EC Majority Voting

HC Deb 24 March 1994 vol 240 cc363-4W

Mr. Austin Mitchell

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what undertakings were given by the Government in 1973 on majority voting in the EC; and if he will make it his policy that the present blocking minority of two major and one minor member states will not be abandoned unless agreed by the British people in a new referendum.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory

In its White Paper entitled "The United Kingdom and the European Communities"—Cmnd 4715 of July 1971—which set out the terms of the United Kingdom's accession to the Community, the Government saidAll the countries concerned recognise that an attempt to impose a majority view in a case where one or more member states considered their vital interests to be at stake would imperil the very fabric of the Community.

We have no intention of holding a referendum on the issue of qualified majority voting.