New light shed on Tony Blair's Charter of Fundamental Rights 'opt-out'

Was Tony Blair arguing for a Charter opt out or not?

Following five years of wrangling the European Commission has finally given in to requests from the European Citizen Action Service and the European Ombudsmen and released documents concerning the UK's negotiation position on the Charter of Fundamental Rights - you can read them here.

Were they worth the wait? Well it has been known for some time that Tony Blair's opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights was not what it was originally billed to be. In fact  the 'opt-out', listed as one of Gordon Brown's celebrated defensive "red lines" was derided at the time as a 'Maginot line' defence.  However these documents do shed some light on how the UK Government presented its manoeuvring to different audiences.

Tony Blair in the House of Commons 25 June 2007:  

"It is absolutely clear that we have an opt-out from both the charter and judicial and home affairs. Those were the reasons why people like the right hon. Gentleman were saying that they wanted a referendum."

Well was it an opt-out? And was Tony Blair actually arguing for one? Apparently not, according to the new documents released by the EU's legal service. On 21 June 2007 in the privacy of the European Council the UK Government changed its mind and decided not to argue for an opt-out after all:

So was the UK arguing behind the scenes against an opt-out while in public saying it had secured one and where does that leave us now?  In the end the UK secured a clarifying protocol to the Lisbon Treaty rather than an opt-out.

The Protocol states that the Charter “does not extend” the ability of the ECJ to find that UK law is inconsistent with the rights and principles elucidated in the Charter. Indeed subsequently the Europe Minister Jim Murphy admitted: “It is clear that the UK does not have an opt-out on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

As we noted a while ago now, the ECJ cited the Charter extensively in its ruling to ban gender discrimination with respect to insurance, which illustrated that the Charter is very much alive.

Where have all the europhiles gone?

(long time passing)

A few days late, but this is a brilliant piece from Mary Ann Sieghart - one of the heroes from the old no to the euro campaigns in the UK - writing in the Independent earlier in the week. Taking no prisoners, Mary Ann settles the score with the British politicans who once so passionately argued in favour of euro membership:

"Hello? Hello? Speak up at the back! Blair? Clarke? Mandelson? Heseltine? Clegg? Huhne? Surely one of you could put your hand up? Well done, Alexander! Thank you for accepting that you were wrong all along about Britain joining the euro. Perhaps you could have a word with the other boys afterwards?"

She goes through the various arguments that the pro-euro camp used, which turned out to be completely wrong, and the "myths" that it accused the other side of peddling (which we have catalouged here) that have turned out to be completely right.

Mary Ann notes,

"The euro-enthusiasts were always accusing the rest of us of being anti-European....But if anti-Europeans had been asked to design a system to sabotage the EU project, they could hardly have done better than the euro. For what could be more damaging than a doomed currency area in which the poorest nations are forced to accept austerity measures and bailouts and the richest ones are forced to stump up for them? Nearly three-quarters of Germans now say they have little confidence in the euro and two-thirds of them are opposed to bailing out Greece. Hardly a recipe for European amity.

Pro-euro campaigners were quick to stamp on what they called "myths" that were, inevitably, "peddled" by our side. There was the "myth" that monetary union would lead to fiscal and political union. This is now accepted as the only possible solution to the eurozone's woes. There was the "myth" that richer countries might have to bail out poorer ones. That was supposed to be forbidden by treaty, but it's happened. And there was the "myth" that an external shock might hit some countries harder than others, causing huge dislocation. Well, it's there for all to see."

She goes on,

Now is the time for a reckoning. Let us salute the heroes who managed to keep us out of the euro. James Goldsmith, in the last year of his life, forced the Conservatives to agree to a referendum before we joined. That forced Labour to promise one too. Without that obstacle, Blair would undoubtedly have signed us up. Then it was a question of making strong enough arguments to reassure the British people that they were right in their instinct that joining the euro would be a bad idea. All credit goes to Lords Leach and Owen, joint chairmen of the all-party "no" campaign.

But on a question this big, it surely behoves those who tried to push us into the euro to recant now. Blair has become a Catholic; he should understand about confession, repentance and conversion. Danny Alexander showed how it could be done last autumn when he admitted he had been mistaken. We are still waiting to hear from Lord Mandelson, Ken Clarke, Nick Clegg, Lord Heseltine, Lord Ashdown and Chris Huhne. They are as bad as those old Marxists who never conceded communism was wrong even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We deserve an apology. How dared they sneer at us for being little Englanders or xenophobic when we could just see that the economics were so obviously wrong?

Good question.

What guy?

Tony Blair’s memoirs, released earlier today, reveal that while Bush junior was in the White House he, like many others, found the EU hard to get his head around. The Telegraph reports that in a 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, Bush was confused by the presence of Guy Verhofstadt:

“He didn’t know or recognise Guy, whose advice he listened to with considerable astonishment,” Mr Blair writes.

“He then turned to me and whispered, ‘Who is this guy?’

‘He is the prime minister of Belgium,’ I said.

“Belgium? George said, clearly aghast at the possible full extent of his stupidity. ‘Belgium is not part of the G8’.”

Mr Blair explained to Mr Bush that Mr Verhofstadt was there as “president of Europe”. Belgium held the presidency of the EU council at the time.

Mr Bush responded: “You got the Belgians running Europe?” before shaking his head, “now aghast at our stupidity”, Mr Blair writes.

Austerity - but not for all

While today's emergency budget in the UK provided many talking points for the media at large – it also provided new information for those with an interest in the UK’s ever-increasing contribution to the European budget *(courtesy of one T.Blair).

Hopefully this graph should illustrate how sharply our contributions climbed last year, and will continue climbing until 2014/15 when the contribution will hit an estimated £10.3 billion – (no explanation as yet as to why it is then predicted to fall back in 2015/2016 as the contribution for that year is still to be negotiated - we suspect wishful thinking). In a decade, the UK's net contribution has therefore increased by around 230%.

While our exasperation at the poor hand Tony Blair negotiated in the 2005 budget deal has been well-documented – these figures are further evidence of that legacy.

As we move to contribute such increasingly vast sums to the EU budget, it should focus the Government, and the Commission, more than ever on obtaining real value for money.

The EU wastes a great deal of money – it’s budget is bloated and its financial management controls are not up to scratch. This much is undeniably true. But if examples of ridiculous EU spending were met with indignation amongst citizens before, they will jar all the more resolutely from now on. Spending cuts and austerity measures are now the order of the day, and the order of tomorrow. But this new order has escaped Brussels - as Bruno Waterfield points out on his EUobserver blog.

So the next time Jose Manuel Barroso, or any of the other EU elites, considers how best to win back public support for the European project, he might consider the public sector pay cuts in Ireland, or the VAT raises in the UK, or any of the other cuts around Europe, and think about how to reform the image that Brussels is bloated and isolated from the harsh realities in EU member states. And then he might actually do something about it.

(i.e. publicly backing reform to wasteful EU policies like the CAP, ending some of the outrageously generous perks for lifetime EU civil servants, a pay freeze for those same civil servants, backing calls for an end to the travelling circus - the list can be made very long - further suggestions are welcome in the comments).

(Source: 2010 June budget, p.102, 2009 Treasury Statement on EU public finances, p.21. Note: Figures for 2007/08 financial year, and all financial years previously, are based on calendar year outturns)