§ 1. Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow)If he will make a statement on the agenda for the current intergovernmental conference regarding Community law. [135160]
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Keith Vaz)The intergovernmental conference is about making the institutional reforms necessary to allow enlargement to proceed. The issues remain those set out at the beginning of the conference; that is chiefly the size and composition of the Commission, the reweighting of votes in the Council of Ministers, the extension of qualified majority voting and closer co-operation between individual member states.
§ Mr. GillI know that you, Mr. Speaker, prefer brief questions, so will the Minister simply tell us whether the Government of whom he is a member will, at Nice, veto article 280A which seeks to create the position of a European public prosecutor?
§ Mr. VazI assure the hon. Gentleman that we have made it quite clear that we do not support the idea, the concept or the proposal of an EU public prosecutor.
§ Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South)Is my hon. Friend aware that double standards are to be found in the position adopted by Conservative Members given that it was a Conservative Prime Minister who went the furthest to abolish the right of veto and introduced majority voting? 140 Is it not a fact that, in any enlargement of the European Union—which the Opposition claim to support—it would be necessary to have an extension of qualified majority voting; otherwise the whole institutional framework would came to a grinding halt?
§ Mr. VazMy hon. Friend is right. As he correctly said, what is important is that the European Union and the Commission operate efficiently. As I have said to the House before, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude)—St. Francis of Maastricht as I have described him—signed the Maastricht treaty and agreed to qualified majority voting on 42 occasions during the passage of the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty. In 1996, 80 per cent. of the votes taken at the European Council were taken on the basis of qualified majority voting. The right hon. Gentleman will also know that in 1998 Britain was on the losing side only twice. Therefore, we want an extension of qualified majority voting when that is in our interests.
I say to my hon. Friend that the issue is not a question of double standards, but of treble standards. Conservatives have so many different views on Europe that I have lost count of them.
§ Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon)May we have an assurance that the Government, in any consideration of the expansion of the European Union, will not contemplate smaller countries being treated as second-class nations within the European Union?
§ Mr. VazI certainly give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. We believe strongly not in a two-speed Europe, but in a Europe where all the member states are treated equally. That is why we have said on several occasions that we support enhanced co-operation. However, we support it only on the basis that the decisions to be taken do not undermine the single market and treat all states the same. We will not tolerate a Europe with a hard core of countries; all countries should be treated equally.