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EU: Enlargement (EUC Report)

My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, for missing the beginning of his speech. I congratulate him and his committee on the report on EU enlargement. I am pleased to say that for once I agree with almost every comment or recommendation. Enlargement has benefited not only those countries that have joined in recent years but also, in many cases, existing members. Although immigration into the UK appears to be uncontrolled, there is not doubt that the 0.5 to 1 million people who have come in since 2004 have stimulated the economy. The Government, we are reminded, forecast 26,000 over that period. However, with so much to agree with, I think that the Dutch would be disappointed to read that their GDP is only just greater than that of Malta, and it would have been informative to have included an analysis of population trends. The old EU has a rapidly ageing and declining population, as we all know, thus placing a huge burden on the working population. The new members tend to have younger and growing populations, particularly Turkey—although it is not a member—which will be absolutely essential if the EU is to grow and expand. I am sure that without the influx of foreign workers the UK inflation rate would have been immeasurably higher. I was encouraged to read that new members have a preference for a Europe of nations, because they fear that in a federal Europe their voices would be lost. However, I was discouraged to read that there was no evidence that enlargement had led to gridlock in EU institutions. That might have forced a reform of them, which most agree is desirable. The conflict between the deepeners and the wideners, as they are termed, reflects a disenchantment with the EU as it now is. To have the EU as a large and growing single market is surely better than having continued political integration. Let us hope that the desire to sort out the constitutional question is not speeded up at the impending June meetings, and is not shuffled through as minor changes not requiring a referendum in the desire to agree to further countries eligible for enlargement. I was delighted to read that the committee recommends that the constitutional treaty described by the Prime Minister as a tidying-up exercise should not be adopted in its present form. I very much hope that Turkey will be offered full membership; to offer less would be insulting to a great nation and not in our best interests, although how that can be reconciled to President Sarkozy’s views will be difficult. In June, Europe’s leaders meet to try to revive the European constitution. Their desire to do so is contrary to the desires of many of their electorates and, what is more, electors want a direct say in any decisions that are taken. Some 75 per cent of them in a recent poll said that they wanted a referendum. As I have said, our Prime Minister said that the earlier constitution was a tidying-up exercise. In the same breath, he said that he recommended it as a success and a major step forward in creating the kind of Europe that the British people want. It is strange that he did not have the courage to put it to the referendum that he had promised us. Now we are told that we should have a mini-constitution and that without it the EU would stop functioning. However, as the committee so ably points out, the EU has not ground to a halt since the no votes in 2005. Indeed, nearly 5,000 directives and/or regulations have been produced in the past two years. Our leaders are now trying to bring in a mini-constitution by the back door, without referendums—a single legal entity with a single foreign policy and full authority over home affairs. The word ““constitution”” is of course not being used, and the suggestion is that the contents of the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be cross-referenced to give it the same legal value. If only some effort were made to roll back the EU’s powers from the largely unaccountable Brussels bureaucracy, to repatriate employment and fishing and reform the common agricultural policy or even sign off the accounts, the electorate might be more interested. In this age of globalisation, the EU needs to look outward, not inward, and adapt to the challenges of a fast-changing world, to recognise that restrictions and regulation will not meet the opportunities awaiting China, India and the developing world with a population of nearly 4 billion compared to the EU’s 460 million. In the absence of this, a core Europe with the UK excluded or variable geometry, as it is called, may be the way forward. But the EU must go on taking new members for the many reasons so eloquently set out in the report. The more members there are, the more diverse will views become and, one hopes, in the absence of reform of Brussels from within, the larger EU will become ungovernable and will be forced to perform the rationalisation that most agree is now urgent. So my objective is the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, but I believe that it will be achieved by enlargement, creating so many problems that the EU as we know it today will cease to exist.