Downing Street Says » European Constitution

» Thursday, April 29, 2004

European Constitution

Asked for a reaction to President Chirac’s comment today that EU members should ratify the Constitution within two years of it being agreed or face a decision on their status within the EU, the PMOS said that that was the first he had heard of the proposal. As he had said this morning, if the Treaty was agreed this summer, we would go into the referendum to win it. However, if there was a no vote, it should be understood that we would be entering into unknown territory. In answer to further questions about President Chirac’s remarks, the PMOS said that the comment clearly illustrated the difficult circumstances we would be facing were there to be a no vote.

Asked again about Valery Giscard D’Estaing’s comment this morning that the UK would not be kicked out of Europe if there was a no vote in the referendum, the PMOS said that M. Giscard D’Estaing was entitled to his view as a former Chairman of the Convention on the Future of Europe which, it should be noted, was no longer in existence. However, the Government believed that it was not in this country’s interest to be on the margins of Europe. We should be at the centre, not least because the new accession states who were joining the EU this weekend had an outlook on Europe which was very close to our own: they were in favour of European co-operation – but co-operation as individual member states. Put to him that M. Giscard D’Estaing appeared to be sounding a little more ’emollient’ than President Chirac, the PMOS said that one of the first things he had learned as a political journalist in a former life was not to get between two leading politicians, let alone a serving French President and an ex-French President. That was a principle he intended to stand by.

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