William Hague and Timothy Kirkhope let cat out of the bag: the Tories would also accept the bulk of the new EU Treaty.
The proposed alternative treaty published by the Conservative Party leader in the European Parliament, Timothy Kirkhope MEP, and warmly endorsed in a preface by Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, shows that leading Tories would also accept the bulk of the reforms contained in the proposed new EU treaty.
Analysing Kirkhope' s proposal, Richard Corbett, Labour's spokesman on. Constitutional Affairs in the European Parliament, pointed out that, of the dozen key reforms contained in the proposed new treaty, Kirkhope's draft took on board at least 10 of them:
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The election of the President of the Commission by the European Parliament;
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A new "double majority" (states and population) voting system in the Council of Ministers;
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Making majority voting (with no national veto) the norm for Council decisions taking;
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"Team presidencies" of the ordinary Council of Ministers;
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Categorisation of EU competences into "exclusive", "shared" and "complementary";
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Giving the European Parliament a veto on EU legislation by extending the "co-decision" procedure between the Council and Parliament to make it the normal legislative procedure of the Union;
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Defining the European Council as an EU institution;
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Providing for the European Parliament and the Council to jointly adopt the EU budget, as regards all categories of expenditure (currently, the Council has the final say on some aspects);
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The method of a Convention (instead of just an IGC) to draft future treaty revisions;
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The Council of Ministers to meet in public when deliberating on legislation.
Interestingly, Kirkhope does not challenge existing EU features that Tory Eurosceptics dislike. He re-emphasises in his draft treaty:
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European citizenship for nationals of all Member States, conveying a number of rights such as the right to live (and vote in local elections) anywhere in the Union;
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The notion of "exclusive competence" whereby, in a specific area, in Kirkhope's words, "only the Community may legislate and adopt legally binding acts, the Member States being able to do so themselves only if so empowered by the Community or for the implementation of acts adopted by the Community."
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The role of the EU Courts
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The principle that, in his words, "Citizens are directly represented at Community level in the European Parliament."
Reforms that Kirkhope drops are:
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The change from a six-month to a 30-month term of office for the President of the European Council
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The merger of the two posts currently responsible for the external relations of the Union (Commissioner and High Representative)
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The charter of rights, (which anyway is subject to a special protocol for the UK, so he is really telling other countries - who want it - not to have it)
All well and good - but Kirkhope knows he cannot get away without appeasing the Eurosceptic right-wing of his party.
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He does this, firstly, with some cosmetic changes:
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Reverting to the name "Community" instead of "Union"
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Using the term "Chairman" instead of "President"
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Abolishing the EU's consultative bodies (the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions)
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Introducing a clause saying "the Institutions shall decide, in compliance with the procedures applicable, on whether a European Community law or a European Community opinion is more appropriate" (wow!)
- Giving national parliaments the right to "propose amendments for the European Parliament to consider at Second Reading".
Secondly, he appeases them with sops. But these are often chosen without thinking through the consequences. For instance:
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He says: "It is not necessary for the Community to have its own legal personality." But this would mean that existing international agreements of the European Community (for instance, trade agreements around the world, WTO, Association Agreements with Turkey, Israel, etc, air transport agreements with the USA, and countless others, would all suddenly become NULL AND VOID, as removing the Community's legal personality would end its capacity to be a party to any international agreement!)
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Abolishing (not just reforming) the Common Fishing Policy. Popular with unthinking Eurosceptics, this begs the question of what influence Britain would have over the management of a limited and scarce resource (that swims from one country's waters to another) if we opted-out
- The requirement for national referenda in current Member States for any future accession to the EU - hardly likely to further his party's policy of supporting further EU enlargement!
Remarkably, some of Kirkhope's innovations are "federal" in strengthening European institutions vis a vis Member States.
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Unlike the Reform Treaty, he would allow the European Parliament to reject Member State's (such as Britain's) nominee for the Commission. (at present, the EP can only reject the Commission as a team, not the individual nominees of particular Member States).
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Once appointed, however, the Commission would no longer be dismissible by a vote of censure by the Parliament, which would need the agreement of the Council to do so. If that had been the system in 1999, the incompetent Santer Commission would have continued in office.
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He would create European "laws" - abolishing the current directives which allow flexibility as each Member State passes directives into their own national law as appropriate to their country, bound only by the objective, and with a role for national parliaments. Kirkhope's "laws" would be directly binding as such, with no national margin of manoeuvre.
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He would give MEPs (instead of national governments or, as now, the governments-appointed Commission) the exclusive right to initiate proposals for European legislation.
His proposals are also riddled with contradictions. For instance:
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His removal of the right of the Community to be a party to international agreements contradicts his Articles on association agreements with neighbouring countries.
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He describes European laws as binding, but says they are subject to a vote of approval in national parliaments to apply in the country concerned. How, then, would we get France to apply single market legislation that it agreed to?
All in all, it is an admission that, despite their rhetoric, Tory leaders accept that a Reform Treaty is needed and that the bulk of its contents are acceptable, even to them. Whether John Redwood, Bill Cash, Dan Hannan et al would agree promises to be an interesting spectacle.