European Communities Bill

Speech by Baroness Ludford delivered to House of Lords on Thu 1st Nov 2001

My Lords, we must say "Yes" to the Nice treaty because it prepares the way for enlargement. Its rejection would send a political signal that we are not keen on enlargement.

As justice and home affairs spokeswoman for the European Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament, I am especially conscious of the importance of admitting the countries of eastern and central Europe, and Cyprus and Malta, in order to extend our co-operation on fighting organised crime, terrorism, and trafficking in arms, drugs and people--especially women and children for sexual exploitation; and to co-ordinate our immigration and asylum policies.

As enlargement is central to the Treaty of Nice, I make no apology for mentioning Cyprus. I returned only last night from a fact-finding visit there. I met, among others, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Kassoulides, and the Turkish Cypriot President, Mr Denktas. I make my remarks with humility--I was about to say in the presence of experts like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, but he is no longer in his place. I am a firm supporter of the accession of the island of Cyprus and all its peoples to the European Union. However, I am concerned at the consequences of accession taking place in the absence of a political settlement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, said, enlargement is the opportunity to end divisions. The perpetration of the division of Cyprus is undesirable both for the EU and for all Cypriots. I hope that accession will be a catalyst for a political settlement.

The assertion that the Government of the Republic of Cyprus are negotiating accession on behalf of all Cypriots is, I am afraid, merely a legal fiction. There are no Turkish Cypriots in the negotiating delegation, and no one knows how they would be incorporated even if they accepted any such arrangement. Most Turkish Cypriots want to join in EU accession and their isolation is sad to behold.

Much of the deadlock in the UN efforts at political talks is down to the obstinacy of Mr Denktas, who is as stubborn as he is charming. But the sense of frustration cannot be directed at only one side. There is also an onus on the Greek Cypriots, who presently hold many of the trump cards. They must make bridge-building efforts in order to demonstrate their firm attachment to the concept of a new partnership between two politically equal communal entities on which a bi-zonal federation must be constructed.

I regret that neither the European Parliament's rapporteur, Jacques Poos, nor the Commission's president, Sr Prodi--who were both in Cyprus last week--saw their way to actually crossing to the North, even if they met some Turkish Cypriots during their stay. There is a need for creative and imaginative thinking whereby acknowledgement of and respect for the equal status of the Turkish Cypriots, and pragmatic acceptance of the reality that a separate administration exists in the North, is not immediately pounced on as being equivalent to legal recognition of the "Turkish Republic of North Cyprus".

Although the Helsinki European Council said that a political settlement between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots should not be a pre-condition for accession, it also said that, when deciding on accession, all relevant factors would be taken into account. I urge Mr Denktas and Mr Clerides to provide some such relevant factors in the form of progress towards a settlement in the next crucial 18 months. This will be good for Cyprus and good for security in Europe.

Returning to the Nice treaty, I agree with others that it is necessary but flawed. Judged by the criteria that the Government claim to share with the Liberal Democrats--namely, EU decision-making should possess the qualities of transparency, efficiency, accountability and legitimacy--we are still falling a considerably way short of that goal.

Decision-making is made even more confused, and therefore less transparent. I do not know whether I am disappointed or relieved that none of my constituents, let alone any member of my family, has so far asked me to explain the proposed complicated new voting arrangements. Democratic accountability has barely improved since co-decision with the European Parliament has hardly been extended, even to matters where qualified majority voting will apply in the Council. In reference to the Council, our own Government's grasp of the importance of openness is distorted by their view that the European Union is no more than an organisation of sovereign states--or in the words of Mr Peter Hain yesterday in the Financial Times, a "Europe of independent states". We are surely inter-dependent. We are not a diplomatic League of Nations. The fact that the Council will, under the Nice treaty, continue to legislate in secret reflects a completely wrong perspective on the demands of democracy and accountability in the Union. The Council may not yet be a representative assembly, but with a membership of 28 it cannot continue to operate as a cosy club shutting out the citizen.

Similarly, the Government do not seem to grasp the fact that the European Parliament's primary role is to ensure, in partnership with our colleagues in national parliaments, that legislation is decided democratically. The European Parliament can do this by having co-equal power with the Council whenever the Council votes by QMV.

This Government failed to fight hard to minimise the loss of UK Members of the European Parliament. Germany will keep 99; Britain's membership will be reduced from 87 to 72. But on both the money laundering directive and the take-over directive in the European Parliament, to which co-decision applied--both very important measures, including to the Government--the views of German MEPs were less liberal than those of British ones. Surely the Government have allowed what can only be called their disdain for the European Parliament to undermine our national interests.

On the topic of disdain, I take the opportunity, as the noble Lord, Lord Owen, has spoken, to recall with amusement the occasion in 1984 when he chaired an SDP/Liberal Alliance press conference in Brussels. With myself and my SDP colleague on the platform, both candidates for the European Parliament, he declared that he was opposed to direct election to the European Parliament. Well, I got there eventually.

As my noble friend, and, I am delighted to say, my new leader, Lady Williams of Crosby has said, the situation in the area of justice and home affairs is lamentable. First, in the area which is under Community competence--that is, asylum, immigration and borders--there is something of a mess. Member states as well as the Commission can make proposals, which they do like confetti, usually when they take over the presidency of the European Union and want a new initiative for a press conference. The Nice treaty gives a modest boost to qualified majority voting in this area of the treaty, but mostly we shall have to wait until 2004 for generalised majority voting, let alone for a European Parliament power of co-decision.

The United Kingdom has a supposed opt-out from that area. However, the research paper in the Library has three pages of proposed legislation in respect of which the UK is opting in. I suggest that the Government's intentions are less than transparent in relation to that supposed out-out. For the part of justice and home affairs which is exclusively intergovernmental--that is, policing and criminal judicial co-operation and now the co-ordination of prosecutions through Eurojust--the Nice Treaty does nothing to improve democratic accountability. The European Parliament is barely consulted on these so-called third pillar measures and the protection of the European Court of Justice cannot be invoked. This Parliament, as my noble friend Lady Williams indicated, needs to be watchful that the Government do not seek to escape scrutiny here by slipping through third pillar decisions by affirmative procedures.

The Treaty of Nice shows that the purely intergovernmental method of weaving the fabric of European institutions and policies has had its day. I am glad that it has been agreed to hold a convention starting in early 2002 comprising members of the national parliaments, the European Parliament, the Commission and member governments whose task will be to submit to the intergovernmental conference in 2003 a proposal for a constitution as the basis for its work. We can then take the opportunity to rectify the errors of Nice and to scrap the Byzantine system of qualified majority voting in favour of a simpler one that we can all understand. There must be co-decision whenever there is majority voting. I welcome the surge of activity since 11th September to tackle crime and terrorism, but there must be democratic control to ensure that the breach of civil liberties is minimised. We need to settle on the European Union relatively few but very important powers at the supranational--federal, if you like--level, including not only asylum, immigration and free movement of people but also cross-border crime.

But in those areas of justice and home affairs the European Court of Justice must also have full powers of judicial supervision which is currently lacking. It would be guided by the entrenched fundamental rights guaranteed in the treaty through the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I am, I am afraid, surprised that noble Lords such as the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Waddington, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, dislike the fact that European Union powers would have to be exercised within a framework of respect for individual rights. I think that is a gain for the citizen against the bureaucracy and I am reassured by it.

Finally, the objective of being able to tell our fellow citizens who does what, why and how, which is all that a constitution does, has moved a little nearer with some parts of the Nice treaty, but, I am afraid, farther away with others. We must achieve such a clarified constitution in 2004, but in the meantime we must ratify what is an imperfect treaty but one whose rejection would set back enlargement.