The Prime Minister made a statement, yesterday, at the House of Commons, on last week’s European Council. Bill Cash made the following intervention.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron): With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on last week’s European Council. The Council focused on the measures needed to address the growth crisis in Europe and complete the single market. It also reached important conclusions on Somalia, Serbia and Syria. I will take each in turn.
First, on growth and jobs, this was the first European Council for some months that was not completely overshadowed by an air of crisis surrounding the eurozone. The problems in the eurozone are far from resolved and we need continued and determined action to deal with them, but the biggest challenge for Europe’s long-term future is to secure sustainable growth and jobs. Ahead of the Council, Britain, along with 11 other EU member states, set out in a letter our action plan for growth and jobs in Europe. This was an unprecedented alliance involving countries from all across Europe and representing over half the EU population and a quarter of a billion people. It included our traditional partners on this agenda in northern Europe, but it also included countries such as Poland, one of the largest in the EU, and countries such as Spain and Italy in the south of Europe which previously had not prioritised this agenda.
Over the past year we have frequently succeeded in inserting references to the single market and competitiveness into Council conclusions, and the Commission’s proposals have begun to reflect that, but what was encouraging about this Council was that an EU growth agenda, based around free trade, deregulation and completion of the single market, received stronger and broader political support from Heads of State and Government than ever before. A whole series of concrete commitments to actions and dates by which those actions need to be taken was inserted into the final communiqué. Now it is vital that these commitments are fulfilled.
The reason Britain so strongly insists on the completion of the single market is its huge potential for growth and jobs at home. The single market is the biggest marketplace in the world, with 500 million consumers. Removing barriers to trade in products has clearly had a huge impact and, with one of the largest manufacturing sectors in Europe, Britain has clearly benefited from that, but the benefit can be even greater if the single market is completed in other areas where Britain also has great strengths. The first of these is services. Full implementation of the services directive could add 2.8% to the gross domestic product of the EU within 10 years, and Britain would stand to be one of the prime beneficiaries because, from financial services to legal services to accountancy, Britain has some of the leading companies in the world.
The Council also agreed to complete the digital single market by 2015, which could boost EU GDP by as much as €110 billion every year. Again, that could particularly help Britain, with our strength in digital technology and all forms of creative content, including film, television and online media.
The Council agreed a specific deadline to complete the single market in energy by 2014. That could add 0.8% to EU GDP and create 5 million jobs. Again, many of those of jobs could be in Britain, because we are a major producer and exporter of energy, with the most liberalised market in Europe.
The Council agreed that there will be a special focus on trade—including trade deals with fast-growing parts of the world—at the next Council in June. Completing all open bilateral trade deals could add €90 billion to the EU economy, and a deal with the US would be bigger than all the others put together. Britain is one of the most open trading nations in Europe, and that is why trade deals have a particular importance for us.
On deregulation, for the first time we got a specific commitment for an analysis of the costs of regulation sector by sector, and we got a repetition of our call for a moratorium on new regulations for those businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Taken together, those measures represent a clear and specific plan for growth and jobs at EU level, and we must now ensure that Europe sticks to it.
I turn to wider international issues. On Somalia, the Council welcomed the conference held in London last month and the important conclusions that we reached, cracking down on piracy and terrorism and supporting a Somali-led process for a new representative and accountable government.
On Serbia, Britain has always been a strong supporter of European Union enlargement, from eastern Europe to the countries of the western Balkans. That policy has clearly demonstrated success in embedding support for democracy and human rights across the continent, so I was particularly pleased that the Council granted Serbia candidate status. I have no doubt that this decision would not have been possible without the courageous leadership of President Tadic. It was he who secured the arrest of Ratko Mladic, closing one of the darkest chapters in Serbian history, and it was he who took the brave decision to engage in a dialogue with the Kosovans.
It is also right to mention the leadership of the Kosovan Prime Minster, Hashim Thaci. He too has been prepared to enter into constructive dialogue with Serbia. That decision has rightly been rewarded by the European Commission, starting the process that can lead to a new contract between the European Union and Kosovo. That is the first important milestone on the long road for Kosovo itself to join the European Union.
Let me turn to the grave situation in Syria. I know that the whole House will join me in welcoming the safe return of British photographer Paul Conroy, who escaped from Baba Amr last week. I spoke to him this morning and he described vividly the barbarity that he had witnessed in the city. The history of Homs is being written in the blood of its citizens.
Britain is playing a leading role in helping to forge an international coalition to try to do three things: first, to make sure that there is humanitarian assistance for those who are suffering; secondly, to hold those responsible for that appalling slaughter to account; and, thirdly, to bring about the political transition that will put a stop to the killing. We must pursue all three at the same time.
First, on humanitarian assistance, Britain has already provided an extra £2 million to agencies operating on the ground in order to help deliver emergency medical supplies and basic food rations for more than 20,000 people. But the real problem is getting that aid into the affected areas. Now that the Syrian Government have occupied Baba Amr, they have a duty to allow humanitarian access to alleviate the suffering that they have caused. Britain will be working this week to secure a United Nations Security Council resolution that demands an end to violence and immediate humanitarian access. The longer access is denied, the more the world will believe that the Syrian regime is determined to cover up the extent of the horror that it has brought to bear on Baba Amr.
Secondly, we are working to make sure that those responsible for crimes are held to account. The European Council agreed that there must be “a day of reckoning” for those who are responsible. Britain and its European partners are working together to help to document the evidence of those atrocities so that evidence can be used at a later date. International justice has a long reach and a long memory.
Thirdly, we are working for a political transition to bring the violence to an end. The European Council was clear that President Assad should step aside for the sake of the Syrian people, and it supported the efforts of Kofi Annan to work for a peaceful process of political transition. Syria’s tragedy is that those who are clinging to Assad for the sake of stability are in fact helping to ensure the complete opposite. Far from being a force for stability, Assad’s continued presence makes a future of all-out civil war ever more likely. What can still save Syria is for those who are still supporting and accommodating Assad's criminal clique to come to their senses and to turn their back on the regime. It is still possible that Syria’s national institutions can be saved and play their part in opening a path to an inclusive, peaceful and decent transition. We will deploy every tool we can—sanctions, aid, the pressure of diplomacy, reaching out to the opposition in Syria and beyond. We will work with anyone who is ready to build a stable, inclusive, non-sectarian, open and democratic Syria for all Syrians. That is the choice that is still open to those in authority in Syria. Now is the time for them to make that choice, before it is too late.
Finally, on Friday morning, 25 member states signed the intergovernmental agreement on the fiscal compact. This binds countries in the eurozone to a budget deficit of no more than 0.5%, and it involves countries giving up the power to write their own budgets if they go beyond it. Britain is not signing this agreement. Britain is not in the euro, Britain is not going to join the euro, so it is right that we are not involved. But it is important that we continue to ensure that vital issues such as the single market are discussed by all 27 members. That is exactly what happened at this European Council. Far from not being included in the vital discussion that affects our national interests, Britain helped to set the agenda at this Council and Britain helped to ensure its success. I commend this statement to the House.
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Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con): In congratulating the Prime Minister on his veto—[ Interruption. ] It would have been an EU treaty had the Prime Minister not exercised the veto. In congratulating the Prime Minister on his veto and on his insistence on growth, does he recognise that we are at a crossroads, with two separate European treaties—one in line with the Lisbon treaty, and the other in breach of it? With the Chancellor of Germany now insisting on a further leap towards political union, will the Prime Minister take forward his current concerns about the legal position of the non-EU treaty to the European Court?
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron): I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. He is absolutely right that that treaty places no obligations on us. It is worth making the point that it does not have the force of EU law: not for us, not for the EU institutions and not for the countries that sign it. As he knows, my view is that while we have reserved our legal position on the use of the institutions because there are real concerns, the path he outlines—of a legal challenge—is a less good one than using our leverage and influence to ensure that the agreement sticks to fiscal union rather than gets into the single market. That is the right approach and the one we are pursuing.
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