Downing Street Says » Prime Minister’s Speech to EU Council

Asked what the Prime Minister’s speech to the EU Council tomorrow in Brussels might contain, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said the Prime Minister would be setting out his vision for how we looked forward in Europe. The Prime Minister wanted the reality of what we were trying to achieve in the UK set out, which was not a purely market Europe vision, but rather a balance of social and market Europe. What was necessary was that Europe faced up to the challenge and the opportunity.

Asked if the Prime Minister would refer directly to the CAP, the PMOS said the Prime Minister would refer to his view that the European budget should more accurately reflect the needs of Europe now, as it met the challenge of globalisation, rather than that of Europe thirty or forty years ago.

Asked if the Prime Minister yesterday had made his position more "explicit" regarding the rebate and its negotiability, the PMOS replied: no. The Prime Minister did not say anything yesterday that he had not said on Friday night in Brussels. Therefore, it had been our position that the rebate was wholly justified as long as the budget remained as it was. If the budget changed, the case for the rebate changed with it.

Put to him that President Chirac had accused Britain of intransigence and President Barosso said "we could not go back negotiating things we’d already agreed", and was there any comment, the PMOS said it was not intransigence if we were saying we were prepared to put the rebate on the table if there was a guarantee of a process regarding a new budget. The PMOS asked: was it right that we should not be able to change the budget to more accurately reflect the needs of Europe today until 2014?

2 Comments »

The stupidity of the situation is that the representatives of the Countries of the EU agreed to and signed a document that is valid until 2014.

The PM is now saying that we sent the wrong people to negotiate the existing agreement and they were ill prepared by the then government and civil servants who had a myopic view of Europe in 2005.

OK – sack the people who got it wrong – live with your commitments – do some decent forward planning so that we get it right in 2014 – and stop moaning.

Everyone involved at present is merely reenforcing the image of the European Commission being staffed by a bunch of incompetent has beens who are supported by the likes of the PM.

On a personal note I believe that ancient britons dug the channel to separate us from Europe and that’s how it should have remained.
Comment by Roger Huffadine — 23 Jun 2005 on 9:23 am | Link
We are an island in Europe. We are Europeans and just as snotty nosed and petty minded as each and every other tin pot nation – as Huffadine reveals.

We should work together. Sometimes we have to work together. We certainly ought to work together. Indeed, to achieve anything significant in this shrinking, stinking, over populated, increasingly resource hungry and resource scarce world, we must work together.

No one said it was going to be easy but it’s so last century, so we (ha!) won the war arrogant, to think we are a separate entity and can go our own way. Until the right wing Tories wake up to this we won’t have a credible opposition and this shambling lot of do gooding, daddy knows best control freaks will be in power forever.

I think it would be great if the EC forced us to build a decent high speed rail network like the French, recycle waste and use renewable energy like the Germans and modernise the roads like the Spanish. Instead we, the Great British, left to our own devices, plan to solve the travel issue by taxing ourselves off trains and roads and focus even more pollution over our largest population centre by enlarging Heathrow.

We need the EC to help us control and direct our own arrogant leaders. Only 22% of us voted for them and they are already removing our rights.

Fellow Europeans, we need you – please help!
Comment by Mr Pooter — 23 Jun 2005 on 11:37 am | Link

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.

» Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Prime Minister’s Speech to EU Council

2 Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries