European Union Bill

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and encourage him. There are respectable precedents for referendums on accession of members in the EU. Indeed, in 2005, Mr Chirac promised the French electorate a referendum on accession of any new member into the European Union. I believe that that has been negatived by the French Senate but, knowing French politics, it could easily come back. That does not square with what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said: that the amendment is against the words of the founding treaty. If the French can offer their people a referendum, surely we could do the same. I understand that Bulgaria has, under a citizens' initiative, now raised sufficient signatures to propose a referendum to their Government on the membership of Turkey, in particular, which may affect Bulgaria more than some other countries.

I hope that this modest amendment will be acceptable to the Government. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said that no powers are given away by further members acceding to the EU. That is not quite accurate. The more individual members there are, the more powers we are giving away on immigration, for example, because we no longer control our borders, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said, in his opening remarks. There are also financial implications, depending on the financial situation of the countries involved. We are definitely in danger of giving away powers by allowing new members in, without the British people having any say whatsoever on whether they want to give those powers away or not.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, in some of the things that have been said so far on this amendment—an amendment to which I am opposed—there has been an implication that every application for accession has been from a poor country coming along with its begging bowl. Since we became a member, Sweden, Austria and Finland have all joined the Community; it has not been a magnet attracting just poor countries. We have had the incredible spectacle of almost every country in Europe wanting to join the European Union not on the basis of what they can put into it or get out of it—one thinks of the famous Thatcher question, “Can we get our money back?”—but because they see it as an important political structure and believe that they will be weakened if they are not part of it.

The other small point that I want to make is that there has been some rather derogatory insinuation about countries such as Turkey. I seem to recall that just over 50 years ago Turkey was one of the founder members of the Council of Europe, and it has played an active role as a member of the Council of Europe throughout our time as a member. So successful has its engagement with the Council of Europe been that at present the Committee of Ministers is chaired by Turkey—a position that we will be taking over later in the year. Turkey currently holds the presidency of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and has been elected by the membership covering every European country except Belarus, which has been excluded on the grounds of its incapacity to fulfil the requirements of democracy and, in particular, to abolish capital punishment. Turkey plays a very active, involved, respected and well regarded role, and it is rewarded in terms of the power and authority given to some of our participants. Therefore, I hope that in future we can absolve ourselves from making cheap and snide remarks about countries which are in fact our allies, not only in the Council of Europe but in NATO.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I wish to make three basic points. First, the whole essence of the European Union Bill concerns the transfer of powers and competences. As has clearly been stated by noble Lords before, the amendment does not relate to a transfer of power or competence and so remains firmly outside the scope of the Bill. Secondly, as has been made clear, the amendment, which is on the subject of accession, does not dilute the importance of the British veto, so again in my view it should not be taken forward. Thirdly, I align myself with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on the question that you pose about accession. He gave Macedonia as an example but what if several countries were joining and, having knocked on doors, you found that two people liked one country and one did not like another? What kind of response would you get to that? Therefore, let us put this issue into context. The European Union Bill is important but the amendment should certainly not constitute a key part of it.