Europe after Maastricht : interim report : report, together with the Proceedings of Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices : first report [of the] Foreign Affairs Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee.
Date:
1992
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Europe after Maastricht : interim report : report, together with the Proceedings of Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices : first report [of the] Foreign Affairs Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/96 (page 9)
    12 October 1992] [ Continued [Mr Sumberg Contd] Parliament, if Britain is no longer a member of the ERM? I accept your view of the legalities, but in practical terms if Britain is not a member of the ERM could we as a parliament discuss an opt-out clause? Would it be practical to do so? (Mr Hurd) No, it would not. 29. In other words, membership of the ERM is pretty crucial to that economic and monetary union, to which the Treaty relates? (Mr Hurd) Several things are crucial. One is the convergence criteria. I think there are only two Member States, not including Germany, who at the moment meet the convergence criteria. The question as to when the convergence criteria are met is not one for me. Whether the existing timetable of the Treaty is realistic or not only time will show. We are where we are with economies which are showing signs of diverging rather than converging hence the strains on the ERM. The sec- ond is our own opt-out, but you are perfectly right, it would not make any sense for a country which is not in the ERM to start putting to its par- liament the question of stage three. That is per- fectly true. I cannot conceivably see circumstances in which a government would want to do that. Chairman 30. Foreign Secretary, are the Germans not now seeking in effect an opt-out from a single currency and monetary union? How can they do that and have this condition of a Bundestag debate when they have not got a codicil in the Treaty which we so painfully debated? (Mr Hurd) 1 honestly think that is a matter for them. I have noticed with interest what you have noticed, the proceedings of the Bundestag, but that is a matter for them. Mr Lester 31. Is this something that will come up in Birmingham? (Mr Hurd) 1 do not know whether it will come up in Birmingham. There is a very strong view that the heads of state and government should not give the markets, which are still in a fragile state, the impression that out of Birmingham there is going to be some great new scheme or change to the existing scheme. It is not actually in anybody’s interest to create that expectation, which would be unreal. That is why after discussion the finance ministers of the Community came upon this phrase about reflection and analysis. It would be almost equally unreal for them not to discuss the matter at all, because this is one of the reasons why sev- eral Member States came to us and said that we must have a summit. That was when the turbu- lence was at its highest; now it is past its highest. There is some return to calm, but everybody knows that it is fragile. That is why there is a clear feeling and consensus that Birmingham should not go into questions of how the mechanism might be changed, the circumstances in which Britain or Italy might join, (Spain has not lifted its restric- tions), or how countries which have put on tempo- rary currency restrictions might lift them. These will not be gone into. Mr Wareing 32. Although obviously what the Bundestag does is a matter for the members of the Bundestag, what we do over the Treaty of Maastricht affects Germany also. I wonder whether the Foreign Secretary would agree with me that should the British Parliament fail to pass the Treaty of Maastricht, or should the Danes not be able to be successful with a second referendum, that this would lead inevitably to a two speed Europe in relation to European Monetary Union? Would he further agree with me that if this were the case that it would be highly detrimental to the British econ- omy and is an added reason why we should pass the Treaty of Maastricht, despite the problems that there are at the moment in Denmark? (Mr Hurd) | think one cannot be certain that what you say is true, Mr Wareing. The certainties are that if the British Parliament decides not to ratify or if the Danish people say no in a second referendum then there will not be a Treaty of Maastricht and all the different elements in it will evaporate. There is the danger that in different ways, in which monetary is one, a number of states on the continent would say, perhaps after a time, “This is not good enough. The benefits of acting together are such that if the Maastricht framework is collapsed we must create a new one”. That is the danger. I do not see it myself in terms of a two- speed Europe because I think there is already in several respects a multi-speed Europe as regards ERM, certainly as regards the Western European Union, certainly as regards the Schengen Agreement on passports and frontiers, so I do not think one should be dogmatic about different speeds. I just come back to a more basic point that it is not in the interests of this country that power- ful combinations should make arrangements affect- ing either our prosperity or our security on the Continent of Europe which would intimately affect us but on which we would have no say. That is my basic philosophy on these matters and it does apply in the financial as well as in the security field. Mr Harris 33. On that very point I wonder if the Foreign Secretary has seen, I am sure he has, the lead story in The Times today which suggests that senior European Commission officials have drawn up a “secret treaty” enabling federal-minded states to pull out of the European Community and set up their own community if the Maastricht agreement is not ratified. Does he have any knowledge of the Commission officials proceeding along in this way or is it, does he think, speculation? (Mr Hurd) It is clear to me that the principals in this, the Federal Chancellor, the President of the