Britain's imprint on Europe

Peter Kirk

To achieve the necessary results from the point of view of British public opinion, it was clear that our entry to the European Parliament had to be fairly dramatic. A good deal of expectation had been built up. The idea of Westminster as the Mother of Parliaments bringing democracy to a benighted bureaucratic Community had been touted by Ted Heath and Willy Brandt, to name but two, and again in the absence of the Labour Party it was essential that we should appear to be doing just that. A rallying cry of a speech was a necessity, of course, but is also needed something more.

As it turned out, we were lucky even to get the opportunity for the speech. Attending a meeting of the Bureau—the organising body—of the European Parliament a week before we were due to enter, I found that no arrangements whatsoever had been made for the new members to say anything. There were to be speeches by the President of the Parliament, the Presidents of the Commission and the Council, and that was it. So the first thing to do was to insist, as politely as possible, on a slot. In this, I was supported by the Irish and Danish representatives, both of whom had also been a little surprised to find that no arrangements had been made for them to say how glad they were to be there. And, in the end, we were allowed ten minutes each.

A man can,of course, say a lot in ten minutes, but it was barely long enough just to get through the courtesies which were necessary, let alone outline the ideas which I had in mind. Luckily, early in December, I had discovered the way in which we might put something of a British imprint on the European Parliament, and I hoped go some way to convincing people that the Parliament was something more than a talkingshop, and could be made very much more.

The then Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Barnett Cocks, was a man of exceptionally wide-ranging interests, and he had from the start been interested in the growth of the European parliamentary institutions. Once the negotiations were well under way in 1971, he had embarked on a study of the European Parliament, reaching the point where, with the aid of three young House clerks, he had written what was in effect the 'Erskine May' of the European Parliament. This book was due to be published on 1 January 1973, the formal date of our entry, and he was good enough not only to give me a proof copy, but to say that I might consult with his three co-authors on matters of procedure. This, I saw, could be made . more than purely educational. It would help to solve a particular problem, that of staff. The European Parliament is not ungenerous with the staff it makes available to its political groups, but what with all the other things. I) had to do, recruiting a staff simply was not possible. Here again, Lora Jellicoe came to my aid. 4telling me that Dunstan Curtis, one of the great pioneers of European integration and a former Deputy Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, was looking for emploYment in the new set-up. He was clearly just the man, and I signed him up as Secretary' General to the Group straight away, but he would obviously have his hands full in Luxemburg, Strasbourg and Brussels, both looking after our work there, and recruiting further members of staff. In London, I had no one except my private secretary, Beryl Goldsmith, who, as usual, proved herself capable of coping with any emergency, and continued to do so throughout the first year of our membership. But so far as the policy of our entry was concerned, which had to be based largely on procedure. I needed those three clerks, and I needed them badly.

If we could arrive flourishing a document which showed not only that we took the European Parliament seriously, but that we viewed it as having a considerable future. and which showed the way in which that future might be achieved, then we might get the desired effect, not only with our new European friends, but with the British public as well. It had to be an academic document' it had also to take account of existing realities—we obviously could not expect the European Parliament to change all their rules to suit us, for example—it had to make specific proposals, capable of withstanding detailed analysis, but it had to be short and simple enough to be reported in the press. And it had to form the background to the speech which was to introduce it.

By the end of December, we had the document ready. Only the four of us knew what the contents were; I had not even had time to tell my new colleagues in the Grout' what was in it, and indeed they saw it for. the first time the afternoon before I laid it before the European Parliament. Looking back on it now, when most of it in one forfit or another has been implemented. I believe it has stood the test of time. Certain ideas proved to be impracticable, some have been implemented in a very different form from the original conception, but on the whole. as a means of grafting Westminster ideas of.1 a wholly different Continental system. It was a reasonable success. A document by itself, however, was not going to be enough. The speech that went with it was clearly crucial, and here I WaS

in a dilemma. I have never been at ease speaking from a script, partly because, as a Minister, I found speaking other people's words. as opposed to reading them, extremeIY difficult to imbue with any sort of life. but even more because of my peculiar sight. I am one of those rare birds who suffer from a form of short sight which means that I do not need glasses for reading, but need them for everything else. This means that, if reading a script. I have the choice between reading a text, and seeing the audience as a faint blur, which makes communication Pretty difficult, and speaking from notes, Which is fine as far as 1 am concerned, but means the speech hardly ever gets reported.

However, I had to have a text, and if Possible one which had been translated. As I was determined to write every word myself, it would at least be all my own work, but I would have to stick fairly carefully to it. I wrote and rewrote that speech a dozen times, the last time actually in the plane going to Strasbourg. At the end, 1 pretty well knew it by heart, but the trouble was, I was not absolutely certain which version I knew—there had been so many. Even When reading it, I made some changes in it, but at the end. I thought I had got just the right blend of realism and idealism which seemed to me essential for such an occasion. It was a declaration of faith in the European Parliament, coupled with some practical s.oggestions as to how its workings might be improved, as an introduction to the paper Which we laid before Parliament at the same time. Certainly, it seemed to work.

Indeed, in my wildest dream. I had never Imagined the sort of reception it was going to get. Luckily, it was a day when nothing much else was happening. For the first— and. I am sure, the last—time in my life, it Was printed verbatim in The Times, which alsO--along with two other papers--led With it on the front page and gave it the main leader. Other papers gave it a leader, and the continental press. though more restrained, dealt with it at some length. For the rest of that week. I could hardly get into MY office for the journalists seeking interviews, and indeed phrases from it are still quoted back at me in the European Parliament and elsewhere nearly four years later.

The necessary impetus, then, was there. The problem as always, was how to follow

LIP. The proposals contained in the Conservative Group's document were all Practical, but they clearly demanded a good deal of discussion. The existing European Parliament practice was the result of fifteen Years' co-operation between members of SIX Parliaments. Add another three, and Clearly you needed to go carefully to graft the new ideas on to the old, and nor was I so convinced of the limitless merits of the British Parliament as to believe that everything we did, or everything I proposed, was necessarily the true milk of the word. We had done the best we could to research thoroughly what had been happening in the European Parliament, and to ensure that everything we proposed could be introduced

with as little upset as possible, but there was bound to be a feeling that we were coming in from outside with the conviction that We could put everything to rights.

Indeed, looking back on it, I am astounded at the impertinence of what we tried to do, and the forbearance with which our new colleagues received it. This was especially so as 1 had been for some time convinced that the practices and procedures of the House of Commons fell a good way short of perfection, and that we had to be pretty careful what we recommended to the

• European Parliament. During the long discussions on our proposals, in which Derek Walker-Smith played the major part, this was borne in on me even more forcefully. And yet, at the end of the day, eighty per cent of them survived intact, and have been incorporated in the practice of the European Parliament, I think they have given that body more relevance within the -Community, and certainly a greater influence. and I am certain they will form effective guide-lines to the directly elected Parliamat shortly to come.

We started from the proposition that control of the purse is the key to parliamentary advance. The Luxemburg Treaty of 1470 had given Parliament certain budgetary rights, but these still had to be worked out in practice. But there was much more that needed to be done. Control of accounting was one of them. Through the summer of 1973, we toiled away at this, greatly helped by Claude C'heysson, the member of the European Commission responsible for the Budget, and we finally secured a further financial treaty which has not yet been fully ratified, but which is just beginning to be implemented all the same. It may not fulfil everything which agood democrat would require—that can only come through direct elections—but it marks the beginning of a practice which could be wholly fruitful.

The idea has two prongs. Firstly, that there are certain areas—at present very limited—where Parliament has the final say, not the Council, and secondly there is the principle of co-determination in all matters where the Parliament and the Council come into conflict. It is now common practice, for example, in budgetary matters, where there is a difference of opinion between Council and Parliament. that members of the Council at ministerial level and a delegation from the Parliament should meet together and thrash the thing out. At first, it was largely a formal affair— on the Council's side at least—with the Council listening to what the Members of Parliament had to say, and the Chairman of the Council making a formal reply. Recently, however, there has been genuine debate, and out of it has come a real dialogue between the Council and Parliament which. while not putting the two bodies on equal footing so far as decision-making is concerned, at least ensures that the Council is fully informed of Parliament's view when it comes to taking a decision, and vice' versa in that small area where Parliament has the last word.

Gradually, we are extending the principle of co-determination into other spheres. In the field of general legislation, we still have a very long way to go. but in another area which I found very worrying. we have made greater progress. This is the coordination of foreign policy, something not provided for in the Treaty, but which is clearly going to be of ever greater importance as the Community develops. Now it is taken as a matter of course that the Chairnian of the Council attends Parliament's committees after each meeting on foreign affairs to report and answer questions, and that there should be from time to time debates on general foreign affairs matters which the Chairman of the Council answers. This was unheard of when we joined, as was the idea, now at last accepted. that questions on foreign policy can be asked of the Council. The right of Parliament to have a say in the conclusion of external commercial agreements, which has also been conceded, is also of crucial importance.

It would be quite wrong to give the impression either that all this was the doing of the British Members, or that everything in the garden is lovely. But that we gave a new impetus. I have no doubt, and I believe the one thing which we had to contribute more than any other was style. Despite the enormous difficulties of nine different traditions and six different languages. We determined from the start' to treat the European Parliament as a Parliament a, we understood it--a place where the citizens' rights were defended; where legislation and budgetary proposals were looked at from the point of view of the good of all. not just of the bureaucracy, and where, if you had to have a row, you had a row, but afterwards you recognised that there was a common purpose beneath it all.

For those of us who were there from the start. life. was not easy. The Labour Party were not only absent, they refused pairs for us, and it was quite common for us to be recalled in the middle of a plenary for important votes in the House of Commons. While the Whips were as good to us as they could be. they had their job to do as well, and more than once we found that after a late vote at the House of Commons, we had to snatch an hour or two's sleep on the benches at Heathrow before catching an early flight back to vote in the European Parliament. All those who did it. however, were. I am sure, convinced that it was worthwhile, and it is a source of great pride to me that no one left voluntarily.

The portraits of the original team no■■ hang in the lobby and up the stairs in Conservative Central Office. They will, I hope. serve as an inspiration to thoseh w..o v.... go there in the hope of becoming elected members of the European Parliament. All of us look quite exhausted.

This is the second ttl tIvo articles by Sir Peter Kirk. The first appeared on 21 August.