HC Deb 26 July 1978 vol 954 cc1547-8
43. Mr. Dykes

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he is satisfied with the programme formulated for the second half of 1978 by the German President of the Council of Ministers.

Mr. Judd

Yes, Sir.

Mr. Dykes

Can the hon. Gentleman say a little more? The Chancellor of the Exchequer had a meeting with the Council of Finance Ministers a few days ago. Does the Minister regard that as a satisfactory beginning for a more positive effort on the part of the Government to get the monetary fusion plan really under way?

Mr. Judd

The position is that the Finance Ministers were asked to get on with the job. There is a lot of work to be done before further consideration takes place, and that work is now well under way.

Mr. Gould

Will my hon. Friend explain to his EEC colleagues that the test of the Bremen currency proposals is whether they are workable and helpful to our economic prospects and those of Europe and not whether they accord with some narrow theology of European unity? Will my hon. Friend throw his weight against any such Pavlovian response and ensure that we take a severely practical approach to these questions?

Mr. Judd

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear, the way in which these proposals will be judged by people throughout the Community—and, indeed, in history—is not in terms of their theoretical economic virtues but on whether, as my hon. Friend has said, they help the ordinary people in the Community.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing

As we are within days of the Davignon steel plan, will the Minister convey to the President of the Council our considerable concern that West Germany is acting as a back door to the excess of imports of steel, against the rules of the Community, from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania? Is he aware that many of these steels are special steels, with the result that we cannot compete in the United Kingdom with the prices and that many of our steel plants are working at less than capacity? Will he deal with this problem when he next meets the President?

Mr. Judd

I am glad to be able to reassure the hon. Lady that I dealt with this question yesterday in the Council of Ministers. There are two distinct problems. First, there is a general problem of indirect imports via other Community members from Eastern Europe. On that point, I sought and secured from the Commissioner an undertaking that something would be done in the next two weeks with a view to intervention, if necessary, by the Commission in August. Secondly, on the very difficult and complex issue of special steels—a problem which has wrought havoc in places like Sheffield already—I put as strongly as I could the fact that we want to see results. Indeed, I got an undertaking from the Commission that. it would take up the matter as a matter of urgency.