European and External Relations Committee, 27 Apr 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Official Report 313KB pdf

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Intergovernmental Conference

I will take the committee quickly through the rest of the agenda. I hope that it will take only the next 25 minutes. I do not want to go beyond that, if members are agreeable.

Less than that, please.

It is in members' hands to go more quickly than that.

The next item on the agenda is the update on the intergovernmental conference. We can touch briefly on it today and come back to it later, but we do not have time to discuss it fully now.

As before, we have a short briefing paper on where we are. The agenda has clearly moved on with the UK Government's promise of a referendum on the EU constitution, which is something that I am sure the committee will want to look into in further detail and get involved in. Today is not the time to explore that in detail, but I will take initial comments on the paper.

It looks as though we will have two and a half to three hours in the chamber to discuss the issues on Thursday, so I have nothing to say other than to note the paper and thank the clerks for updating us.

I go along with that. I hesitate to pursue an argument that we will debate on Thursday, but what is meant in the third-last paragraph of the paper by the treaty on the European constitution being

"tempered and scrutinised in the House of Commons"?

I understand "scrutinised", but I cannot quite understand what "tempered" means.

I make the point that "tempered" suggests that the finally agreed constitution could be amended by the House of Commons, but it obviously cannot. It is a take-it-or-leave-it document. Is that the intended interpretation of the word "tempered"? If so, I suggest that we should remove it from the document and say "scrutinised in the House of Commons".

I will pass that to Stephen Imrie, who wants to say a quick word.

The language used in that document, particularly the word "tempered", is not the clerks' language; it is taken directly from the statement that the Prime Minister made in the House of Commons, which was then published on 10 Downing Street's website.

As far as I am aware, 10 Downing Street later refuted the idea that the constitution could be changed. To that degree, perhaps the paper is out of date, and we should simply say that the House of Commons can scrutinise the constitution.

That was helpful, Phil. Your comments have put the matter in context.

I call Phil Raffan.

Oh God, that's all we need. Even I would have a job absorbing that.

Sorry. I call Keith Raffan. You and Phil Gallie are so alike that I get you mixed up.

The note from the presidency to the European Council is a model of clarity. The presidency ought to be congratulated on those two pages, which sum up the outstanding issues and where we are on them. The note is so clear that I would say that it is one of the best short summaries that I have seen.

We should not all start running a marathon as if it were 100yd. I draw attention to the fact that the negotiation on the constitutional treaty might not be concluded at the European Council of 17 to 18 June, simply because, as the paper says,

"the formation of new governments in several current and future member states might make this difficult."

With the changes and the more hopeful atmosphere that have been brought about by the change of Government in Spain, we need to monitor the matter much more closely in the next few months, because things are drawing to a conclusion.

That is why the matter is back on the agenda, and I am certainly of a mind to put more time aside at a future meeting. Once our regional development inquiry is out of the way, we will have a bit more space to consider it. Are members happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.