European Union Bill

My Lords, with the permission of your Lordships, in order to expedite the business of the Committee—because we have no desire to be thought to be unduly delaying the consideration of the Bill—it would help if, for Clauses 4 to 7, we have a single debate on the remaining groups of amendments that we have tabled that come under the same broad heading. The common features of these amendments are that these are all areas where we believe that there is a broad ranging, cross-party political consensus in this House and in the country that Europe is a good thing and that we would like to see Europe acting effectively in these areas. There is a consensus on these issues and on the need to have a more effective Europe. Also we agree with the Government’s argument that, to a very large extent, the Lisbon treaty provides the European Union with sufficient competences and powers to deal with many of these issues. We agree with that argument with two exceptions. One is the point that I made with some force—although I know that the Government did not agree with it—namely, that the Government are trying to have their cake and eat it on the Lisbon treaty. They are saying that the Lisbon treaty gives us all that we need but they are also trying to say that the provisions of the Lisbon treaty cannot in important respects be brought into force without referendums. The Government wish to restrict the passerelles, Article 48(6) and anything which provides flexibility within the Lisbon treaty. So it is not true that the Government stand behind the Lisbon treaty; they are seeking to tie up its implementation in important ways, which could be detrimental to the European Union being effective in the areas that we wish it to be effective. Secondly, treaty drafters are not blessed with perfect foresight; they cannot anticipate all the circumstances that might occur ahead of them in the real world. A good example of that is the need for the treaty change, under the simplified revision procedure, to establish a European stability mechanism to deal with the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area. No one anticipated that at the time that the Lisbon treaty was going through the House. One has to recognise that circumstances can change. When the Government say, ““No change in anything for this Parliament”” and, ““We will not have lots of multiple referenda but we may at some stage in the future have another big revision””, we fear that it will defer the possibility of flexibility in the European Union powers for some considerable time—probably, at the minimum, a decade. We have to ask ourselves whether this is a sensible, realistic policy. The Government say that it is realistic because there is no will on anyone’s part to change the treaties and, therefore, that their policy is not out of line with the rest of the European Union. However, we saw in the establishment of the European stability mechanism that, when faced with a crisis, the European Union was prepared to act and to take the necessary powers. The amendments deal with a series of areas and I do not intend to go over each one. I shall give one or two examples of where, within a medium-term time horizon, there might be a need for action which could result in pressure within the EU for some kind of treaty change, probably under the simplified revision procedure. The fear on this side of the House is that the Government are putting themselves in a position where they will rule it out on principle, without any serious consideration of the issues, and Britain will find itself isolated and ineffective when I am sure many of us in this Chamber want it to be playing a leading and effective role in the Union. The examples in Amendments 23C and 23E relate to climate change and energy security. On climate change, the commitment of the EU to put itself at the forefront of the battle to tackle climate change has been striking. At the same time, at the Copenhagen summit the EU found itself largely bypassed. On energy, we all know that there is a real problem. There is a lack of common policy, particularly among the big member states of the union, in our dealings with the major energy suppliers, particularly Russia. These are problems that are widely accepted within the European Union. There is a desire for Europe to be stronger on these issues. It is possible—I am not saying it is certain—that people might come up with treaty proposals or amendments to the treaty under Article 48(6) to address these weaknesses. For example, on climate change, it is perfectly possible that we could see people arguing for a trade model for Europe’s dealings on climate change with the rest of the world. In other words, the European Commission would become the single negotiator on climate change matters with other countries. It would work to a common negotiating mandate established by majority decision by the Council of Ministers and the Commission, act as Europe’s negotiator and report to this group of ministers or their delegated officials on, as with the trade model, an almost weekly basis so that the member states have a close supervision of what is going on. Something like that might help the European Union to be much more effective in negotiating with China and the United States on climate change matters.