Brussels Labour

Brussels Labour Annual John Fitzmaurice Lecture

Labour and European values: a synergy at the heart of Europe

22 January 2007, Brussels

Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP, Minister for Europe

I am grateful to be here with you tonight amongst so many old friends.

Not least because Brussels is in may ways my second political home. But it is also a particular honour to give the (third) Brussels Labour Annual Lecture in memory of our colleague and friend, John Fitzmaurice.

I knew John during my time in the European Parliament. He then went on to work for the Commission Secretariat General focusing on the relationship between the Commission and the Parliament until his sad death in 2003. John was passionate about European politics and in particular the European Parliament throughout his life and career. I hope that it is something that I have in common with him.

I would also like to pay tribute to somebody who was also close to many of us in this room who died just over a year ago - on the last day of 2005. Philip Whitehead was greatly admired and respected in the European Parliament and in the Labour Party. His intellect and mastery of complex and controversial issues, such as the services directive, was an inspiration. I have a particular connection with him – we were both passionate Europeans – but even more passionate Derby County supporters. He would have been delighted and amazed to see them top of the league last Saturday.

I would also like to thank Brussels Labour for inviting me, which I understand is the most active overseas Labour Party branch in the world! And with over 100 members and regular, well-attended meetings, it’s more active than many Constituency Labour Parties. I would also like to congratulate you on organising two fringe events at the Spring and Annual Labour Party conferences last year which attracted significant numbers of participants. I would also like to thank Paul Adamson for hosting this event tonight at The Centre.

2007 will be a momentous year in many ways. It’s a year in which I hope that progress will be made on a number of fronts at European level. Moreover, two anniversaries are particularly significant: the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome and the 10th anniversary of Labour winning back power, after 18 years in the political wilderness.

It is therefore a good opportunity to take stock, not only of the government’s record in office, but also of the evolution of the Labour Party’s views on the European Union.

It is safe to say that most of us in this room, myself included, share John and Philip’s views on Europe and left-of-centre politics. However, I also know that there are people in this room and within our movement who are long-standing Labour Party members and who voted against our membership in the 1975 referendum, fortunately most have changed their mind since (don’t worry I won’t name names, Belinda).

John and Philip were exceptional in that they were pro-European in the face of staunch opposition at the time from the mainstream of the Labour Party to our membership of the EU.

Before the UK entered the EU in 1973, Philip Whitehead was one of a group of Labour MPs, led by John Smith, who voted in favour of the UK’s membership of the European Community, defying a three-line whip.

10 years later in 1983, the Party’s policy on Europe was if anything worse. The policy of withdrawal was advocated in the manifesto which was quite rightly branded by Gerald Kaufman as ‘the longest suicide note in history’.

Coincidentally, I was first elected to the European Parliament in 1984. During my 10 years as an MEP, I was part of a much larger European Parliamentary Labour Party than unfortunately exists at present. But as a pro-European, I was in a small minority in that group. We were all members of the Labour Party but we disagreed fundamentally about the UK’s membership of the EU. When I first came to the Parliament in Brussels, I was disappointed to find that so many colleagues held such views. However, the people that I met and worked with who worked here were a great inspiration: multi-lingual, pro-European, greatly knowledgeable about European and British politics. People like John Fitzmaurice, working within the EU institutions and others working outside the institutions aiming to influence their decisions. Very much like our audience tonight.

The Labour Party learnt a lot of difficult lessons from the depths of political despair which dogged us during the early 80s.

All of our policies were re-examined or reconsidered. An agreement was made that there should be no more suicide notes!

Our policy on Europe also started to change.

Jacques Delors’ speech to the TUC in 1988 made a very strong case against the Labour movement’s perception of the European Community as a neo-liberal and purely market-driven project. It had a huge impact on the Trade Unions at the time.

The Party started to get real about regaining power. No political party in our country has ever won a general election on an anti-European slate.

Modernisation of the party led to the recognition that we could not turn our backs on our colleagues abroad. Our movement is international and therefore cooperation with our European sister parties is vital.

So although a pragmatic and positive approach eluded us during many of our years in opposition, modernisation brought a more realistic, pro-European approach.

A pro-European approach is also consistent with the Labour Party’s values. On the back of your Labour Party membership cards (for those of you who have them!), it states - “The Labour Party believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone.”

This not only encapsulates Labour’s underlying philosophy, but it also constitutes the very essence of the European Union. There are also more specific values which ring true of the party’s objectives and that of the EU. Social justice, internationalism, solidarity -within the nation state, within Europe and beyond.

These values underpin the modern, positive and progressive approach to the EU that we have developed in the later stages of opposition and in Government.

Arguably, one of this government’s greatest achievements has been to put the UK at the centre of European decision-making. Last autumn, Commission President Barroso stressed this in a speech that: ‘Britain is a lead player in Europe’. Chancellor Merkel also remarked in a recent interview in the Times that she could not imagine doing anything without the agreement of the UK. Working closely with our partners, the Government has been instrumental in shaping the further development of many of the EU’s major initiatives: the internal market and the Lisbon Agenda, European Defence Cooperation and so on.

More recently, a new common energy policy was first seriously discussed at the Hampton Court Summit during our Presidency. During those intense six months, there were also many other achievements: an agreement on the EU budget, the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey and Croatia, a new EU counter-terrorism strategy and a new data retention directive.

However, I know that we could have done more and I am sure that many of you here tonight would have liked us to go further. It is true that in terms of public opinion, the heat has gone out of the debate and public ambivalence prevails. However, at a governmental level, the UK is now absolutely central to the way in which the EU operates.

In stark contrast, over the last ten years, whilst our approach to the European Union has been positive, pragmatic and progressive, the Tories are in complete disarray. Which to give them credit is a far cry from their history - Harold Macmillan lodged the first application to join, Edward Heath took Britain in and Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act.

David Cameron is desperately trying to modernize every facet of his party – their green credentials, their work on equality and their representation in parliament….

He aspires to modernisation in all these areas. Time will tell if his party will let him move to the centre-ground in the way that he claims he wants to. His soundbites are catching the headlines but so far they are vacuous and the media will soon tire of them as the public already is.

However, perhaps curiously, there is one notable omission to his modernisation – and that is his party’s approach to the European Union. If anything his party has gone backwards on this point – taking a retrograde step in the direction of isolation. His plans to leave the EPP, although unrealised for the time being, have left him with few friends in Europe. Angela Merkel berated him just over a year ago in a letter for his plans to pull his MEPs out of the EPP-ED Group. He recently visited Bavaria – he is apparently not welcome in Berlin – and the CSU leader, Edmund Stoiber, afterwards remarked that the Tories are “highly interesting, but also a difficult partner in the further development of the European Union.”

However, their renewed anti-Europeanism is inconsistent with their other stated objectives. Cross-border problems demand cross-border solutions. Little islanders acting in splendid isolation cannot respond to global problems. His alleged green credentials are particularly in doubt. It is surely not possible to be an environmentalist and a europhobe.

Ironically and coincidentally, at the time of the latest Congress of the Party of European Socialists in December (to which the Labour Party sent a delegation led by the Deputy Prime Minister), David Cameron made his first visit to Brussels in his capacity as party leader after more than a year in the job. Whereas, the Labour Party is a member party of the Party of European Socialists and our MEPs are an integral part of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament. David Cameron’s Tories have never been a member of the pro-European European People’s Party and are still just about sulking on the fringes of the EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament. David Cameron supports enlargement so that he can find some new friends after the next European elections! On some desert island no doubt there will be a party somewhere that shares his views.

While the Tories are struggling with the simplest notions, the political landscape in Europe is ever changing.

The political make-up of European governments has nearly gone full circle since 2000. Seven years ago when we agreed the Lisbon strategy, 11 out of 15 member states were governed by socialist or social democratic governments. After suffering some serious defeats in many countries between then and 2004, left-of-centre parties were only in power in 6 out of 25 member states.

However, the tide is turning. Left-of-centre parties are in the ascendancy again, recently regaining power in Italy and Austria. And in government or leading coalition governments in Spain, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, and of course Great Britain. And forming part of coalitions in the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Lithuania and Luxembourg. We look set for a close election in France in May, with a great chance for the Parti Socialiste to return to power. On the other side of the Atlantic, after some very positive results in the mid-term elections, the Democrats are reasserting themselves and gaining tremendous confidence.

Furthermore, the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament are also going from strength to strength.

As I said at the start of my speech 2007 is momentous not only set against this changing political backdrop, but also in terms of the new challenges we face. It is also a year to remember the achievements that we have made since 1957.

The Government believes that the Berlin Declaration on the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaties should recognise the great successes of the EU – peace, shared prosperity, the largest single market in the world, environmental protection, fighting cross border crime – to name but a few. But it will also be an occasion to look forward to how the EU should respond to the challenges of the 21st century.

21 years on from my first election as an MEP, and two goes at being Minister for Europe, I am still as enthusiastic about the European Union as ever.

Because I believe in what Europe has tried to do in rebuilding the economic prosperity and stability of the European continent - both in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, but also as a consequence of the end of the Cold War.

And I still believe in its power to transform and change the lives of the people of Europe.

One of the most memorable visits I made as an MEP was to Berlin in 1989. I arrived on Thursday 9 November to attend a meeting of the European Parliament’s legal committee. It had been arranged by the Committee Chairman, Franz von Stauffenberg, who wanted us to pay a visit to the site of his father’s execution in the Tiergarten.

I had been to East Berlin a few weeks before. I had seen the demonstrations that were becoming almost daily events. I wanted to go back and see what was happening.

After the committee meeting ended, I walked along the wall to Checkpoint Charlie. Unfortunately, I’d left home in such a hurry that I only had my European Parliament documents with me. Without my British passport, the East German border guards refused to let me through. Although of course, they took an hour to make their decision. This was about 8.30 in the evening – so I believe that I was probably the last person in history to be refused entry to East Germany!

The wall of course came down that night. I saw young East Germans flooding across the border. Despite the drama of the moment, they were probably most amazed about the perfectly normal consumer goods stacked in the shops of West Berlin.

Older West Berliners went the other way to Check Point Charlie – hoping to see family members or friends who they had not seen for a generation.
10 months later, Germany was reunified. An extraordinary achievement in such a short space of time.

And at that time, in the wake of such momentous events in Germany and across Eastern Europe, we all knew what the European project was about.
It was about bringing people together and building a better future. It was about ensuring that the wars and occupations that blighted most of the 20th Century could never happen in Europe again.

In that, the EU has been supremely successful.
By opening up the EU to the countries beyond the Iron Curtain, we ended up changing the future shape of Europe, and how we should live and work together.
This ability to respond to momentous change is one of the EU’s abiding strengths and one of the reasons why it has made it to this 50th Anniversary.
The benefits in having taken such an approach are huge – but too often they are either forgotten or taken for granted.
Yet we have built the world’s largest single market of 460 million people.
Our citizens have the ability to live and work across 25 countries in peace and prosperity.
We all have extensive rights as employees, consumers and individuals.
Living standards right across Europe have never been higher.
And the fact that a return to conflict in Europe is unthinkable has made possible the open expression of different cultures, languages, peoples and identity without the prospect of them being crushed by a centralised, all powerful State.
This is an impressive set of achievements in just 50 years.

Looking to the year ahead, the European Union, under Germany’s and then Portugal’s guidance, has ambitious plans. We’ll see crucial negotiations on:

- creating a genuinely open European energy market;

- the liberalisation of postal services;

- the fundamental review of the Single Market and the new, smarter approach;

- improving the EU Emissions Trading Scheme so that after 2012 we can have an effective, predictable, market-friendly mechanism to tackle climate change.

And as many of you will know, to achieve all this we need to improve the decision-making in the European Union.

There is a consensus on the need for change among all Member States.
The current rules are unsustainable in a European Union of 25 states – let alone 27 or more.

I have spent the past several months touring the Capitals of Europe – taking soundings from my counterparts.

It is very easy in this country to look at these issues from our own perspective.
But we should not forget that 18 other countries have already ratified the constitutional treaty.
The views of those countries which have already ratified are just as important as those that have not.
Any solution must take account of the views of all Member States. We need to find a consensus on the way forward.

In my view, we will best deliver for our country by being a leader in this debate, not sitting on the sidelines.

I will be carrying on these negotiations in the coming months.

We are working closely with Chancellor Merkel and the SPD as a party on pushing the German Presidency on this issue. The timing of the June Summit, however, makes it difficult given that the second round of the French Presidential election takes place only a few weeks before.

However, I am confident that we can find a way through.

This is a difficult area in which we want to make progress. I am open to any ideas that you have as to how we can do so. As I have already mentioned, your expertise here in Brussels is invaluable. Many of you here know much more about the issues which I have just raised than I do.

I look forward to working with you to take forward progress in these areas. I also look forward to taking your questions.

Thank you.