EC Presidency (Hansard, 4 March 1992)

§ 10. Mr. Stevens
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are Her Majesty's Government's principal goals during the United Kingdom presidency of the EC.

§ Mr. Hurd
Our first job will be to run an efficient presidency. We aim to complete the single market, prepare for enlargement of the Community, support democracy and reform in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and prepare the ground for carrying out the Maastricht treaty.

§ Mr. Stevens
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will remain firm against raising the present European Community budget ceiling and that they will continue to encourage EC financing arrangements based on supply-side economics, not on the massive transfers of money between one country and another through the Commission?

§ Mr. Hurd
We had a first skirmish on that at the Council on Monday. I do not believe that the Commissioners justified their proposal to raise the ceiling. There is headroom within the existing ceiling—for example, we are not in favour of financing an interventionist industrial policy or increased spending on the common agricultural policy.

§ Mr. Bernie Grant
If the Foreign Secretary is still here—which I doubt—when Britain takes over the presidency of the European Community, will he insist that some race legislation is passed in the European Community to protect black and minority ethnic citizens when they move around Europe?

§ Mr. Hurd
I do not think that that is a matter within the competence of the Community.

§ Mr. Onslow
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that our European partners are not losing sight of the need to make the European Commission democratically accountable, any more than they are losing sight of the need to conform to the European Commission directives that we scrupulously honour?

§ Mr. Hurd
When I talk about implementation of the Maastricht treaty I mean that one of the things that must be done is to set up the arrangements agreed at Maastricht by which member states can be taken to the European Court and punished if they do not carry out obligations that they have assumed.

§ Mr. Beggs
Does the Secretary of State accept that one of the Government's principal goals during the United Kingdom's presidency of the European Community should be to secure recognition and acceptance of national boundaries by all member states?

§ Mr. Hurd
I do not think that there is any question in the Community of the boundaries between the member states.

§ Mr. Soames
Has my right hon. Friend seen the excellent proposals tabled by Sir David Williamson for the reform of the bureaucracy running the European Community? Does he agree that if—in his admirable phrase—we are to prevent the Commission interfering in the nooks and crannies of everyday life, it would be greatly to the advantage of all European countries if there were a thorough overhaul of the mechanics for the administration of the Commission?

§ Mr. Hurd
Yes, indeed. What the Commission has to do now there is a new article in the Maastricht treaty is to ensure that its practice complies with it and that it does not encourage the drafting of legislation or the working out of projects on matters that can perfectly well be dealt with by member states, or even closer to the citizen, and that applies to English and French cheeses.

Mr. Robertson
Of course, this Government will not be responsible for Britain during the presidency—they will be watching from the Opposition Front Bench. That is fortunate for Britain. Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the Government's attitude in Maastricht has left a crippling legacy of anger and resentment among our Community partners about the double opt-out, and that it has even led to a denunciation of the Prime Minister and the Government by their own right-wing allies in the European Community? The new Labour Government who will be elected five weeks tomorrow will immediately sign the social charter and set about getting the social chapter firmly into the treaty itself. By doing so, and by being at the heart of Europe, that Government will be able to represent Britain properly during the presidency.

§ Mr. Hurd
There seems, not for the first time, to be a division between the Opposition Front Bench and Back Benches. Opposition Back-Bench Members have been questioning my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself on the basis that we shall be here for a long time, whereas Front-Bench spokesmen still nurse the occasional illusion. Let us not shatter that illusion for a week or so. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) is not usually given to fanciful rhetoric, and if he studies the movement of opinion in Europe he must know that since Maastricht more and more people have begun to comment on the future of Europe in the same sort of way as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I did before. There is no doubt about the direction in which the intellectual tide is flowing. On the whole, that is a good thing. Another reason that we should be against the Labour party is that we should not put them in a position to buck the trend.