Lord Watson of Richmond: My Lords, usually on matters European I find myself on the other side of the argument to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and so I do, I am afraid, this afternoon. However, I very much agree with something that he said at the outset of his remarks; namely, that there is too much in the draft constitution of fad, the temporarily politically correct and statements with a philosophical approach rather than concrete constitution making.

I confess to your Lordships' House that I have a certain fondness for the preamble of the draft constitution and in particular for the penultimate paragraph which states:

The phrase which my eye alighted on, and I was delighted to see, was, "united in its diversity". There is a reason for that which, as it casts a slightly wider light on the draft constitution, I should like to share with your Lordships. In passing we should note that although the preamble quotes Thucydides, it does not much sound like him. But that particular paragraph and that phrase are important.

Some two years ago, I was asked by the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead to stand in for him at a meeting in Brussels, the purpose of which was apparently to choose a motto for Europe. The committee was to be chaired by the formidable Jacques Delors and was to meet, slightly strangely, in the Swiss Hotel in Brussels. When we arrived, we were confronted with a shortlist of mottoes for Europe, all 10 of which were displayed on a screen. They had been shortlisted from a great many more mottoes, which had been debated, discussed and voted on by tens of thousands of schools across the European Union.

Mr Delors said, right at the beginning of the discussion, that there was not much need for discussion as it was self-evident which motto we should recommend. The motto that he chose, if my memory serves me correctly, read: "Europe-solidarity, prosperity, democracy, pluralism and justice". It is the sort of motto with which one would spring out of the bath in the morning and say, "That's it". We then had a debate about the motto, and I expressed the opinion that solidarity carries, certainly in the United Kingdom, too much ideological baggage, and perhaps was a word with which we should be prudent. I did not win that argument, but the Germans did. A lady who had come from Germany-an abgeordnete of the Bundestag-said, "We Germans understand solidarita t: it means that we pay for everything", so solidarity sank.

We then spent some time talking about the American motto, "E pluribus unum", or "From the many, one". It was the feeling of everyone in the room and reflected the views of the children across Europe that, whatever else might happen, we would not end up as one in the sense of a single nation, state or people. The feeling was that we were in fact quite different-that we were a coming-together of nations very proud of their character and history. That is why we chose the phrase, "United in diversity", which I am glad to see has arrived in the preamble.

One could argue-I would-that Europe's unity in fact turns more on adversity than on diversity. It springs from necessity. We take action together because of the need to compete globally and to provide the United States with a more equal partnership. On that note, I would like to say how much I agreed with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. A number of us who belong to Sub-Committee C visited Washington shortly before the beginning of the Iraq war. We represented a wide variety of views. Some were slightly more or less Antlantacist or pro-European, but we were all startled by the degree to which it was made absolutely plain to us by pretty well all the people whom we met in Washington, particularly in the Pentagon, that unless Europe got its act together to a significantly greater extent it could not be seen, would not be heard and would not be able to help. That is a need.

We need to protect the environment from degradation, and by definition we cannot do that unless we co-operate to achieve it. We need to co-operate to an unprecedented degree to protect our societies from terrorism. The motor of the European Union is necessity, but European unity-and the European Union constitutionally-cannot mirror that of the American union, with its "E pluribus unum", for that very reason. The phrase that the French use all the time is, "A union of nations". Because we are a union of nations, we are attempting something unique, a new experiment. We are not creating a super-state, and we are not imposing the dominance that historically has always been the pattern of one nation in Europe on the other nations of Europe. We are attempting, on a voluntary and democratic basis, to do something that is more than co-operation, a confederation, or a series of bilateral arrangements. We are attempting to create something new.

It is for that reason that this experiment is so relevant to the rest of the world. In particular, it is that dimension of the European Union that makes it, in the terms of the preamble,

It is also why the Council of Ministers remains the most powerful and decisive European institution, a position not changed by the draft constitution. Indeed, it is arguably reinforced by it.

There is one dimension, however, where we should be bolder in emulating the United States and its constitution, and that is in a greater determination to make a direct connection between democracy and power in the European Union. It is there that Articles I-25 and I-26 absolutely miss the challenge of beginning to bridge the democratic deficit inside the European Union. They deal with the European Commission and its presidency, proposing that:

the term now used-

Yes, to the European Parliament, but not to the European electorate. As the next clause makes clear, the presidency of the Parliament will be determined by the Council, which will indeed take into account European elections, but will then put its proposed candidate for the presidency of the Commission to the Parliament. To bridge the democratic deficit, we have to find a way to demonstrate to voters across Europe, particularly with the enlargement of the European Union, that how they vote in European elections has a real impact on what Europe does. In other words, we must show that there is a real connection between the will of people in the Union and the agenda of the Union. How could we begin to resolve that problem? Not in the terms proposed in the draft constitution.

The president of the European Commission should indeed be chosen by the Members of the European Parliament, subject to ratification by the Council and not, I would argue, the other way round-in effect, chosen by the Council with the ratification of the Parliament. However, a way should be sought for the presidency of the Commission to reflect the political majority that results in European elections. For that, at the end of the day, we will have to come to a view on a common electoral system for the European elections.

If we do not make that connection, we will be faced with steadily declining electoral turnouts for European Parliament elections. Just as it is not in our interests that the Commission should be fatally weakened, nor is it in our interests that the Parliament should never develop real democratic credibility. In that, we should learn from the United States' experience, which accepts that there is a certain balance of power between institutions and that there is-this is democratically not a bad thing-a tension between institutions in the Union.

The idea that somehow all the institutions cohere is fundamentally unrealistic. The institutions have to reflect the diversity of political view within the Union. Historically, we in this country are always rather proud of our understanding of democracy. We believe ourselves to have a robust instinct for it, and in many ways that is correct. Therefore, it seems to me a pity that Her Majesty's Government have chosen to draw a red line around large areas instead of focusing their attention on putting the red ink where it will make a real difference to democracy.