Downing Street Says

» Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Europe

Asked to set out what will happen on Thursday, the PMS replied that as he said this morning, the Liaison Committee would start at 9am, moved forward from 10am, and we would expect that to last around two and a half hours. The Prime Minister would then fly straight to Lisbon. It was anticipated that he would be there in time for some of the lunch and he would also have a meeting with the Portuguese Prime Minister Mr Socrates, and it was expected that he may have some other bilaterals as well ahead of the Council on Friday.

Asked if it was correct that the Prime Minister would sign the Treaty, but would not be filmed signing it, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister would not be able to make it in time for the signing ceremony, but he would sign the Treaty.

Asked if it would not have looked better if the Prime Minister was there for the signing, the PMS replied that he had lost count of the number of times that we had been round this. As he had said, there were lots of precedents of people other than the Prime Minister signing treaties, and nobody then suggested that the then Prime Minister was in any way equivocal about the treaty. We had even had people that were not Cabinet Ministers sign treaties. The Prime Minister was going to sign this. He was the Prime Minister, he negotiated the Treaty, he thought it was a good Treaty for Britain, it will help streamline a lot of the EU processes following enlargement, we secured our red lines, and he stood fully behind it.

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Europe

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