§ 3.0 p.m.
§ LORD GRANTCHESTERMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will explain in what respects the trade agreements, which the Foreign Secretary proposed on December 20 last should be negotiated with individual member Governments of the E.E.C., are preferable to the comprehensive agreement which the Prime Minister declined when the French President offered to propose it to the Council of Ministers of the E.E.C.; whether such individual agreements would not be subject under GATT to the most favoured nation rule; and how such agreements would affect our obligations in EFTA.]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT)My Lords, I fear that the noble Lord must be under some misapprehension. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary made no such proposal. In the Statement he made in another place on December 20 he said, referring to the content of consultations with the Five: "We for our part want to see the links between us forged as strongly as possible". We have never suggested that these links should take the form of trade agreements.
§ LORD GRANTCHESTERMy Lords, is it not true that for many years the Party which the noble Lord supports stated that it was willing to co-operate commercially in a wider European market, which was what, in their opinion, the Treaty of Rome was about, but that it was not willing to involve Britain in curtailing its political freedom? Why, when they are now offered what they originally asked for, should Ministers feel so aggrieved? Would not a trade agreement removing frontier formalities and tariffs not only benefit Great Britain but resolve the difficulties of Denmark, Austria and Switzerland in particular?
§ LORD CHALFONTMy Lords, there is much more to the Treaty of Rome, of course, than a simple trade agreement, as I am sure the noble Lord will be aware. So far as his comments about other countries in Europe are concerned, I cannot speak for them or for their Governments. Speaking for Her Majesty's Government I can only say that the only form of association or trade agreement that has been offered to us so far, even in the vaguest terms, is quite unacceptable to us, in that it would involve us in an open-ended commitment of a kind to which I am quite sure we should not commit the people of this country. We have said over and over again that our interest is in full membership of the Communities under the provisions of the Treaty of Rome and that nothing else will do. Trade agreements of a sort might have been relevant in the past but they are, to our mind, no longer relevant on their own, and for that reason—although, as I say, I cannot speak for other Governments—our position remains that we want full membership of the European Communities, and our application for that full membership remains now in front of the Council of Ministers.