Downing Street Says

Asked for a more specific timetable on what the Prime Minister had set out in his statement, and if all of this would happen in Parliament before the next Council, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) replied that he did not envisage it happening before December. First the Treaty had to be translated into 27 languages, and then it would be signed sometime in December. Once that had happened, the parliamentary procedure would then start.

Put that the Prime Minister had said that he would ratify the Treaty in December at the Council, and did this not rather nullify the point of having a parliamentary discussion, the PMS replied that the Treaty would to be ratified by Parliament, so there needed to be a process of transposing the Treaty into domestic legislation to give it a UK legal basis. This was what the parliamentary process would do. The normal process of ratification would happen, but it could only be done once there was a Treaty to ratify. There was only a political declaration on the text in Lisbon, not a formal signing of the Treaty.

Put that the Treaty would be ratified by Britain once it had been approved by Parliament, the PMS replied that this was correct.

Asked if there was still two possible dates when this could happen, the normal Brussels Summit or the other possible Lisbon Summit, the PMS replied that exactly when and how the physical Treaty was signed was a matter for the Presidency to decide. The general expectation was that it would happen at the Brussels European Council on the 13th December, where it would be called the Treaty of Lisbon.

Asked if any move to qualified majority voting (QMV) would have to be subject to a binding vote in the House, the PMS replied that the way the so called passerelle worked (this was the provision in the Treaty that allowed movement in some areas from unanimity to QMV) was that it could only happen on an unanimous basis. Britain like any other country had to agree by unanimity for any move to QMV in the areas set out in the Treaty, but we were saying that this would not just be the Government, we would subject that to a prior vote in Parliament.

Asked if the Prime Minister needed to ask anything of his European partners for this, the PMS replied that as it was subject to unanimity, it was up to the UK Government how we exercised our effective veto, and we decided that before we exercise our veto we would consult Parliament and there would be a vote on it.

Asked if the Prime Minister was considering entering into the Schegen agreement, the PMS replied that we had an opt-in, nothing had changed.

Asked if this prior vote in the House was absolutely binding, the PMS replied that it would be. We would give our consent to further moves to QMV in the passerelle clauses in the Treaty following a prior vote in the House.

Asked again on the timetable if all stages would be completed by Easter, the PMS replied that we would see. We were clear that there needed to be a full process of scrutiny.

Asked if there had been a change in the commitment not to oppose institutional change from ten years to six years, as the Prime Minister had referred to this Parliament and the next, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was also setting out, as he had done on Friday, various dates by which items of the existing Treaty would come into effect.

Put that David Cameron had suggested Labour MPs should be given a free vote on this, the PMS replied that normal parliamentary procedures would apply.

Asked how many days the parliamentary process would take, the PMS replied that we did not have an estimate of the exact number of days at this point, but it would be a very full and detailed process of scrutiny.

Put that the Prime Minister had said that he was against all further institutional changes in the relationship between the EU and member states, and this presumed that it was all moving in one direction, the PMS replied that we did have a clause in the Treaty that did allow for repatriation of powers.

Asked for clarity on the passerelle, one interpretation would be that the Government already knew that it would oppose any extension to QMV, the PMS replied that clearly one would have to take a view on the individual passerelles, a lot of these QMV measures applied to relatively trivial matters.

Asked about pre-approval towards QMV on ad hoc proposals, the PMS replied that it was true that the Prime Minister had put an additional constraint on the Government in terms of how it can exercise its negotiating power in Europe.

Put that the Prime Minister had put to colleagues at the European Council that he was opposed to further institutional changes, and asked if when he spoke to the Council he gave an indication of timescale to the opposition, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister set out his position clearly in the statement to the House. His position was very clear, and was a position reiterated by a number of other leaders at the Council.

Asked for clarification on QMV measures that did not affect the UK, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was talking about areas in this new Treaty that extend QMV.

Put that presumably there might be further QMV measures relating to the Euro for example that did not effect the UK, but any area whatsoever that extends to QMV would have to be voted on in the House, the PMS replied that the passerelle did not apply to all QMV in the Treaty, only a number of specific areas where this self amending mechanism was in place.

Put that in the Global Europe document, it says that Europe should influence the debate on how the IMF and central banks respond to global financial challenges, and asked if this was something new that the Prime Minister was pushing for, that the EU speaks with one voice on the IMF, the PMS replied that we were not proposing anything new in relation to the European Union’s representation and the way that it operates at the IMF.

Asked why the President of the European Council would be "the servant" of national governments, the PMS replied that it was because he was appointed by national governments, the Council, and he chaired the meetings. But it was individual member states that had the vote who decided matters.

Asked again if the Prime Minister had changed his position from 2017 to eight years at the most, the PMS replied that there had been no change to the position. Nothing that the Prime Minister had said was inconsistent with what was said on Friday.

Asked that assuming this proceeded as the Government would like, when would the High Representative and the President of the Council be in post, the PMS replied that they would be appointed to take effect from when the Treaty would take effect, which would be January 2009. That was assuming the Treaty had been ratified by all member states by that date, bearing in mind that for example in Belgium the process had to go through 9 separate parliaments. But assuming the Treaty was ratified by the end of 2008, it would come into effect in January 2009, and these new positions would be appointed from that date.

Put that this meant the decision on who would get the jobs would be made next year, the PMS replied that that was a reasonable assumption.

Asked when the new Commission started, the PMS replied that the new Commission would start in September 2009. One of the issues that the Prime Minister had to intervene on was to ensure that there was not a separate European Parliament process for the Higher Representative who was also a Commissioner, so that if there had been that would have effectively given the European Parliament a veto over the appointment.

Asked if the Prime Minister was at all attracted to the Liberal Democrat idea of a referendum on "in or out" of Europe, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister did not think this was necessary.

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» Monday, October 22, 2007

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