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Europe in the World (EUC Report)

My Lords, I was particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, in his closing remarks referred to the European Parliament. Often in this country it is fashionable to mention all the other institutions except for the Parliament; there is a collective unconscious agreement, even if it is not a conspiracy, that we do not really mention it very much and regard it as being of very little importance unless it gets into the newspapers with some dramatic headlines. That is a pity as it has a very viable and valid role to play and should be regarded as an extremely important institution and not to be feared by any of the national parliamentary institutions of the member states. As this all started under the October 2005 Hampton Court summit meeting with the UK presidency, I hope that it will be the case in future that the UK Government will enthusiastically follow and copy some of the ideas in this report. I thank and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, and all noble Lords involved; I would include myself in that except that, unfortunately, I was not a good attender at the later stages of the evidence taking, due to other commitments, although I was there at least at the beginning. I hope that the report will be received by the House as a useful contribution to the debate, much of it very technical, about how the modern European Union can work more efficiently in a functional way, but also with some interesting details that go into geopolitical aspects. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, if I may embarrass him, has been a very distinguished chairman of the committee. I hope that I will not annoy him by saying that he is considered by most people to be a good European; I hope that that is all right and does not cause him difficulties with any of his colleagues on his Benches, as I regard it as a matter of praise and a compliment. I wish my noble friend Lord Roper, his successor, well as chairman of the committee from now on. I shall save time, after the very sensible exhortations from the Whips’ Bench about timeand weather, by saying that I agree more or less completely with all the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Bowness and Lord Harrison. Double-hatting and the Macedonian example were referred to in paragraph 155 of the report; that is just the beginning. The whole of the European Community and now the Union has groped slowly—painfully slowly, sometimes—towards greater cohesion, and there is still a lot more work to be done. One remembers the fusion of the three communities of years ago and how long it took to come together. It is a slow process, but in a way that serves to reassure public opinion—or the opinion of those who wish to follow these matters in detail—that the process is based on serious foundations and is seriously thought out. The report also highlighted the fact that the Commission proposed that there should be a high-level strategic planning meeting at the beginning of each presidency. The noble Lords, Lord Bownessand Lord Harrison, referred to that. It will be an extremely important key to the future. More and more people throughout the world, starting in Europe and fanning out further afield, accept the global role of the European Union. The notion that the United States could be the leader of the Western world is old fashioned and out of date. The United States has, sadly for those of us who love the United States and the American people, made so many mistakes in strategic and geopolitical matters recently—mainly in its involvement in the Middle East and Iraq, which has been a huge disaster for America as well—that world public opinion will no longer accept the hegemony and leadership of the United States, unless by some miracle we return to the wise presidents and Administrations of yesteryear, who wished to be the guides to the Western world. But that happened in post-war recovery days and that time may have passed. The United States must be alongside all the other main entities of the world in coming together in a small planet, where there are urgent problems to be solved, to work with the European Union, Russia, China, India and South America. The whole of South America has become a very important area, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, acknowledged in his recent visit to Santiago de Chile. I include Africa in that, and helping Africa. It is the last continent that needs urgent help and could be the dynamic, high-technology continent in 70 or even 50 years time. Who knows? Each continent has its turn in world history, does it not? The growth and success of the euro worldwide is an accomplished matter—it is a matter of fact now and not just an emotional supposition. The euro has overtaken the United States in issuing universal bonds both on public and private sector accounts. The euro is firmly established inside the European Union as a successful and confidence-building currency. Given the improvements in the machinery, functioning and modalities of inter-institutional liaison, which are so expertly and splendidly set out in the committee’s report, what will be the priorities of the EU in the future? I offer a few homespun thoughts, leaving out the complex details given the time pressures of today’s debate. The European Union is very important from the point of view of putting over the philosophy of balanced economic policies and of combining the imperatives of economic growth and the good bits of the Anglo-American economic model with the strong social welfare tradition of European Union countries. That is a somewhat unfashionable thought for the newspapers of this country, but I am sure that it would meet the wishes of the wider European Union public and of those in the eight new member states from eastern Europe and even of those in the two islands, which, being small territories, are less beset by substantial economic problems. I hope that we are agreed that the United States needs to concentrate more on its own internal problems. It has huge unsolved economic and social problems and can no longer concentrate on being the policeman of the world while ignoring those problems. We still see the overhang of the tsunami that occurred in the richest country in the world and the fact that people have not been rehoused. United States citizens must be deeply worried about these matters and anxious that the US should settle more of its internal problems. That anxiety has surfaced in the presidential campaign. The United States should deal with world problems as one power among many other equal entities rather than saying, ““We call the shots and determine policy””. That is very important vis-à-vis Israel/Palestine. This June will mark the 40th year of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Arab man or woman in the street presumably makes a comparison between the rightful ejection of Iraq from Kuwait a year after its invasion and Israel not being obliged to leave the occupied Palestinian territories40 years after its invasion of them. Some 32 United States vetoes, many of them under Chapter 7, have prevented Israel doing what is required, as moderate Israeli citizens now realise. This is causing harm to Israel, which is a great country. I support Israel enormously as a country, which, like any other, has its own internal problems of some magnitude. However, I do not support its occupation of the Occupied Territories. The European Union has a lot to do with aid to the third world. I am glad that the European Union/African Union policy is now developing. It is in its early stages. The African Union is still a very weak body and much more needs to be done with the help of the European Union. In the future the European Union will be involved in helping to modernise and reform the UN, working on energy policy, the environment, climate change and many other matters. I am sure that it will do so with increasing skill and support from all the member states.