EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (DEFINITION OF TREATIES) (NO. 6) ORDER 1977 (Hansard, 6 December 1977)

§ Baroness ELLES

My Lords, once again, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for explaining the draft orders before your Lordships' House. From this side of the House, also, we extend a warm welcome to Greece, with the possibility of its entering the Community—a welcome, I may say, which we should like to see speeded up. We should like to see the negotiations over this matter brought to a satisfactory 1474 conclusion as early as possible. We appreciate that the financial protocol between the European Economic Community and Greece should contribute financial assistance to enable Greece to improve its economy in order to facilitate its entry into a highly industrialised area of the Western world.

If I may, I should like to make one interjection in answer to the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Hale, who asked how one ensures that the Members of the European Community remain democratic so long as they are in the Community. I would say from this side of the House that the obvious answer is to have direct elections to the European Parliament as quickly as possible. That would surely be the one way to obtain a proof of democracy in any of the Community countries. Therefore, I would say on behalf of my noble friends that the sooner we introduce legislation throughout the Member States in order to have direct elections, the more sure we shall be of preserving democracy throughout the Members of the European Community.

With regard to the financial protocol with Greece, there are certain aspects that I should like to draw to the attention of your Lordships. If the objective of the European Community in its association agreement of 1961 with Greece is to be achieved—that is, the progressive improvement of the Greek economy—financial assistance should not be delayed any longer than is legally necessary. The loans under the first protocol, which of course were suspended during the colonels' régime between 1967 and 1974, were resumed; but I understand these sums were exhausted by the end of 1975 and to date no further assistance in this form has therefore been forthcoming to Greece from the European Communities, even though the application for entry to the Community was made in 1975.

Negotiations on the terms of loans, which constitute the bulk of the provisions within the protocol may be, very understandably, drawn out, but, if I may say so, they have lasted nearly two years and therefore the momentum which could have gathered under the first loans has been allowed to fall back. The present protocol—again it is a question of timing—was signed in February of this year, but 1475 has not yet been ratified although we are now early in December. In fact, of course, the protocol cannot come into effect until ratification has been made by all Member States. I should therefore like to ask the Minister—and again I apologise that I was not able to advise him that I should be putting this to him—which other Member States have not yet ratified, when the draft order is to be debated in another place, and by what date the Government envisage the ratification, at least by the United Kingdom, of this protocol.

A further point is this. The necessity for the procedure of ratification itself should be questioned since again, as I understand it, the sums involved are contained in the Community Budget and are not necessarily a matter for national Budgets. Sums will, therefore, already have been considered and agreed by all the relevant bodies: the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, including representatives of the United Kingdom. I wonder, therefore, whether this procedure of ratification before outward payment is really necessary. Again, it seems to me that a further period of delay has occurred since the debate took place in the European Parliament in July of this year and yet we are debating six months later this comparatively simple order. It does not seem to me that there is any justification for having waited so long before bringing this order before your Lordships' House.

There is a final point which I touched on when we were discussing the question of the financial protocol with Portugal: that is, the question of the sums to be negotiated. These were apparently decided upon early in 1975 without any prior debate or consultation in any national Parliament. It is comprehensible that sums agreed in 1975 as a basis for negotiation may no longer be relevant or they may be modified or adjusted during negotiations. But it is clearly essential that an examination be made of the timetable in which these financial agreements are being prepared and presented to national Parliaments and to the European Parliament. Therefore, I would most earnestly ask the Minister—and I know that with his usual grace and goodwill he will certainly listen to my request—that a study be made of the timetable 1476 which is followed in making these financial agreements with States outside the European Communities, and also at what stage the national Parliaments could be consulted, and at what stage the European Parliament could be consulted, so that all the democratic aspects of these agreements are clear before any final decision is taken, at the same time taking into account that a minimum of delay should be involved in order that the countries who are to receive aid under the financial protocols should be able to benefit as quickly as possible. From this side of the House, we urge the Government to ratify this protocol as speedily as possible so that the economy of Greece may benefit to the full, as is intended both under the protocol and under the already existing association agreement.

Turning briefly to the financial protocol between the European Economic Community and Turkey, of course we on this side of the House again welcome this assistance which is to be given to the Turkish economy. The only question we might have is whether it is indeed sufficient, when one takes into account the present situation of that economy. Certainly if the eventual adherence of Turkey to the European Economic Community is envisaged in the long-term—and this is certainly something which we on this side of the House desire—great efforts will have to be made both by the European Economic Community and by Turkey itself to modernise its economy and social structures. The necessary evolution is not a process which can be hurried. Nevertheless, we believe that every assistance must be given to Turkey to enable it to improve its current economic situation.

We also believe that any form of consultation which can take place between the European Community and Turkey is very much to be encouraged, particularly through the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Exchanges of views are certainly valuable in considering further and alternative methods of assisting Turkey in its present situation. Indeed, I consider that the prospective enlargement of the Community and the development of the European Community's Mediterranean policy should provide us with an opportunity to discuss and take stock of the kind of assistance that has been given not only to the Mediterranean countries 1477 but, particularly, to countries like Turkey which up to now have been less advantaged than the new countries which have come into the Mediterranean global policy of the Community. So I very much hope that the position of Turkey will be looked at with sympathy.

Comments made in regard to the protocol between the European Community and Greece also apply to this protocol—the question of the timetable, the question of delay in negotiation, and the question of the sums involved. Here, again, we note that the protocol was signed in May, and yet here we are in December debating whether or not it should be ratified; and, presumably, it will have to go through another place, with further delays. So, here again, I would ask the Government to ratify this financial protocol as speedily as possible, and we on this side of the House will certainly be grateful to the noble Lord if he takes on board the points that I have made this afternoon. Therefore, we on this side propose that we approve the orders before your Lordships' House.

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS

My Lords, once again I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the tone and content of her speech. I can only agree with what she has said about the purport and the purpose of these protocols, and I therefore confine myself to the very pointed questions which she put to me about ratification. I do not think it will be found that we have been unduly slow in going through the necessary processes of ratification. I can assure the noble Baroness and the House that the United Kingdom will ratify by the end of December 1977. I have no information to hand on the progress of ratification by other Member States, but no doubt I can get it and it would be of interest to me, as much as to her, to know what the comparative performance has been. I do not think that we can be seriously faulted, having regard to the necessary processes through which ratification needs to go.

The noble Baroness made another very substantial point about the need to study the timetable of this whole matter. I have often felt this in regard to both European legislation and, indeed, internal legislation. I genuinely take the point that 1478 it may well be necessary to study the timetable of ratification; that is, the production of an agreed policy at Commission and Council of Ministers level, and the final ratification when that agreed policy is implemented. It is a very sound point, and I will certainly take it up.

The noble Baroness also touched on the question of the protection of democracy in terms of membership, and perhaps of enlarged membership. She made the point very skilfully that direct elections would help to guarantee this. They might, but of course they are not an absolute guarantee. One can envisage a State, which has receded democratically within its own boundaries, nevertheless going through the forms of direct election for an external purpose. These points need to be studied and, perhaps, provided for a little more formally, as my noble friend Lord Hale put it.

If I may speak personally, I do not anticipate that any of the present membership, or the prospective membership of the EEC will ever be in that position. To this extent, at least, I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness that the mere fact of membership is a kind of antibiotic which guards against a momentary tendency for resiling from democracy. It is very difficult to turn around from the democratic form to which you are committed externally and do something very different at home—not impossible, but more difficult. So to that extent I agree with the noble Baroness that there is that great virtue in membership.

I have always been a very strong proponent of the political unity of Europe, and I believe that we are all united on that in every part of the House, and probably in most parts of the country. There may be argument upon certain economic techniques—and let the argument proceed, so long as there is the essential and wide-ranging unity on the necessity for the unity of Europe for political and defensive purposes.