Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister had spoken to President Chirac, and if not, was he planning to in the next few days, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had not spoken to President Chirac again since Tuesday. The PMOS also said that the system was in touch with representatives of all countries as we approached the final stages of this negotiation. If we needed to speak to President Chirac again, then we would. There was a recognition around Europe that everyone would face difficult choices.

Those choices were essentially about whether it was better to do a deal now which may not be ideal, but did mean that there would be the certainty and the stability of a deal, and that in turn would result, especially in Accession countries, in them getting nearly 260 billion euros over seven years. As the discussions last week showed, the important thing for the Accession Countries was that they got access to that money as quickly as possible, and that we helped them in the process of doing that. Our proposals did that, and whilst we accepted that they might not be ideal, and there would be hard choices to make, they would be in the real interests of the countries, as opposed to postponed decisions for one, or even two years.

Asked how a common approach between Germany and France would affect the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and also was there a hard choice to make regarding the rebate, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had spoken to Chancellor Merkel earlier in the week. We fully accepted that it was perfectly legitimate for other countries to speak together, and it was for them to speak after any discussions, so the PMOS would not pre-empt them in any way. However, we had a good understanding of where Chancellor Merkel was coming from on this, and she had a good understanding of why we believed it was right to try and help the Accession 10 by getting a deal now.

With regards to the rebate part of the question, the PMOS said we had a very clear position. We recognised the need to help the Accession 10, which was why we were prepared to forgo part of the rebate to help them. However, the Prime Minister had made the position very clear on the rebate vis-a-vis the CAP and the existing 15 countries, which was there could be not fundamental change in the rebate, unless there was fundamental change in the CAP. That was why we placed so much importance on a mid-term review, and that remained the case.

Asked about contribution comparisons, the PMOS said that we had been contributing twice as much towards the EU budget as the French in their contributions since Fontainebleu in 1984 as a result of the deal that was done then. What this deal would deliver for the UK was rough parity with countries such as France, so in terms of the contribution we were making a significant contribution. The important thing was did Europe as a whole believe that it was right to do a deal now, so that we could start now, and not at some point in the future to try and move the Accession Countries forward in terms of prosperity. That was the key decision that Europe as a whole had to face. In terms of the CAP, the PMOS said that of course our first preference remained that we should have a fundamental restructure now. However, we were prepared to be realistic and recognise that that may not be possible at this stage.

Therefore, because of the interests of the Accession 10, that was why we were prepared to go for a smaller deal now. If it was not for the Accession 10, the argument would be much more balanced, but because of the needs of the Accession 10, it was why we believed it was right to try for a deal now, despite all the difficulties.

Asked where might there be scope for a new deal, the PMOS thanked the journalist for the invitation for him to pre-empt all the discussions of the next few days, but since there were 13 discussions to hold over the next two days, he thought it best to resist the temptation! It was a normal part of the process that proposals were put forward, and views were heard, so people should wait and see where things ended up.

Asked when did the Prime Minister last speak to President Chirac and Chancellor Merkel, the PMOS said respectively Tuesday and Wednesday.

Asked why it was not possible to restructure the CAP now and wasn’t it just France’s problem, the PMOS said that in fairness, it was important to recognise that France was not alone in terms of its resistance to change now. There were other countries, including Ireland, which for their own domestic reasons opposed change now. That was not a position that we agreed with, but we did have to recognise that. The question therefore became politically one of how could the argument and its support be best maintained in pressing for CAP reform? That was why it was important that we not only economically went for a deal to help the Accession 10, but politically as well. It was important that we kept the argument and the pressure to CAP reform going, and that we therefore were not seen to take an unreasonable position.

Asked for any indication of where progress might be made, and where might we look next, the PMOS said that we had always recognised that this was not going to be a deal where everyone was going to put up their hands and say "Yes! You brilliant British, you’ve done it!" It was always going to be a deal where people were going to have to accept less than their ideal position. That was generally the case in most negotiations. What was interesting was that the discussions did continue and that we were still holding meaningful discussions as we went into next week. The PMOS said he was not going to pre-empt where those discussions were, nor was he going to pre-empt where countries would finally end up. Equally, he did not in any way underestimate the difficulties and different choices that people were going to face. Their real choices, however, were whether we did a deal now to give the stability and certainty that countries needed, or did we hold out for some ideal position which might never happen. That was the real political choice that had to be made.

Put that we seemed to be "bending backwards" to help the Accession Countries, why did they not appear to appreciate it, the PMOS replied that they were being asked to accept something less than they were theoretically promised by the Luxembourg deal. The fact was that the Luxembourg deal was not a deal because it was not agreed, and there were very good reasons in our case why we rejected it, along with other countries. Therefore, what the Accession 10 were faced with was a choice between the theoretical goals that the Luxembourg deal offered them, or the reality of the situation. That reality was that not only was there no deal under Luxembourg, but also in terms of their ability to spend, they would never had been able to spend all the amount of money that was promised at that stage. The PMOS said we did not expect people to like what we had proposed, but what we hoped was that people at the end would say it was the best deal realistically that was on offer, or was likely to be on offer. It was better to be realistic now, than to wait for some idealistic position that might never come.

Asked if we expected any new proposals on the new deal, the PMOS said that as the Foreign Secretary had said that we were considering the proposals, therefore there were logical implications in that.

Asked if anyone had jumped up to say "yes" it was a good idea, the PMOS replied that with negotiations like this, people could wait a long time for that to happen! It was generally the experience that it was at the end of the process before people said yes or no, and that would be the case with this. The PMOS said he could not tell people when the end of the process might be.

Asked if all this "protracted diplomacy" made the Prime Minister wish for a new European constitution, the PMOS replied that the arguments why we believed that constitution would have resulted in a more streamlined process were set out at the time. We too had to deal with the reality of where we were, and he fully understood why people wanted there to be a deal by a certain time, but we had to deal with where we were.

Put that at the beginning of this Presidency, the Prime Minister set out very ambitious aims about a rethink on how Europe spent its money, so was he disappointed that even at best next week, all that would be achieved was "just the basic running budget of an EU", the PMOS replied that firstly we had not pretended anything other than what our first preference was. That was we move a lot faster and a lot further on CAP than appeared to be the case at this stage. However, the Prime Minister had set out an agenda for change, and if we got agreement on the mid-term review, it would not just be a vague aspiration for change, but rather a real process.

There would be a real, concrete commitment to the process which would examine change. This was an important point not only in relation to Europe, but in other issues as well. The PMOS said the question that had to be asked was whether the process and momentum of change was now unstoppable, and we believed that the dynamic that had been set up this year that included CAP, trade, debt relief and aid was now completely, fundamentally different from where it was at the start of the year. We had not delivered all the answers to all the questions at this stage, but the question was: had we changed the terms of debate? With regards to Europe, was it now more a question of the pace of change, rather than the fact of change? The answer, we believed, was "yes". The CAP would change; it was just a matter of when.

Asked why we were so convinced the momentum of change was unstoppable, the PMOS said that the argument was no longer about the fact of change, but about the rate of change.

Asked if everybody already agreed that there should be a new deal, the PMOS replied that the reality was that nobody had agreed to a deal until there was a deal. That was the reality. Again, the PMOS said people were inviting him to discuss elements of the deal which he would not do.

Asked about amounts of money involved in the budget, the PMOS said we continued to make the case for the smaller budget.

Asked why was it not possible to get rid of the rebate and pay the same amount as France and renegotiate, the PMOS replied that we had said that we were prepared to put the rebate on the table, but only on the context of CAP reform. The rebate was only there because of the distortions produced by the CAP. To get rid of it unilaterally would take away the leverage to argue for, and get, real change for the CAP. The rebate was there because of the CAP, and its continued existence gave us leverage to continue to argue for change to the CAP.

Put that, therefore, paying the same as France was only half the argument, the PMOS said that getting to rough parity with France was a major change of where we had been since Fontainebleu, and people should not underestimate that. Equally, what we wanted to do was to make the change real in the medium to long term.

Asked why the rebate was justifiable on anything other than the CAP, the PMOS said that to get us to the point of rough parity, rather than below parity (??).

Asked whether Cabinet had agreed on the details and a deal, the PMOS replied that the complexities of this deal were such that they were not discussed over the Cabinet table. What the Cabinet discussion was about was an explanation of, and support for, our general approach.

Asked if people should read anything into the fact that the Prime Minister had held face-to-face meetings with some European leaders, but had held phone calls with others, the PMOS said it was purely down to logistics. It would not be the final word with these leaders, as there were nine days to go.

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.

» Thursday, December 8, 2005

Europe

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries