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European Affairs

I must conclude my speech. I have been speaking for more than half an hour. I want to deal with one point that the Foreign Secretary made, and then conclude my remarks. The Foreign Secretary referred to the possibility— he thought it was a dark plot of some kind—[Interruption.]—he thought that I thought it was a dark plot—that the positions of President of the Council and President of the Commission might be combined. As he knows from my recent letter to him, the Government's White Paper on the IGC of July stated that the posts of President of the European Commission and the new post of President of the European Council could not be held by the same person. The post of the new EU President of the Council is bad enough. Instead of nation states taking it in turns to chair meetings, a single, central powerful figure would be in charge of the EU's agenda. The danger if that were combined with presidency of the Commission is obvious. The Foreign Secretary wrote back to my recent letter to claim that the article forbidding members of the Commission holding any other occupation would prevent such an outcome. He did not use that exact word in the debate today, but the wording is that they cannot hold another occupation, but of course an occupation is not the same as an office. The Secretary of State for Defence holds another office, but he does not hold another occupation. It should be noted that the High Representative or Foreign Minister of the Union will be a member of the Commission, so saying that the treaty precludes members of the Commission from holding any other office in the European Union does not seem to hold water. However, if the Foreign Secretary wishes to give the House the categoric view for the future that that is impossible under the treaty, we will be grateful to receive that assurance.