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European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, the amendment relates to an article which is not even Article 308, which has been referred to so often, but to Article 235 of the treaty of Rome. It is something of a miracle that the authors of the treaty of Lisbon have managed to arrange the same three figures in a different order. I am sure that if the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, had been in his place he would have told us that it had some cabbalistic significance equal almost to 666 being the sign of the devil, but he is not here so we shall be spared that. However, it is Article 235 of the Rome treaty which noble Lords opposite ratified along with the rest of us when we joined the European Community, as it then was. Is it a passerelle? No, it is not. A passerelle is a provision that enables the Council to change something in the Lisbon treaty without going through the whole process of treaty change. This provision does not allow that. It allows the Council to do something which is not provided for in the Lisbon or any other treaty if, by unanimity, the Council so wishes to do it. That is not a passerelle, I am sorry to say, so it is wrong to call it that. It is a provision, I agree, that allows for some flexibility, and in the past it has been used—quite often, or in fact invariably—with the agreement of this country because it has been seen to be in our overall interest. Since it requires unanimity, I have no doubt that that is the touchstone that will be applied in the future. As to the past passerelles of which noble Lords have been reminded by a letter from the Leader of the House, I say merely that it is an admirable thing to have done. It is quite right to remind us that they exist, but they are not in any sense sinister. They are something to which successive British Governments have agreed over the years and fall, therefore, under the rubric of pactus sunt servanda, which now that the Mayor of London is favouring the use of Latin in schools, will perhaps come to be more regularly understood and less mocked than it has been in the past. It is a fairly important aspect of the way the European Union works. It is right that the Government have reminded noble Lords of the existence of these passerelles—they are passerelles that have been agreed in the past—and how they continue to exist, but I do not think there is anything sinister about them. I hope that, on reflection and in the light of assurances given by the Leader of the House, the noble Lord will feel it is possible not to proceed with the amendment.