Athens Summit (Hansard, 9 November 1983)

§ 57. Mr. Gould
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are Her Majesty's Government's major priorities in preparing for the Athens summit.

§ Mr. Rifkind
We have two major priorities. First, to reach agreement on an effective control of agricultural and other expenditure, and secondly, to agree an arrangement to ensure a fair sharing of the financial burden of the Community so that no country has to pay a share disproportionate to its relative national wealth. The resolution of these long-standing problems will enable the Community to concentrate fully on the crucial question of its future development.

§ Mr. Gould
Is it not clear from the Commission budget proposals of yesterday that talking tough without backing-up the talk with resolute action is getting us nowhere? Does the Minister accept that the only chance that we have of bringing the budget and the common agricultural policy under proper control is to refuse the EC any further contributions from own resources?

§ Mr. Rifkind
The Commission's proposals yesterday, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, depart from the basis on which net contributions have been assessed for the past four years, a system agreed by the Council of Ministers as a whole and which was the basis of the refunds paid both to the United Kingdom and to the Federal Republic of Germany. For reasons that the hon. Gentleman will understand, we find these proposals unacceptable.

Mr. Jackson
My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary was hooted at the other day when he said that our partners were beginning to understand the problem of the budget. Does not this event show that, although we have made progress, there is still further to go? Does my hon. Friend concede that all shades of opinion in the House condemn this eleventh hour change in a definition that has been accepted over the past four years?

§ Mr. Rifkind
There is virtual unanimity among member Governments of the Community that there is justification for a change in the system to ensure that Britain does not bear a disproportionate burden. As to the Commission's proposal, the so-called new interpretation of the existing burdens, I suggest that it smacks more of alchemy than accountancy and cannot be acceptable either to the House or to any reasonable person who has looked at these matters.

§ Mr. Kirkwood
Having regard to the continued uncertainty in the fishing industry about the common fisheries policy, does not the Minister think that this issue deserves a high enough priority to be considered by the Athens summit so that the uncertainties can be resolved?

§ Mr. Rifkind
I should not wish to underestimate the importance of fishing to the Community, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Athens summit is concerned only with the matters in the Stuttgart declaration, and fishing is not part of that declaration.

§ Mr. Hordern
Does my hon. Friend agree that not only are the Community proposals unacceptable, as he rightly said, but that there can be no question of increasing the Community's own resources unless some equitable agreement is reached?

§ Mr. Rifkind
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that Her Majesty's Government will not consider an increase in the own resources of the Community unless a satisfactory agreement is reached, both on the burden that Britain faces in its contribution to the budget and over the control of the agricultural expenditure. If agreement can be reached on these matters, we shall be prepared to consider the reasons why the other member states believe that an increase in own resources is justified.

§ Mr. Robin Cook
Does the Minister recollect that when the Prime Minister returned from Stuttgart she told the House that she had obtained a tight timetable and an effective procedure for resolving the budget problem by 297 the Athens summit? Will the Minister now echo the summit optimism of his leader, or is it not the case that yesterday's document exposed as bogus that promise, just as it showed that the Commission is as adept at manipulating the budget figures as the Minister's Government are at fiddling the unemployment figures?

§ Mr. Rifkind
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment to his office. Her Majesty's Government continue to hope that these problems will be resolved by the Athens summit. The Council of Ministers entered into obligations at the time of the Stuttgart declaration and we are ready and willing to reach agreement on these matters at Athens. We hope that our partners in the Community will agree.

§ 58. Mr. Leighton
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what results Her Majesty's Government expect from the European Community summit in Athens.

§ Mr. Rifkind
The European Council in Athens will consider the results of the negotiations launched at Stuttgart in June. We hope that the Council will be in a position to take all decisions called for in the Stuttgart declaration.

§ Mr. Leighton
Does the Minister accept that the Common Market quagmire is going from bad to disastrous, that the Dublin and Stuttgart summits were failures and abortive and that, although our hopes are on Athens, we shall experience an even more humiliating debacle? As Commissioner Tugendhat said, the books are being cooked against us and we are being cheated. Is not the only way to solve the problem to scrap the bizarre group of taxes that constitute the own resources, and the only way to reform the CAP to allow each nation the freedom to run its own agriculture?

§ Mr. Rifkind
The hon. Gentleman is calling for Britain to withdraw from the Community. He will be aware that that policy was not only soundly rejected by the electorate at the election but has since been dropped by his party's leadership. We are interested in reforming the CAP and ensuring that there should be, as the Government have said, strict financial guidelines on expenditure on agriculture.

§ Mr. Budgen
Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government's objective on the CAP is to reduce the rate of increase, and that as the rate of increase is now proceeding at about 40 per cent. per annum that objective should be easy to achieve?

§ Mr. Rifkind
My hon. Friend is not quite correct. The Government have said that any rate of increase in agricultural expenditure should be less than the rate of increase in the resources of the Community, because even under the existing system of own resources, without any addition being made to the VAT limit, the buoyancy of the VAT system allows for a natural growth in resources going to the Community. We have said that any increase in agricultural expenditure should be less than that increase.

§ Mr. Russell Johnston
Does the Minister agree that progress is hardly likely to be advanced by hurling alliterative abuse at the Commission? Was any advance notice or information given to the Government about the Commission's new method of calculation?

§ Mr. Rifkind
We were aware that the Commission intended to present a paper to the Council outlining its ideas not only on the matters that have caused controversy but on the wider issues to be discussed at Athens. No doubt some parts of the proposals are constructive and helpful, but we have made it clear that the proposals to which the hon. Gentleman has referred are unacceptable, because they go back on the system that has been applied during the past four years. They would result in an attempt to confuse the burden that now exists for the United Kingdom. We are concerned with the transfer of resources across the exchanges. That is a substantial burden, and nothing that seeks to disguise that fact in the Commission's new proposals can be accepted.

§ Sir Hugh Fraser
As my hon. Friend represents a Government who are committed to the reduction of public expenditure, will he give a categoric assurance that any advance at Athens will depend on the reduction of expenditure by the Community rather than on increasing the levies raised on this country or any other? Until my hon. Friend can give that assurance, he will find it difficult to obtain national support.

§ Mr. Rifkind
The Government have made it abundantly clear that at a time when all Community states are trying to reduce their expenditure it is unacceptable for the Community as a whole to be exempt from that discipline. Agriculture is the single most important area in which economies are required. I think that there is now broad agreement among all the member states of the Community about the need to control agricultural expenditure. The difference between member states is that the British Government have put forward proposals that would ensure the realisation of that aspiration. As yet we have not obtained the agreement of other member states on realistic ways of achieving that.