Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s description of the revived EU Constitution, the PMS replied that it was clear that there would be serious negotiations between now and the EU Summit next week. We welcomed that there was now a consensus around the UK view that this should be an amending treaty. And whilst we would not usually get into discussing internal working documents, because of the way it has been misrepresented in some of this morning’s papers, it was helpful to set out that this document was a description rather than a prescription. It set out the views of member states, including our own, and other member states who did not necessarily share our view. But it was not, as perhaps has been reported, a prescription as to what should happen. It was a reflection of people’s views.

Asked where it was reported as a "prescription", the PMS replied that this was her characterisation of the way that the story had been reported. Put to her that most people had reported that it was Angela Merkel writing a letter summarising the views around the table so far, the PMS replied that she certainly did not recognise that characterisation of the way the story had been written in some newspapers. Asked which papers she meant, the PMS replied that she was not going to name names, but there were certainly aspects of some reports that we considered to be completely untrue.

Asked that given we were saying that this was clearly an amending treaty, could say that there was absolutely no cause for a referendum, the PMS replied that we were saying that there was consensus around the fact that this should be an amending treaty. We had said that this should be an amending treaty without the characteristics of the Constitutional Treaty. And no previous amending treaties have required a referendum.

Asked repeatedly why we couldn’t rule out a referendum now, the PMS replied that this treaty should be an amending treaty, previous amending treaties have not required a referendum, and we did not believe that this treaty should have the characteristics of a constitution.

Asked if the Prime Minister would reconsider this standpoint if for instance there was a large showing of public dismay at what was happening in some polls that may be coming out soon, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had already made his view very clear on these issues.

Asked if we were therefore not absolutely ruling out a referendum, the PMS repeated that as the Prime Minister had said before, we did not believe referenda were required for amending treaties, and that was the sort of treaty we were working towards.

Asked what negotiations would take place before the Summit, and would the Prime Minister be meeting anyone face to face, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was scheduled to meet with the French President next week. There was also the General Affairs Council this weekend that Foreign Ministers would attend.

Put that there was consensus round the table that this was definitely not the kind of thing that people wanted put to a public vote, but there was not necessarily consensus around the table about what the content of the amended treaty should be, the PMS repeated that there were still negotiations to be had, but we had made our position clear.

Asked if there was a possibility that this could come back as the Constitution just renamed as an amended treaty with a few things taken out, the PMS replied that we had been clear this treaty should not have the characteristics of the Constitutional Treaty. Looking at some of the details that have already been set out for example, there was no suggestion of EU symbols in an amending treaty. Asked for a list of differences from the Constitutional Treaty, the PMS replied that she did not have a list to hand and pointed the journalist to the original draft of the Constitutional Treaty that was rejected to see exactly what was set out.

Asked if there was any parts of this amendment that the Prime Minister was particularly against, the PMS replied that without getting into the detail of negotiations, there were four key points that we have been very clear on:

Asked if it was not important to have a clear and objective definition of what was an amended treaty and what would go beyond that, as surely the Government had a vested interest in defining any agreement as it did not want a referendum, the PMS replied that the position on these details had been made clear through our negotiations.

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.

» Friday, June 15, 2007

EU

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries