Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Transition, EU Treaty and BAE Systems
Transition
Asked what were the Prime Minister’s engagements on May 1st, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said if journalists were referring to this morning’s papers then he had one word, wrong. Asked whether the PMOS was referring to stories reporting the Prime Minister would make an announcement about his future in advance of the local elections, the PMOS said that was correct.
EU Treaty
Asked whether the PMOS could update journalists on progress on the EU Treaty, the PMOS said the reality was that we were at the preliminary stages of discussions. The other reality was that both with the Dutch Prime Minister and here in Poland we believed that we detected support for the Prime Minister’s view that there should be an amending Treaty, rather than a replacement Treaty. We also had to recognise there would be a range of views across Europe, but the Prime Minister had used the opportunity on Tuesday to put his views to Angela Merkel who was in the chair at the moment. She as EU President would have to listen to the voices across Europe and try to reach a consensus, but we believed by engaging with other countries there was at least some understanding and support for the approach we were advocating.
Asked whether there was understanding and support from Angela Merkel from the UK’s view, the PMOS said Angela Merkel’s role as EU President was to try and bring together opinion, not at this stage to say whether individual countries were right or wrong, it would be totally wrong of us to try and put her in that position at this stage. Put that PMOS had talked about an amending Treaty, could he give a clearer idea of exactly what the Government wanted to amend, the PMOS said the Prime Minister had said it should not have the characteristics of a constitution. Equally we had to recognise we were at the start of a process of negotiations within Europe. therefore, it would not be sensible to go into detail at this stage, but there would come a point where that would be possible.
Asked if the amending Treaty would have to be ratified by Parliament, the PMOS said we had a history of amending Treaties in this country, and in these cases it then had to be ratified by Parliament. Asked whether a new Treaty would be unacceptable to Britain, the PMOS said the Prime Minister had said it should be an amending Treaty not a replacing Treaty. A Treaty could amend existing Treaties, but did not replace them.
Asked what was on the agenda at this morning’s meeting, the PMOS said the two Prime Ministers discussed Iraq and the EU Treaty. On both subjects the Polish would speak for themselves, but from our perspective we detected a large measure of agreement.
BAE Systems
Asked whether the Prime Minister was embarrassed by the US formally complaining about the decision to drop the BAE inquiry, the PMOS said all he could say was we did not normally get into discussing diplomatic exchanges.
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