, which is subject to its own evaluation process. As a result, third-country nationals will continue to be subject to the same levels of controls after accession if they seek to leave Croatian territory to go to another EU member state. There is not expected to be any significant increase in illegal immigration to the UK as a consequence of Croatia’s accession.

Secondly, Croatia does not present a high risk to the UK as either a source or transit country for illegal migration. Thirdly, we have not identified any victims of trafficking from Croatia in the UK. As I noted on Second Reading, in 2011, the US State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons Report”, which ranks countries in terms of their capacity to tackle trafficking and protect victims, designated Croatia as a tier 1 country, alongside the United Kingdom. That means that Croatia is viewed as fully compliant with the minimum standards of the US’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act, so again I think we have good reason to be confident about Croatia’s record.

The Commission’s monitoring helpfully identifies those issues that remain outstanding, but it is also clear that the Commission expects Croatia to be ready on time and we share that assessment. Following the publication of the Commission’s October report, the Croatian Government prepared an action plan, a copy of which has been shared with the two parliamentary scrutiny Committees. That action plan was a clear indication that the Croatian Government have grasped what they need to do, and it is now up to them to deliver.

The Government support EU enlargement and the benefits it will bring to the UK. We are in favour of Croatia joining the EU, we believe that it is well on its way to demonstrating its readiness to join the European Union and we are fully confident that it will be ready by next July. The impact that Croatian accession will have in promoting stability and sending a message of hope across the western Balkans should be welcomed by every party in this House. I commend the Bill, and its Third Reading, to the House.