European Union Bill

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I speak briefly against the amendment, pointing out two or three things. First, it is often overlooked that the founding treaty stated that any European country that fulfilled the criteria has the right to request membership. The supporters of the amendment appear to be moving it in order to be able to campaign against the accession of a European country which has been judged by all the members to be fulfilling the criteria. This will probably not worry them unduly as they want this country to leave the European Union, but they are going against a fundamental precept in the treaty.

The second point is that everyone is meant to be concerned about public expenditure nowadays, but if the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, is correct—I think he is roughly correct—that there are about eight candidates, he has just happily thrown away about £640 million, which is what it would cost to organise the eight referendums in this country, judging by the cost of the AV referendum. That seems a trifle feckless, if I may say so.

The third point, which is also relevant, is that if we were to have a referendum requirement for an accession, we would be saying that a British Government who had gone to whatever capital it was to sign the accession treaty which admitted country A would run the risk of being denied and having to go back to explain that country A could not become a member of the European Union because the referendum had come out negatively. That is an order of magnitude in damage to Britain's foreign policy rather greater than anything we have been discussing so far. Surely no one believes that our relationship with country A would ever be the same again after we had prevented it joining, following ourselves signing an accession treaty admitting them—that is the treaty in which all British interests, such as immigration, cost and so on would be taken into account, if the British Government of the day were worth their salt. That would be a really serious matter. I hope that the Government will not entertain the amendment.

[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.