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European Union (Amendment) Bill

Most of us would accept that states should co-operate to assist each other in many areas, for example in combating terrorism or money-laundering; the Minister mentioned a number of other areas. What has not yet been justified is why those areas of co-operation—which are obviously beneficial to all those states involved—cannot continue to be achieved by intergovernmental co-operation, as they have been under the old Pillar 3 provisions? Why is it necessary to have EU legislation, with things introduced by qualified majority voting and a codecision of the European Parliament, as opposed to states agreeing that they want to co-operate on these sensible areas? Those matters do not start and end at the European Union borders. We have to co-operate with the United States and with other countries; why do we need to move away from the intergovernmental process in this fundamental area?