European Union: Legal Personality (Hansard, 20 March 2003)

§ The Minister for Trade (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean)
My Lords, the explicit grant of legal personality to the Union would have the advantage of clarity and simplicity. But if the European Union were to have its legal personality recognised in the European treaties, it could only be on the basis that the distinct arrangements for the common foreign and security policy and aspects of justice and home affairs were fully safeguarded, along with the existing arrangements for representation in international 376 bodies. The Government would need to be sure that the necessary safeguards were in place before taking a decision on this issue.

§ Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that reply. But, even so, it must be clear to anyone who reads the convention's current proposals that they amount to a new European legal order with Brussels at its centre and the nation states in a largely subservient position. If the new constitution comes to be embodied in a new treaty, would it be right for the Government to use the treaty-making powers of the Royal prerogative to force it on the British people without free votes on its detail in Parliament, and without a referendum?

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is reading too much into the quite specific point he raised in the Question. The specific point under discussion is the grant of legal personality. At the moment, some legal personality is granted to the European Community under the treaties of the European Community, to which all 15 current members belong. The European Union, established under the Treaty of Maastricht, is different. We need to be clear that what we are talking about would not necessarily mean a huge extension of powers provided that the kinds of safeguard that I pinpointed in my initial Answer were negotiated. I believe that those are the areas where we ought to concentrate our negotiating strength.

§ Lord Tomlinson
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the proposed draft Article 4 quite simply states: The Union shall have legal personality"? Is she aware that that recommendation from the Praesidium to the convention fully accords not only with Working Group III and its final document number 305 but also with the view of your Lordships' House? A recent report of the Select Committee on the European Union stated that, the Committee agreed with the recommendation of the Convention Working Group III that the Union should expressly be granted legal personality". That is the view of the Select Committee.

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, I am very pleased that my noble friend pointed that out. I have in front of me a copy of the report, and I fully concur with what he has said. I would add that our own noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, was on the committee. No doubt he will say what he thinks is appropriate. However, as I understand it from reading the committee's report, there were very few dissenters from the working group's conclusion that a legal personality was the right way to proceed.

§ Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords—

§ Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords—

§ Lord Lawson of Blaby
My Lords—

Noble Lords
Howell.

Noble Lords
Maclennan.

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn)
My Lords, if we start with the noble Lord, Lord Howell, we will have plenty of time for the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan.

§ Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, there is plenty of time, and of course we are going to be debating these matters for many months and years ahead. I, too, have been reading this working group report, as well as communiqués in which Ministers indicate not only that they are considering this idea but that they have agreed to it. It is important to make that clear. However, has not the time come for Ministers to reveal to your Lordships' House and indeed to the general public that the rather innocent-sounding proposal in Article 4 to grant legal personality is in fact of far greater significance than people have been told?
Is it not a fact that the legal personality provision gives the Union the right to conclude treaties and to do so without any need for ratification by the nation states? That is a considerable advance in centralisation on past arrangements. It also gives the Union itself, as an entity, the right to become a member of international organisations including the United Nations. Ought we not to be told a little more about these ideas before Ministers say that they have agreed them?

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, we will have a full opportunity to debate not only this working group report but all the working group reports. As many noble Lords have said, we very much look forward to the robust exchanges which I am sure we can expect. Conferring a single personality on the Union would give it the capacity to act within the legal system distinctly from the states that are its members. The noble Lord is quite right. In practice that would mean that the EU would have the capacity to make treaties, to sue and be sued, and to become a member of international organisations to the extent that the rules of those international organisations allow. I hope that I have made clear the position which we would take on our own membership of some of the international organisations where we would want to preserve our position. We are currently making agreements through the European Union, certainly where there are competencies on issues such as trade, with a number of countries. We concluded a free trade agreement only very recently with a Latin American country.

§ Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the near unanimous view of the working group—there were two exceptions, I think, in a working group of 40—was based upon the near unanimous view of the lawyers that the European Union already had legal personality and that that in a sense was not the issue? Rather, it was thought that if the Union were to operate in future under one treaty, bringing together with different forms and procedures the operation of the foreign policy aspect with the community aspects, it made sense openly to attribute what was already commonly accepted to be the case.

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, that very ably explains the position as I understand it. As I hoped I had already made clear, the fact is that the European Community already has legal personality in the way that the noble Lord describes.

§ Lord Lawson of Blaby
My Lords, the Minister inadvertently omitted to reply to the question from my noble friend Lord Pearson about a referendum. May I give her the opportunity to repair that omission? Is she aware that the Government of France, whatever their other shortcomings, have promised the French people that any proposed treaty changes and constitutional changes arising out of the Convention on the Future of Europe will be put to the people of France in a referendum? Why are the Government so frightened of giving the same undertaking to the people of this country?

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, I did not omit it in any sense of not wanting to answer the question. It was merely that I did not wish to detain your Lordships on a subject that we have already discussed in your Lordships' House—when I was able to point out that I did not really understand why the Opposition were so keen to press on with a referendum when they had overlooked the possibility of having one when they were in government and had the chance.

§ Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the great advantages of giving legal personality to the European Union is that it could then accede to the European Convention on Human Rights—which would mean that Eurocrats would be directly bound if they abused their powers and that there would be effective remedies for the citizens of this country before the Strasbourg court against the Eurocrats of the European Union? Is that not a great advantage referred to by the Select Committee?

§ Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Yes, my Lords, I think that that is one of the points that ought to be considered. The ECJ would then extend its coverage into the EU and beyond the EC which it currently covers. I agree with the noble Lord that that would be one of the outcomes.