EU: Fiscal Compact Treaty

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I do not think that it is for me to tell my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in any way where he should seek advice but I am sure that he seeks the advice of all his senior Cabinet colleagues.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, following on from the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, I recognise the concern of the Government that a caucus of eurozone member states should not compromise the integrity of the single market, but does the Minister agree that the best guardians of that integrity are the Commission and the Court? How does he expect them to act in that role if the Government keep saying that they are reserved about the position of the Commission and the Court in the treaties and there is a chorus of criticism from his own Back Benches in the House of Commons demanding that these institutions be kept out of any role?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the first thing is to be clear that the intergovernmental agreement is explicit that it cannot encroach on the competences of the EU and that the signatories to the intergovernmental agreement must not take measures that in any way undermine the single market. That is set out in the preliminary recitals and in Article 2 of the treaty. It is principally a matter for the signatories to the treaty. We have made it clear that the Government have a number of concerns about elements of this inter- governmental agreement, one of which is the use of EU institutions. Some of the proposed uses of EU institutions in this intergovernmental agreement are already in the EU treaties and others are not. The Government will watch very carefully how this develops.