Malcolm Bruce

Liberal Democrats | Gordon

Debate on the Convention on the Future of Europe

Malcolm Bruce: A constitution that is drawn up by a process of consensus and involves 15 member states and 10 applicants is inevitably a compromise. We cannot write our own constitution. Those who claim that we can be an associate member or that we can somehow pick and choose fail to understand the dynamics of the organisation of which we form part. The Convention brings together, for the first time in a coherent and intelligible form, the basic mechanism for the operation of European Union.

The value of bringing everything together in a single document, which any citizen can read and understand and take advice on is surely commendable and desirable. There is a danger of becoming fixated on whether we have a referendum. We have argued consistently that a referendum is desirable for major constitutional changes, but there is a danger of the matter becoming such an obsession that we lose sight of what we are trying to debate and discuss.

We would do a disservice to the document and its implications if we focused our attention entirely on that and lost sight of the fact that we are supposed to be trying to shape a document that will become a reference for Europe for a long time to come. Given the role that the United Kingdom has already played under the table and above the table—if I may put it that way—it is substantially shaped by British input, about which we have every reason to be satisfied.

One of the problems is that it is becoming fashionable in the drawing rooms of the United Kingdom to be anti-EU, in a way that it used to just as fashionable to be pro-EU. A decision such as this is should be determined not by drawing-room fashion but by a fundamental assessment of what we are trying to achieve. There are people—I receive letters from them myself—who believe that there are cellars in Brussels full of gnomes, who are mostly French and German, who do nothing else from morning until night, and through the night and at weekends, but draw up measures, articles and amendments to treaties that will destroy a thousand years of British history. People should back off a little and recognise that every country has special interests for which it will want to argue, but that we all have a huge interest in the net sum added value that a successful EU can and should deliver.

I am probably the only Member so far who has introduced this aspect of the debate, but it is relevant that we are now in a world that is dominated by a superpower, which, to be frank, does not share our European values on matters such as human rights, international co-operation, the respect of law and international treaties. It is important that Europe stands for those values and finds the ability to produce common policies. There will be occasions—we have just witnessed one—where that will not be achieved, and there is nothing in the document that forces people to do anything. It is not about having a single foreign policy or defence policy, but about having a common policy wherever we can seek it. That is not just in the interests of Europe, but in the interests of the wider world.

I played a small part in the sustainable development summit in Johannesburg, where the EU negotiated as a single entity and where the British Government were only part of the EU team. We were outmanoeuvred by the United States because we did not have sufficient flexibility or ability to adapt policies at short notice, whereas the Americans did. We should learn from that. I never think that it is easy, but it is important and desirable for us to achieve such objectives.

The idea of the veto being waved around as a virility symbol is to fail to recognise, as has been said, that one country's veto is everybody else's obstacle. There are certain areas over which we do not agree that the EU should have power, either jointly or collectively. In reality, probably a majority of countries—certainly more than enough—do not believe that the right to deploy one's troops or set one's taxes is something that the EU should decide. There is room for constructive harmonisation, particularly of indirect taxes, in the interests of a single market, but if we were to have a single currency, losing that flexibility makes it almost impossible to adjust to domestic circumstances.

The document represents the credibility of a sensible discussion, and people must focus on what it is we want out of the EU, recognising that it is, by definition, a compromise among 25 countries, in which we have to give to get, but the art of negotiation is to give as little and get as much as we can. What we must not do is become so introvert, so introspective and so obsessive about what we see as the plots and the wickedness underneath that we lose sight of our real national interest. It matters that Europe works together, it matters for the world, and it matters that Britain plays a full part in that.