European Union: Recent Developments

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, with regard to the two pieces of legislation before us this evening, I often wonder whether the European Union is getting too large to manage. That concern applies to those current practitioners who are in Brussels on a regular basis. With regard to the Irish protocols, I would draw the attention of the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, to the fact that these exceptions were brought in to persuade the Irish electorate to support the recent treaty—as the Minister conceded. To some extent, the Irish received the assurances lest they go and vote against the proposals; to some extent they were rewarded, therefore, for their opposition.

When we discuss Europe in your Lordships’ House, I often think that the wisdom of Solomon would be insufficient to allow one to navigate through the different processes and views. However, I want to mention one thing—the general rhetoric around Europe at the moment. The front pages of the press scream various things from time to time about what is wrong in Europe or what Europe is doing to this country, but they do not trace back from that point to why these things are being done. These things are being done because successive Governments and Parliaments have agreed to them. The European Commission has not come here and stolen the powers that it has taken away—we have agreed to these things, in our wisdom or otherwise. Successive Governments have put their hands up for them, voted at 4.30 am and done all that they do in these summits. When it was given the opportunity—which was rarely, it has to be said—this Parliament agreed to them. So when the headlines scream and we wish for someone to blame—those to blame are the people who agreed to these things. Europe is not stealing anything from this country; we gave it. When someone is given a power, we can hardly claim shock or horror when it is exercised. The blame, if you like, for where we are today is our own.

The last time people had an opportunity to have a say—when we started off in the European Union—they voted for the Common Market. My worry is this: there are certain things that it is common sense to do collectively. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the generations that witnessed the wars and the horror in Europe; it is obvious that people would have wanted to avoid repetition of that. In addition, there is a whole range of things—the environment, air quality—where it is sensible to work collectively with your neighbours. There is nothing wrong with that. The fundamental dishonesty underlying all this, however, is that there are two thought processes here. One process looks to the market and wants to follow the open market as the main reason for doing all this. There is another, federalist group, which believes in a Eurostate. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to believe in. However, there is a fundamental dishonesty, which led to the euro crisis, because countries that were never fit for it were admitted to that currency. Indeed, even the Germans and the French broke the rules. Germany was able to recapitalise at interest rates that were entirely suitable for it, but were the ruin of some of the other eurozone countries. There is this fundamental tension. It is dishonest, because we are sitting, allegedly, among partners at the table, some of whom are plotting in another direction from ourselves. This needs to be opened out into a proper and honest debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle—in a bravura performance—said that his job was to challenge the Government and see what they actually were doing. He did not burden us with enlightenment as to his own party’s position, but it seems to be in a swither and I do not know how it will end up. However, there is another thing: we undermine public confidence in the European Union in this country by pretending that things are not happening. For instance, on immigration, I asked a number of recent Written Questions. I was told that we do not routinely assess the likely number of people who will come to this country. Why not? How can it possibly be that a Government are not assessing as significant a thing as that? It is this fear of discussing something hugely significant, such as the importation of large numbers of people—as if that will not have an impact on our community—and things like that, which is undermining people’s trust. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, we have to have a completely new debate with new ground rules, which has to be open and honest.

Above all, the fundamental fault line is whether we want ultimately to go to a federalist solution with a state, having already started to put some of those institutions— such as the presidency and the nonsense of a foreign affairs service—into place, or whether we are a trade body with bits added on. We need to solve that. However, regarding the rhetoric about how awful Brussels is, which has been in the press for years and which not only this Government but others are now taking up, your Lordships should bear in mind that Brussels does what we have allowed it to do.

We need a complete rethink. We have the re-emergence in some of the southern European states of fascist parties, and we have countries such as Spain with 25% unemployment and more than 50% youth unemployment. Can your Lordships imagine what this House and the other place would be like if we had those figures? That is not the sustainable basis for democracy in the long run. I wonder whether, in order to pursue this dream that some people have, we are pushing some of these countries towards destruction by insisting on this. We need an open, honest debate but the first people who we have to be honest with are ourselves because we have agreed to all the powers that Brussels is exercising.