Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: EU Treaty, Police Inquiry, Hilary Benn, Prime Minister
EU Treaty
Asked if the commitment to the referendum still stood, or was it a “entirely new matter”, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) told journalists that this treaty would be a different kind of animal if the rest of the 27 agreed. The PMOS explained that this would be an amending treaty, like we had seen in the past. Therefore, those rules would apply. The important thing was the context you started from, i.e., instead of beginning from the starting point of constitutional theory, where we should start from was what was practically needed to make a Europe of 27 work. A Europe of 27 could not operate by the same rules as a Europe of 6, 12, or 15, and anyone who had attended a European Council meeting recently knew it just did not work in the same way it should, Therefore, the way in which the EU operated had to practically change, so that was the starting point, and that was the starting point of the Dutch. What we were saying to the rest of Europe was that we had to recognise that just as we did on the morning after the French and Dutch referendums, there was a reason why the voters spoke, and we had address those reasons.
Asked if we were saying that it was basically not a referendum, the PMOS replied that in the same way, for the past 50 years, other treaties of the kind that we were envisaging had not needed a referendum in this country. The Prime Minister’s key point was existing treaties would be amended, not replaced with an entirely new European constitution.
Asked if we were saying that if this was agreed by the other countries that there would not be a referendum, the PMOS explained that the reality was that the kind of constitution that was originally envisaged was rejected by the Dutch and the French. As Prime Minister Balkenende suggested, there was absolutely no reason to believe that that would get through Europe of 27 today anymore than it did then. Therefore, what needed to be done was to recognise that what Europe actually needed were more practical changes, and that could be achieved by an amending treaty, rather than a new constitution.
Asked if there were any bits of the constitution that the Prime Minister would not like to see in the treaty, the PMOS said that the question was inviting him to do precisely what the Prime Minister said that we should not do at this stage, which was to go through a shopping list of things before we had talked to other people. The important thing was to put it the other way around. What did Europe need at 27 to make it work? We had said all along that things like a rotating Presidency of 27 just did not make sense. We would be European President once every 12 years, for example, and the lack of continuity that would occur would be no way to run any organisation, especially not with 27 elements. The important thing was that the President was no more than the Chair of the Council of Heads of Government and was answerable to the Council without any independent powers. Similarly, the foreign representative, in our view, should be answerable to the Council, because it should be reflecting the wills of the Government. Those were practical arrangements, and they did not alter the constitutional balance between the Council and the Commission.
Asked what we would say to the charge of the Eurosceptic press that this would get the constitution through the back door, the PMOS said that if it was an amending treaty, and not a replacement constitution, then it was a very different kind of animal. It was a very different kind of animal, both in the letter, and in the spirit. As we had said all along, QMV worked in certain areas where it was in our interests in terms of tracking drug related criminals, or terrorists etc across Europe, it made sense to have co-operation across Europe. Again, however, those details were matters to be discussed with our partners in Europe first.
Asked if we saw this as a counter-proposal to what Angela Merkel had been suggesting, the PMOS replied that it was part of trying to reflect the reality that two countries rejected the original constitution. As Prime Minister Balkenende said, there was no evidence to suggest that it was any more likely to be passed in its original form today than the day it was rejected, and perhaps some evidence to the contrary. Therefore, what we needed to focus on was what actually did Europe need to make it work at 27.
Asked how urgent did the Prime Minister view this task, and did he think that the EU was “paralysed” at the moment, the PMOS replied that he was not going to give easy headlines. What the reality was, however, was that we were due to discuss this at the June Council anyway, and therefore, if we agreed the principles in which we shaped that discussion, then that was a way forward. The Prime Minister highlighted immediately after the Dutch and French referendum results in his speech to the EU Parliament the reasons why he thought Europe not only needed to focus on what it could practically achieve in areas such as energy and climate change, but also, how it needed to make practical changes so that at 27, it could work. Therefore, that had been a constant theme of what he had said. The urgency of that was the sooner we got it done, the sooner that Europe could be working in a way it should do.
Asked if it was the British Government’s idea for the June Summit to establish principles for this new regime, the PMOS replied that we had to respect the fact that it was not us who were in the Presidency. Secondly, we did have to talk to our colleagues, and it was better to do that first. We needed to certainly find a way of trying to shape the debate on a realistic foothold, and that was what we were trying to do today. We had to be realistic about what actually was not only achievable in terms of getting agreement, but also, in terms of getting a consensus across Europe.
Put that if there was going to be a long-term Presidency of up to 4 or 5 years, would the Prime Minister apply, the PMOS replied that firstly, the idea was for 2 ½ years, and secondly, the person would be decided upon by the Heads of Government meeting in Council. Therefore it would be highly presumptive for the PMOS to even begin to engage in a conversation of that kind.
Police Inquiry
No. Asked if we had any idea how long “this” was going to go on for, the PMOS said that it was a matter for the police and the CPS.
Hilary Benn
Put that Hilary Benn had talked about “soft force” in his recent speech, which appeared to be the opposite of the Prime Minister’s speech a couple of months ago where he had spoken about “hard force”, the PMOS replied that if people read the Prime Minister’s speech in Los Angeles, it said that where necessary, people had to be prepared to use military force to protect democratic governments, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, against terrorism. At the same time, they had to recognise that politics had to be used to win the battle of ideas, and that had been a key theme in the Prime Minister’s speech for quite some time.
Asked if the Prime Minister or Downing Street supported what Hilary Benn had said about the “war on terror”, the PMOS replied that he did not see any contradiction between what the Prime Minister had consistently said, which was that people had to be prepared to use both “hard power and soft power”. The Prime Minister had consistently said that, and had said so about the Middle East and elsewhere as well, and in fighting terrorism, military strength was not enough, but there were times where it had to be used.
Asked about the phrase “war on terror”, the PMOS replied that his attitude was that people used whatever phrases they felt comfortable with, and what was important was what did they actually mean. For example, if people looked at what the US Administration was doing in the Middle East at the moment in trying to get the peace process going again, they were pursuing a political agenda. Similarly, this could be seen in terms of our approach to the Middle East.
Put by the Independent that although the Prime Minister very rarely used the words “war on terror”, President Bush had used “war on terror”, so what people had deduced was that we were treading carefully, the PMOS said that what he was saying was that people used phrases that they were comfortable with. The Independent used phrases that the PMOS would not use, and vice versa.
Prime Minister
Asked if people could expect some kind of grand farewell tour, the PMOS said that we would take each day as it came, and the Prime Minister had plenty in the in-tray and plenty on the agenda.
Asked if the Prime Minister would be interested in the World Bank job, the PMOS replied that he was not aware that there was a vacancy.
Asked about the Prime Minister’s paper tomorrow, and was it part of the policy review, the PMOS confirmed that it was, but people should wait until the press conference for more details. It was the foreign policy section of the review.
Asked if our role in Britain and the World had changed, the PMOS said again that people should wait until tomorrow.
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