Downing Street Says

Asked again if the European election results had changed the Prime Minister’s position on any aspects of this week’s European Council meeting in Brussels, the PMOS said no. He referred journalists to Paragraph 66 of the IGC White Paper which stated, “We will insist that unanimity remain for Treaty Change and in other areas of vital national interest such as tax, social security, defence, key areas of criminal procedural law and the system of own resources. Unanimity must remain the general rule for common foreign and security policy, as proposed in the final Convention text”. That position had not changed.

Asked again how likely it was that an agreement on the Treaty would be reached at the European Council this week, the PMOS said that the Irish Presidency was trying very hard for a deal. It went without saying that we supported their efforts. It was clear that progress had been made in relation to issues of particular concern to the UK. However, there were matters that had yet to be clarified, particularly in relation to the Charter. It was also important to remember that the stumbling block at the European Council last December was the issue of vote weighting, something in which we weren’t particularly involved. We had yet to see whether that was something that could be resolved. In answer to questions about the Charter, the PMOS said that the Charter codified existing rights, rather than create new rights. However, we had to be sure that it would not conflict with our national laws on issues such as strikes. We were seeking clarification on it. Asked again about the chances of reaching agreement this week, the PMOS said he did not think it would be helpful to get drawn into a hypothetical discussion about percentages. We believed a deal was still possible if we were able to obtain the clarification that we required on the Charter and other issues. However, it was important to recognise that there were other issues at stake over which we had little control, such as vote weighting. Put to him that the Taoiseach had rated success at 50:50, the PMOS said that the Irish Government were the current holders of the EU Presidency. They were therefore the ones in the driving seat. They still believed a deal was possible, but they also recognised that there were still issues to be resolved. Asked if he was leaving the door open for failure, the PMOS said that he was leaving open the door for both success and failure. Asked if he would agree that failure was likely to be a result of issues beyond the UK’s control, the PMOS said it was impossible to tell precisely because they were beyond our control. It would depend on whether member states were willing to shift their positions in a way in which other countries would consider to be satisfactory.

Asked if our nomination for the new European Commission President formed part of the UK’s negotiating position, the PMOS said no. It was a separate issue which would be resolved as such. Asked when the British Government would announce who would be its Commissioner, the PMOS said that as he understood it, it didn’t have to be right now. Asked if the Prime Minister supported the candidature of Antonio Vittorino for Commission President, the PMOS said that our thoughts recently had not focussed on one particular candidate. Mr Vittorino’s name had been around before, as had other people’s. Discussions about this issue were continuing.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Monday, June 14, 2004

Europe

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries