HC Deb 01 April 1977 vol 929 cc726-32
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Frank Judd)

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about business to be taken in the Council of Ministers of the European Community during April. The monthly forecast for April was deposited on Tuesday.

At present, five meetings of the Council of Ministers are proposed for the month. Foreign and Finance Ministers will meet jointly on the 5th, Foreign Ministers on the 5th and possibly the 6th, Finance Ministers on the 18th, and Agriculture Ministers on 25th and 26th April.

Ministers at the joint Foreign Affairs and Finance Council will discuss a Commission assessment of Community budget problems and priorities.

At the Foreign Affairs Council, Ministers will consider the follow-up to the European Council of the 25th and 26th March and the Community's position in relation to the Conference on International Economic Co-operation which will resume at the end of April. Other likely items for the agenda are fisheries matters, renewal of the GATT Multi-Fibre Arrangement, participation by the Community in the International Sugar Agreement and the Community's relations with Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Malta and Yugoslavia. Preparation for the second meeting of the ACP/EEC Council of Ministers in Fiji on 13th and 14th April will also be on the agenda.

Ministers at the Finance Council will discuss preparations for the Downing Street Summit Conference in May and for the meeting of the Interim Committee of the International Monetary Fund.

Agriculture Ministers will resume consideration of common agricultural policy prices for 1977–78 and related measures.

Mr. Hurd

I thank the Minister for making the statement. As usual, he has announced a very heavy programme of Community meetings in the forthcoming month. Has he worked it out that today we are exactly halfway through our Presidency of the Council of Ministers? Will he accept that some of us are becoming increasingly worried about the way in which the meetings are being handled by some of his colleagues? Is it not beginning to look as if the tactics employed, for example, by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and by the Minister of State, Department of Energy, although they gain a certain amount of support in this House, do not in any way safeguard the interests of Britain but increasingly undermine our influence and our bargaining strength in the Community?

Could not the hon. Gentleman set in hand, or ask the Prime Minister to set in hand, a half-term review of these tactics and priorities so that we try to do a little better for Britain and Europe in the second half than we have in the first?

Mr. Judd

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this central point. I am sure that with his experience he will be the first to agree that the Presidency places on the individual in the chair a very heavy responsibility to promote consensus. This is, of course, the constitutional responsibility, but in promoting consensus it is realistic of the chair, whatever specialist subject may be under consideration, to take into account the real political interests at stake. To gloss over fundamental issues will not help the cause of the Community or the cause of the members of the Community either in terms of the Governments or of the people who lie behind the Governments.

Mr. Thorpe

Can the Minister say, first, whether there will be any further consideration of the joint Community project at Culham in the coming months? Secondly, does he agree that an agreement, on a Community basis, for a North-South conference would be quite invaluable and that preferably, whatever agree- ment is reached, we should try to associate our American allies as well?

Mr. Judd

I am sure that the Community will return to the subject of JET. The importance of Culham and the claims of Culham are well recognised. As to the CIEC, a great deal of time and energy is going into promoting a common Community position, with which I am personally associated. It will be invaluable for us, as the right hon. Gentleman himself says, if we can go in with an agreed position before we hold the conference. We still look back with some concern at the fact that we did not reach an agreed position before the important conference on UNCTAD last year, and we do not want to repeat that mistake.

Mr. Jay

As many of us are becoming increasingly worried about the expenditure of public money involved in all these travelling expenses and all this hospitality, which only increases the public sector borrowing requirement and leads to friction between Western European countries, would it not be better for all if the Government announced that they will not attend any more of these celebrations until there has been a drastic reform of the common agricultural policy?

Mr. Judd

We are well aware of my right hon. Friend's deep commitments and uncompromising attitudes on these matters. However, we attend the Community to fight for the interests of the British people. We believe that the interests of the British people would not be served by withdrawing from crucial discussions. The point is what we contribute to those discussions in terms of the results we all want to see.

Mr. Marten

Which of the items that arose at the recent European Council of Ministers are to be followed up? Secondly, what are to be the main subjects of discussion at the ACP/EEC meeting in Fiji?

Mr. Judd

All the items that were detailed in the statement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will, of course, be followed up in the context of the Council. At the ACP/EEC meeting we shall basically be discussing how we ought to review the progress of Lomé and the relationships between the ACP/EEC countries within that context.

Mr. Hooley

Is my hon. Friend aware that it is not a good practice to make this type of announcement to the House on Friday, as it affects such an enormous range of interests represented in the House? Will he bring that to the attention of the Leader of the House?

Will not the Foreign Affairs Ministers be referring at all to the very important and dangerous situation in Southern Africa?

Mr. Judd

On the first point, I understand that there is strong feeling on both sides of the House about the importance of having adequate time to discuss matters. I certainly take very seriously the point that my hon. Friend has raised. There is from time to time a suggestion that we should handle this item by having a written statement. I personally would not favour the adoption of that course, because I believe that we should have an opportunity to discuss the situation in the House.

South African matters are of course from time to time looked at in the context of the political discussions that take place within the Community.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. May I say, to put them out of their agony, that I shall call the six hon. Members who are standing, but it is not likely that I shall call anybody else.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke

Referring to the multi-fibre discussions that are to take place very shortly, will the Minister confirm, first, that it is very much in the interests of the United Kingdom to arrive at a common European position on the matter? Will he also confirm that, by and large, European interests coincide on this matter, whereas world interests show conflict? Thirdly, will he tell us whether he thinks that there is a probability that the common European position will be arrived at at the next meeting speedily and in time for the subsequent world meeting at Geneva?

Mr. Judd

In answer to that point, it may be helpful if I say a word about our position. The Government are pressing for improvements in the Multi-Fibre Arrangement in order to provide greater protection for our textile and clothing industries against disruptive low-cost imports. There is one unresolved item—the treatment of cumulative disruption. It is hoped that the Council on 5th April will agree to the introduction of a new safeguard enabling imports of particularly sensitive products to be restricted by a single measure. There is not a complete and absolute coincidence of interests within the Community. There is a great deal of coincidence of interests. We are determined, as in all wider international discussions, to try to achieve a common Community interest.

Mr. Pavitt

Is my hon. Friend aware that in these continued discussions on the common agricultural policy we have a considerable amount of satisfaction? For the first time the consumer's and the housewife's voice seems to be heard. Will Her Majesty's Government continue to press on that front? Secondly, may I ask my hon. Friend, regarding the specific discussions on the International Sugar Agreement, whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that the original commitments that were given have been fulfilled and whether any basic changes are being proposed in the April meetings?

Mr. Judd

On the first point, of course I recognise, as do all my colleagues, that in agricultural policy—international no less than national—we must reconcile the interests of producers and consumers, but it is terribly important that the interests of consumers are protected and receive priority attention. This is what we are determined to achieve within the context of the discussions, because this is central to the overall economic policy.

On the second point, I can assure my hon. Friend that the overall objective at Luxembourg next week will be to try to get a sound opening negotiating position for the Community on the ISA.

Mr. Townsend

Are the Foreign Minister of the Community to have a chance to discuss the recent invasion of Zaire from Angola—an invasion possibly backed by the Cubans? In view of the vast mineral resources in the area, particularly copper, is it not important to the European Community that a co-ordinated approach should be achieved without delay?

Mr. Judd

As I think the hon. Member will recognise, and as I said previously, African issues are from time to time—not regularly—discussed within the political channels of the Community.

Mr. Spearing

The International Sugar Agreement is to be discussed, but will my hon. Friend tell us what the Community's approach is, because, as I understand it, there are 3 million tons of sugar surplus and there was a 17 per cent. increase in acreage of beet sugar in Europe last year? How can the Community participate in such an agreement if it is to dump the 3 million tons of sugar on a sensitive world market? Does this mean that it must be burnt, or is it to be stockpiled?

Mr. Judd

My hon. Frend has, in his characteristic way, put his finger on a very central problem. Of course we have to reconcile the interests of producers in the Community with the interests of producers outside it. I hope my hon. Friend will accept that what we are determined to do in the discussions next week is, above all, to look for a sound international approach, in which we take very seriously our responsibilities to Third World countries—responsibilities which, I know, trouble my hon. Friend deeply.

Mr. Budgen

Does the Minister agree that even at its present size the Community is finding it very difficult to achieve agreement on relatively unimportant matters? If it is expanded to include Mediterranean countries with very different agricultures and very different interests in foreign affairs, it will find it impossible to achieve any sort of agreement on anything save the most trivial matters concerning the Common Market.

Mr. Judd

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman demonstrates such defeatism this morning of all mornings. We live in a real world, and in that real world we think it important to bring together people with strong national interests and try to work out meaningful international agreements among them. That is what the Community is about, and that is what we are determined to do, but we believe that those agreements will be sound, valid and durable only if we take into account the genuine and deep interests of the member States involved.

Mr. James Johnson

I was stunned by the ludicrous comments of the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd), who is supposed to speak for the "John Bull" party opposite. Will the Minister kindly inform the House of what happened at our debate on fisheries a few evenings ago, when there was not one Member on the Opposition Benches or on these Benches who did not support the Minister when he said that he was determined to succeed in attacking the common fisheries policy? That is a fact of life. Does not my hon. Friend think that Opposition Members should be more honest when making certain comments about our Government?

Mr. Judd

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says. I think that it was a very educative debate, which, I hope, will have been read closely by ministerial colleagues throughout the Community. We in the British Government are determined to be as communautaire as anybody in our approach to reach a Community solution. We want an effective common fisheries policy, but we recognise that Britain is putting more into this than is any other member State, and we believe that for a common policy to be effective that fact has to be recognised.