HC Deb 13 March 1991 vol 187 cc932-4
6. Mr. Knapman

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Anglo-German relations.

10. Mr. Patrick Thompson

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on the Anglo-German summit on 11 March.

Mr. Hurd

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and others of us had excellent talks with Chancellor Kohl and his colleagues in Bonn at the summit on 11 March. The subjects discussed included the Gulf, the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and issues affecting the European Community and the NATO alliance.

Mr. Knapman

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comprehensive and reassuring reply, but is it not the case that our new-found friends the Christian Democrats, are keen on federalism and a single currency? In those circumstances, what is to happen to our vision of a group of sovereign nation states co-operating together to achieve their mutual targets?

Mr. Hurd

If my hon. Friend is thinking of ties between parties, that is not strictly a matter for me. However, there is a lot to be said for coming together with like-minded parties against any socialist dominance in the European Parliament or anywhere else.

On the governmental point to which my hon. Friend referred—our approach to the two intergovernmental conferences is based on the guidelines established last year and set out most recently by the Prime Minister in his foreword to the Foreign Office White Paper on the Community.

Mr. Patrick Thompson

While welcoming the development of a good working relationship with Germany, as described by my right hon. Friend, will he assure the House that the economic strength of a new united Germany should be regarded as an opportunity rather than a difficulty or threat?

Mr. Hurd

I think that my hon. Friend is right. I believe that there is everything to be said, partly due to the reason that he gave and partly due to the natural political weight of a unified Germany in the Community, for ensuring that we take every opportunity to make ourselves better acquainted with their ideas and make them better acquainted with ours.

Sir Russell Johnston

Did the Prime Minister take the opportunity to tell Chancellor Kohl to ignore any political Scud missiles emerging from Cirencester or Finchley and assure him that there would be no more peculiar conferences to examine the German psyche?

Mr. Hurd

The hon. Gentleman bases his question on some lurid press accounts of that occasion, which I attended and which was noted for its sobriety and good sense.

Sir Peter Blaker

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is not only people of the Prime Minister's generation, but those who are so old that they actually took part in the second world war, who want the closest possible relations between the United Kingdom and Germany? Is it not natural and sensible that the leadership of the European Community should be in the hands of the United Kingdom as well as those of Germany and France?

Mr. Hurd

As I have said, I am sure that it is right that we should be closer than we have sometimes been to the ideas of others, and that they should be closer to ours. That is happening in the Community, not just among the three member states that my right hon. Friend mentioned, but among other smaller states such as the Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium, with which we are increasing the intensity of our contact.

Mr. Radice

In welcoming the improved climate in Anglo-German relations, may I ask the Foreign Secretary whether he agrees that the fears about Germany expressed in the United States by the former Prime Minister are groundless? In any case, is not the best safeguard against an over-mighty Germany a strong European Community?

Mr. Hurd

We are fortunate that the German leadership is determined to use the strength of a united Germany within the Community and within the Atlantic alliance. Long may that continue. If we can help to make sure that that German policy is permanently routed for the future, we will have done a good turn to the alliance and to the Community.

Mr. Kaufman

Following the talks with the German partners, will the Foreign Secretary give a clear and specific reply to the question which his right hon. and dithering Friend the Prime Minister dodged at Prime Minister's Question Time yesterday: do the Government now support a European central bank and a single European currency, or was the visit to Germany just another example of the style of this Prime Minister—empty words and no action?

Mr. Hurd

The right hon. Gentleman is adapting his familiar platitudinous question about the community charge. It is as much nonsense in one context as it is in the other. As I said in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman), the guidelines on which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is approaching the intergovernmental conference on economic and monetary union were set out last year and were spelt out most recently by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in his foreword to the White Paper.