European Union: Recent Developments

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, I declare an interest as I was a European Commissioner for some eight years. Watersheds in politics generally become apparent only with hindsight but I suspect that 2012 will prove to have been one for the European Union. It has of course been dominated by the crisis in the eurozone. The eurozone has survived in one piece but at a very heavy price. Not so long ago, the European Union was admired as a model for post-modern interstate relationships from which Asians and Latin Americans wished to learn, but that is certainly no longer the case. Indeed, it is the reverse as Asians compare the way in which the EU has been dealing with its problems with the way in which they handled theirs a few years ago. It has also damaged very considerably the EU’s relationships with its main trading partners in the United States and elsewhere.

Worse still is the price being paid within the eurozone itself. Although the deficit countries have made more progress than they are often given credit for in improving their competitiveness and trade balances, the burden of austerity grows ever heavier. This embitters relations between the peoples of the member states, with anti-German feeling now strong in the Mediterranean and resentment and bailout fatigue growing in Germany and elsewhere in northern Europe.

Such a situation cannot continue. To many in leadership positions in the EU institutions and in other member states, the response is to transform the eurozone from a currency union into a fully fledged fiscal and economic union. That has been the case for some time but this is the year in which those aspirations have taken physical form, with the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council both producing blueprints that would, in effect, place ultimate economic and budgetary control within the European institutions.

I know that not very much progress has been made down that road. At the recent EU summit there was a banking union agreement, but a very partial one. I realise, too, that there are those among the eurozone members who baulk somewhat at the consequences of what is being proposed. However, it is the route map that has been set and it is one that Britain cannot go down. There are other EU members outside the eurozone who cannot do so either. Yet it would be contrary to our national interest to leave the EU and contrary to the national interest of all members, whether within the eurozone or not, for the EU to break up.

The challenge facing all EU Governments is therefore to find a way to maintain the EU in such a way that it can embrace both those who want closer integration and those who, within an overarching framework, want looser and more flexible arrangements. It is to this task that I urge British Ministers to direct their energies. I urge them to seek ways to maintain the single market, the common external trade policy and their supporting structures, from which we derive great benefit, so that they work as effectively as possible in the interests of both the euro-ins and the euro-outs. Likewise, I hope they will seek to maintain and improve the mechanisms for co-operation in foreign policy and security matters. I was encouraged by what the noble Lord the Leader of the House had to say on that subject earlier today.

As the largest of the non-euro countries, Britain is well placed to rally all those outside the eurozone behind proposals to reconstruct the EU along these lines in the interests of both groups. Of course, British Ministers will have an agenda of particular objectives that they wish to achieve; so will others. However, we are far more likely to achieve our objectives if they are presented within such a context rather than on their own or as part of a general resistance to the ideas of others.

Within the eurozone there will be those ready to respond to such an approach, contrary to what the noble Baroness from the Liberal Democrat Benches said earlier. Only last month the new Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Mark Rutte, called for the EU to carry out a review of its powers and consider returning some to the member states. He said:

“What we want to do is have a debate at the level of the 27 whether Europe is not involved in too many areas which could be done at the national level”.

While calling for “more Europe” on budget discipline and in handling Europe-wide financial issues he said that he is,

“not in favour of a federalist European state”.

I have one last point. It is not only in order to enable the euro 17 and those who want a looser involvement to work together in constructive harmony that a British plan for the reconstruction of the European Union is required. We must also bear in mind that there is no guarantee that the eurozone will hold together. Everyone, including us, needs to have preparations in place to ensure that the EU and its core structures can be maintained in the event that not all current members of the eurozone can live within its disciplines or, perhaps, within its aspirations.