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European Union (Accessions) Bill

I should make it clear that we object to the clause, not because we wish to challenge the Bill or its purpose, which is reflected in Clause 1, but simply to seek to elucidate some of the Government’s thinking on some important questions that still need answering about the accession process and the treaty that underlies the Bill. We strongly support the purposes of the treaty in bringing Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union, we hope by January 2007—although a safeguard clause may lead to a delay of one year. In that spirit, I shall raise a number of questions and I would be grateful if the Minister could shed some light upon them. First, the European Union that the Bulgarians and Romanians are being invited to accede to in the coming negotiations is a fast-changing structure. One could say that the EU is in a fluid state of debate. A number of views are being aired regarding which way Europe should go and raise some important questions which the Bulgarians and Romanians will have to face as they move towards full membership. The Bill provides that the negotiations can go forward and that accession should take place whether there is a new European constitution or not. I suspect that when the Bill was first drafted it was assumed that there would be such a constitution, but, as we know, time has passed and events have unfolded and there is no constitution in immediate prospect. However, a third pattern could be taking shape. Our Austrian friends, who have now assumed the presidency of the Union are talking about a ““psychological relaunching”” of the European project and of filling in the vacuum left by the defeated and aborted constitution with something new. Three possibilities have been aired. The first is that the constitution should continue, which is what the treaty’s authors seem to have assumed originally; secondly, that the constitution should be cherry-picked and a new document should be put together quickly that embraces some of the agreed bits of the former constitution; and a third possibility is that the constitution should be dropped. I am concerned about the middle of those three options. It is true that not much is likely to have been agreed by January 2007, but if the safeguard clause operates and Romania and Bulgaria do not join as full members before January 2008, that is a longer time, and during the next two years it is possible that something will be agreed. How does the Bill, which puts necessary provisions into UK legislation arising from the accession treaty, cope with a situation where there may be a different document that is not a constitution on the basis of what was rejected by the Dutch and French referenda, but does not mean that a constitution is completely absent? My second question may overlap with an amendment which we shall consider later. The treaty requires, and the Bill endorses, a full acceptance by both Romania and Bulgaria of the acquis communautaire—the full range of competences of laws and powers of the European Union as established as of today. But many people have said, and it is recognised within the Commission, that the vast accumulation of those powers and competences, which are said to amount to no less than 98,000 pages, is out of date. I understand that even now, committees in Brussels are at work filtering it, with the aim of reducing it radically. How does that square with the requirement that the Bulgarians and Romanians must accept the whole acquis? Are they and we prepared to accept adjustments to the acquis that may involve a different Act from what is written in those 98,000 pages? My third question is regarding whether the treaty will bind Bulgaria and Romania to accept the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. Again the Minister may say that that has not been legislated into existence, that it was part of the aborted constitution and that we do not need to worry about it. But is that right? The charter has become detached from the constitution debate and has developed a separate existence and certainly a separate lobby of support throughout the European Union. It is possible that that charter, although its necessity was originally denied by Ministers, could now be given legislative form under Section 2 of the European Communities Act. That would be a new situation which would confront the new arrivals, Bulgaria and Romania, and it is not clear whether the Bill provides for that. I repeat that I do not wish to wipe out the clause but to elucidate from the Government their views on those three questions.