Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Berlin Meeting and Hutton Inquiry.
Channel Tunnel Rail Link
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister and Alistair Darling would be attending the opening of the first section of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) at Waterloo Station this afternoon. This was an important event. It was the first new major railway to have been built for over one hundred years and the first high-speed link in this country. Just as significantly, the £5.2bn project had been delivered on time and on budget, which was clearly quite an achievement. Asked where the money had come from, the PMOS said that as he understood it, £1.8bn had come from the public sector. The rest had been provided by the private sector.
Berlin Meeting
The PMOS informed journalists that the Prime Minister would be meeting Chancellor Schroeder and President Chirac in Berlin on Saturday. It would provide an opportunity for a fairly wide-ranging discussion on economic matters and international affairs, including Iraq and European issues. The Prime Minister had also invited Prime Minister Aznar of Spain to meet him at Chequers on Sunday.
Asked if this was the first time the Prime Minister, Chancellor Schroeder and President Chirac had met since the Iraq war, the PMOS said that they would have had a chance for informal discussions in the margins of recent EU Summit meetings. However, Saturday’s meeting in Berlin would provide an opportunity for the three leaders to meet up to discuss issues such as Iraq and Europe. Asked if Saturday’s meeting would be the first time the leaders had met as a threesome with a general agenda, the PMOS repeated that the Prime Minister, Chancellor Schroeder and President Chirac would have met informally in the margins of EU Summits. However, given the current situation in Iraq, it made more sense to continue those discussions in a formal setting, which was what they would do on Saturday. Questioned as to whether the three leaders had ’squared’ the meeting with Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy given the fact that he had been put out that he hadn’t been invited to the last meeting of European leaders, the PMOS said that he did not envisage a repeat of that occasion. Nor did he envisage the guest list growing bigger hour-by-hour, day-by-day, as appeared to happen last time. Saturday’s meeting was a chance to have an informal discussion with Chancellor Schroeder and President Chirac. The Prime Minister would also be meeting Prime Minister Aznar on Sunday. The PMOS reminded journalists that the Prime Minister was also in regular contact with other EU leaders.
Asked who had requested Saturday’s meeting, the PMOS said there had been a general consensus that it would be sensible for the three leaders to meet at this time. Clearly common sense was sometimes a virtue. Put to him that someone must have initiated the meeting, the PMOS said that it was perfectly possible to begin discussions at EU Summits and then seek opportunities to continue them at a later stage. That was how Saturday’s meeting should be viewed. Questioned as to whether Chancellor Schroeder had instigated the meeting given he was the one who was hosting it, the PMOS repeated that the meeting should be seen as part of a consensus rather than the initiative of a particular individual.
Asked if the timing had anything to do with Sunday’s Swedish referendum and whether the issue would be raised during the discussions, the PMOS said that he wasn’t aware if the issue would be specifically discussed on Saturday, though it could come up. In addition, he did not believe that the meeting had been deliberately timed to coincide with any particular event. It had clearly been scheduled when a mutually-available slot had been identified in the leaders’ diaries. Asked if the timing was related to efforts to achieve a UN Resolution on Iraq, the PMOS said that the dynamic driving the UN Resolution had shifted from Geneva back to New York. It would go at its own pace. The issue might or not be discussed on Saturday - it depended on where we were in the process. In any event, it should not be seen as the main raison d’être for the meeting.
Hutton Inquiry
Asked if there had been any communication between Lord Hutton and the Prime Minister asking the Prime Minister to clarify details pertaining to his evidence in the first stage of the Inquiry, the PMOS said that journalists should know him well enough by now to know that he was not going to answer a question about private correspondence.
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