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European Union (Amendment) Bill

Amendment No. 11 excludes paragraph 5 of new Article 9D. As the Committee heard, that paragraph will slim down the Commission so that from 1 November 2014 the number of commissioners will correspond to two-thirds of the number of member states; in other words, 18 out of the current 27. Commissioners will be selected from all member states on the basis of equal rotation, reflecting the demographic and geographical diversity of those member states. We believe that the Lisbon treaty will deliver a smaller, more efficient and more focused Commission that is better able to deliver on issues that matter to our citizens. The UK has long supported a smaller Commission. An unwieldy one would be an obstacle to delivery by the EU and would lose focus on those priority tasks that the Commission needs to carry out. Of course, the EU needs an effective, efficient and well-led Commission to ensure that it delivers on the policies that, as I have said, actually matter to people in Europe. I remind noble Lords that the report of this House’s EU Select Committee concludes that, "““the reduction in the size of the college of Commissioners is an important change””." Indeed it is. It continues, "““and is intended to enable the Commission to function more effectively””." A smaller Commission is, in any case, an existing obligation under the Treaty of Nice, which requires that the number of commissioners be less than the number of member states once the EU reaches 27 members. However, it is the priorities delivered by the Commission that are important and not, frankly, the nationality of the commissioner. The current Barroso Commission is, of course, only one-27th British, but the priorities it is delivering on issues such as climate change, better regulation, the single market and competition and the Lisbon agenda itself are largely in line with our own approach. Commissioners are to be chosen on grounds of their competence and independence and we have benefited from their independence, for example, in driving forward market liberalisation. Once member states do not have permanent commissioners, the criteria of independence will be even more important under this treaty than ever before. A further argument is that it is not only the commissioner jobs at the top that are important—they are crucial but not the only ones of great importance. We are very well represented as a country at the highest levels of the Commission below commissioner level. If I may just remind the Committee, we have four chefs de cabinet of commissioners, three deputy chefs de cabinet of commissioners, four directors-general, three deputy directors-general and 39 other directors who are also British. There was a debate in this House not many weeks ago in which it was generally agreed that we do pretty well at the top level of Commission appointees. Therefore, we do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who tabled Amendment No. 11. Let me move to Amendment No. 12, which the noble Lord largely spoke about and which would exclude from the Bill the way in which the President and members of the Commission are to be appointed. The reformulation of the procedure is part of the process of updating the Union’s institutional framework. The particular aspect of the appointment procedure which has attracted attention, and did this afternoon, is that of the appointment of the President of the Commission, under which the European Council will have to take account of the political complexion of the European Parliament when nominating a new Commission President and that the Parliament will ““elect”” that person if it agrees with the nomination. As has been said—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made the point just a few minutes ago—the European Council proposes a candidate to the Parliament and the Parliament either elects that person or does not. If it does not, it goes back to the European Council to consider the position. At a later stage, the President-elect, if he has at that stage got the approval or the election of the Parliament, goes back with his team to the Council. We argue that what will happen is broadly similar to the existing procedure under which—and I remind the Committee of this—the European Parliament must approve the nominee for Commission President. What does that mean in practice? It means, surely, that the member states have to take account of Parliament’s position in making that nomination. The European Parliament already makes its views clear on possible candidates for the Commission President. We saw that with the process that led to the appointment of the present Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, in 2004. The European Parliament at that time made clear its intention to ensure that the Commission President reflected the political majority in the European Parliament. The European Parliament President, Hans-Gert Pöttering, made it clear that the largest political group in the Parliament, the centre-right European People’s Party, to which, at the moment at least, the party of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, belongs and which in many ways has control as it has the largest number although no overall majority—I am sure that pro-Europeans like the noble Lord and others in the party will wonder why on earth the Conservative Party is thinking of leaving the European People’s Party to move to the outer reaches of that Parliament—could not support a candidate of another political colour. That is what happened in 2004, and what is likely to happen after the next European elections. As the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, told the Select Committee when he gave evidence to its inquiry into this treaty, the provision in the treaty for the European Council to take into account the political complexion of the European Parliament when choosing the Commission President, "““will mean … that it would be difficult for Member States to come up with a proposed president who was known to be violently contradictory to and opposed to the weight of opinion in the European Parliament””." I do not think that it will make as much difference as all that. We welcome the formal acknowledgement of the Parliament’s role in the appointment of the Commission President—a role that it already exercises in practice. It underlines the democratic accountability of the person appointed, which is not an inconsiderable point in this argument. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, fairly admitted when he moved Amendment No. 12, our own European Union Select Committee made this point at chapter 4.109: "““The need for the European Council to take into account the results of the parliamentary elections is not a bar to the European Council coming to its own decision as to its preferred candidate, but the Council will continue to be unlikely to nominate a candidate who could not command the parliamentary majority necessary for election. In that sense there is no fundamental change from the current system which requires the Parliament’s approval of the European Council’s nominee, but the practical consequences of the Treaty provisions are””—" as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, ““as yet unclear””. We argue that this is a good move, not a bad move. It changes very little, and I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.