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European Council: 14 December 2007

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for engaging with a Statement that, although long, is none the less important in the number of issues addressed. Let me begin by saying that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister did what Prime Ministers are required to do: he fulfilled his obligations both to Parliament and to the European Union. He appeared before the Liaison Committee, an important body in parliamentary terms; went to Lisbon and signed the treaty; and then went to the European Council in Brussels. Whatever embarrassment the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, may feel about my right honourable friend’s signing later than the other European leaders, that is nothing compared with a Prime Minister not going at all to sign a treaty, which is the position in which the noble Lord’s party would have had us. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, is right: we are stronger by working closely with our colleagues in Europe on trying to tackle issues that every noble Lord recognises are important, be it climate change, the drugs trade or international terrorism. All these big issues cannot be dealt with in isolation; we are far stronger by working with our colleagues. Perhaps I may continue on the theme of the red lines and where we are in our discussions. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, is concerned that we might put ourselves in a difficult position. I do not believe that that is true. Having negotiated in the justice and home affairs arena for two and a half years, I know that it is possible to be very clear about wanting to ensure that Britain’s interests are fully and properly recognised and respected, and to do so in a spirit of negotiating with colleagues to work as closely together as possible in the fields to which the noble Lord referred. I am sure that that is exactly the position we would wish to ensure that we are in for the future. I agree, too, that this is about the parliamentary democracy in which we live and about Parliament’s ability to take the decisions. How we decide to discuss the legislation is a matter for the usual channels. I am open minded on that. If noble Lords feel that debates of a particular kind would enhance our opportunity to scrutinise the treaty I would be more than happy to consider it as a real possibility. But I shall leave that in far more capable hands than mine. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, brought us back to the principle of the reform treaty versus the constitutional treaty. I have no doubt that we will debate this at great length, and I have already had the privilege of a six and a half hour debate on it. However, the principle is that the constitutional treaty would have abolished the European Union and re-founded it under a single constitutional order. That is fundamentally and distinctively different from what we have before us now, which is an amending treaty. I understand the politics of all this. I understand that politically it is useful to discuss and describe an issue as being about trust in a Government—that is what opposition parties do—but we have to be realistic. What we have before us is fundamentally different and should be treated properly in a parliamentary democracy by having it debated within Parliament. We look forward to the young, dynamic leadership of the Liberal Democrats. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, was referring to himself in that discussion—or perhaps he was referring to me. We wait with great interest to see what happens, and we look forward very much in working closely with them to ensure that we ratify this important treaty, whoever the leader of the Liberal Democrats is tomorrow. I am extremely grateful for the support that the noble Lord has given me. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, asked a number of detailed questions. I cannot answer the one on the sex trade in Moldova because I do not have the information. I shall write to the noble Lord on that. On Kosovo, the noble Lord referred to the ““cultural and religious heritage””, as it says in the Statement. That covers some of the artefacts to which he referred; that is a very important part of what is focusing the minds of those involved in this. On Iran, we know that the reports from El Baradei’s and Solana’s reports have been negative, so we are looking to see if we can get a new UN Security Council resolution that will increase pressure on the Iranians, but we remain committed to a negotiated solution. So I think that we have the authority to continue as we propose. As for immigration and migration, a lot of discussion took place. The Council’s conclusions underline the importance of taking forward what we might describe as a comprehensive approach to migration in line with what the Commission described as its new communication on common policy. We need to think about migration from a global perspective and ensure that through the European Union we can work with third countries effectively to manage migration. As noble Lords know, that led to recent directives in the field of legal migration. We shall have to decide whether we opt in to those proposals in January. Our first priority is to tackle illegal migration and work with third countries to manage that process as effectively as we can. The reflection group is not looking at Lisbon. The 2008-11 cycle of the Lisbon strategy will be agreed in the spring Council. Instead, the reflection group is looking longer term, to 2020 and 2030, and our priorities are firmly on the agenda. As for the EU-Africa Summit, there are conclusions in the document reflecting what happened in December. Earlier today, during Question Time, my noble friend Lord Malloch-Brown referred to some of the issues raised by my noble friend Lady Amos. There was strong and real criticism of Zimbabwe from Heads of State and Government, and there have been reports in particular about the comments of the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. That is very much part of the agenda.