Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: PM’s visit to Washington and the EU Constitution.
G8/President Bush Visit
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) outlined the thinking ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington DC. The visit was part of the preparations for Gleneagles, but it was not Gleneagles itself. As such we were not expecting to see a final US position tomorrow, that would come at Gleneagles. In this same way we would be meeting other leaders who would be coming to the G8. We recognised that there were large areas where we were in agreement with the US. We both agreed that Africa was a priority. President Bush had said so himself when he had met President Mbeki recently. We also both agreed that the starting point was what did Africa need. We agreed with the US that that assessment had to be about more than throwing money at the problem. It had to be based on a rigorous process of assessing not just Africa’s need, but also whether proposed aid actually delivered improvement on the ground. That was the approach of the Commission for Africa. Hence it identified the need for improved government as well as increased aid, debt relief and trade access. All of that we and the US were agreed upon. We recognised what the President had already done in trebling aid to Africa from the US from one to four billion dollars. Tomorrow the Prime Minister would want to talk about increased aid, debt relief and trade but it would be against the context of what we agreed upon. It would be building both on what the President had already done in setting up the Millennium Challenge Account, what he said at Monteray and what the US had done to increase aid to Africa. Similarly on Climate Change what we believed was important was that we tried to reach agreement on what we did to address the issue, both in terms of harnessing the new technology and science and in bringing on board the emerging nations who were not part of the Kyoto process. In other words agreeing an action plan for the future. That was where the focus was rather than on continuing the disputes of the past. The time to see the product of the discussions would be at Gleneagles and not tomorrow. We believed we were making real progress and continued to believe that we would do so.
In response to the suggestion that the US Government could not agree to the aid plan because it bound Congress in a way that was unconstitutional, the PMOS said that it was a matter for the US Government to talk about how its relation with Congress worked. The US had tripled aid in the past few years and has done so globally as well as with Africa. We would not be going into the details of the discussions and did not expect details to come out in the next 24 hours. What was important, however, was that we had the discussions about what we were trying to achieve overall and what the implications of that were for the level of aid, debt relief and for trade. Our starting point was what Africa actually needed. This was what was different and a success about the analysis of the Commission for Africa. This was the case that the Prime Minister would be taking to President Bush. Asked if we were saying it was the amount that mattered rather than the mechanism and how it would be guarded against corruption, PMOS said we knew the US position on IFF, we knew their position on 0.7% GDP and we knew their position on Kyoto. You could either have an endless discussion on areas where you knew you were not going to get agreement or you could widen the lens and try to see the problem overall by trying to get discussion and agreement on the overview rather than a particular aspect. This was the approach that we would be taking. The important thing was we fully accepted that the Americans were right to take a hard edged approach to aid in the sense that aid had to be spent on a way that actually improved Africa’s infrastructure, that actually improved education, access to good education and healthcare and that it was sustainable. Aid put in now should result in less aid having to be put in at a later date. We shared that analysis. That could only be done if you had, at the same time, a situation where you had good governance and lack of corruption becoming the norm. If you looked back at the history of democracy in Africa we now had a situation where two thirds of countries in Africa have had multi-party elections in the last five years. We were down from nineteen to one major conflict, Sudan, in Africa. Last year growth levels in 24 African countries reached 5%. We were seeing that the African Union and NEPAD were very different organisations from the Organisation of African Unity, which preceded them. In some countries poverty was reducing. In Mozambique for example you could see a 15% reduction in poverty. So progress could be made but we fully accept that for it to be genuine progress you had to see improvement in governance as well as aid levels.
Asked if there were no expectations of US interest in the International Finance Facility (IFF), the PMOS said that the US position on the IFF was well known. What was important was that we concentrated on where we would get agreement and not on where we would not. Asked how more aid now would be less aid later when in the last 5 years 500 billion had gone in, the PMOS said that what was important was that we actually saw the improvement in governance in the fight against corruption, that people recognised that with out that you were not going to get the improvements. We had seen this in Mozambique where there were real improvements to be seen. Mozambique absorbed a doubling of aid in the 5 years between 1996 and 2001 and reduced poverty by 15% as a result. The same sorts of processes were going on in Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Equally, of course you were perfectly entitled to point to countries where there were not improvements. However, with NEPAD and so on we were beginning to see the process of Africa, itself, establishing peer group pressure to drive reform, which then allowed the aid to work.
Asked if we would go ahead anyway without an agreement even if we would like one, the PMOS said that was not the sort of language we were talking in. What you had seen was a development of the intellectual case which recognised that you had to had to see both the economic input and the reform of government to make those inputs work. That was an argument we could take to the US. They had been very hard edged and rather than talking the language of confrontation we should be talking the language of shared analysis and the using implications of that shared analysis for what Africa actually needed.
Asked whether there had been any progress on the IFF and specifically on the vaccination programme, the PMOS said that he would not get into the detail of the discussion as that went against the spirit of what we had been saying. In terms of specific figures we would not go into that because it was not helpful to the process. People would have to wait for Gleneagles for the detail. Overall we believed there needed to be an increase in aid. Overall we believed debt relief was an issue that had to be tackled. Overall we believed access to trade as well as improvements to government had to be tackled. Asked about the US position on the IFF, the PMOS said that he was not going to get into explaining the US position. That was for them to explain. There were the headlines areas where we wanted to see improvements and a gear change. We were making general progress in all those areas and would continue to. The time to judge that was not tomorrow, but at Gleneagles. Our key proposal was that we approached this in a comprehensive way. The key issue was to address the issue of debt relief, which was what we needed to do. We had our position, we had argued long and clearly for that, we would continue to do so. Equally we had to recognise the American position, which President Bush had spelled out very recently. Asked about aid money going straight back into Western banks via corrupt Governments in Africa, the PMOS said that for detail journalists should go to the FCO, but we have fully supported, at the G8 in the past, efforts specifically designed to counter corruption. Asked whether debt relief should be the main focus, the PMOS said that debt relief recognised that if a country was paying off debt to such an extent that it could not invest properly in its public services and its health and education systems and so on then that became a vicious circle. The reality was that unless we moved on debt relief then we would not see the sustainable growth figures that all countries needed.
Asked whom else the Prime Minister would be seeing in Washington, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister would have a number of private meetings, which we would brief on afterwards. Asked if he would be meeting the new head of the World Bank, the PMOS said that he was not aware that he would be.
EU Constitution
Asked if te UK would postpone the referendum on the EU Constitution, the PMOS said that he would not say anything to pre-empt the Foreign Secretary’s statement to the House of Commons this afternoon. The Prime Minister had said that if there were a constitution to vote on then there would be a referendum in this country. The position at the moment following the French and Dutch votes was an issue to be discussed at the European Council. Given that, it did not make sense to proceed at this point, but that did not mean that we were withdrawing the possibility of the British people voting if there was a constitution to vote on. Asked if Downing Street had signed off on the Foreign Secretary’s statement, the PMOS said that the Foreign Secretary’s statement was prepared in the usual way. The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister were in full agreement as to the way forward. Asked if the Prime Minister wanted to see a way forward that rescued the Constitution, the PMOS that the Prime Minister’s view remained as he had stated immediately after the French vote. He believed that the Constitution was a perfectly sensible attempt to try to resolve the issues posed by enlargement. The fact of the matter however was that we had had the French and Dutch vote no and we have to recognise that and have a period of reflection. Equally however, what the Prime Minister believed was that Europe as a whole needed to think about the issues behind those votes. Part of that was how the European economy reformed in such a way to address many of the concerns that he believed were behind the votes, in other words how Europe responded to globalisation. In response to the suggestion that the French were concerned about the Prime Minister’s reforming agenda, PMOS said that the issue was how Europe responded to globalisation. Globalisation was not going to go away and the challenge posed by globalisation was not going to go away. Therefore what we needed was a proper, sensible and rational debate about how Europe would meet the challenge of globalisation.
Asked what Parliamentary timetable had been scheduled to take place before 16 June, the PMOS said that was a hypothetical. The business managers would handle the business in the usual way, but we were where we were. The Foreign Secretary was taking the first opportunity he had to update Parliament on his thinking following the French and Dutch votes. That was both the right and sensible thing to do. It was not pre-empting 16 June it was setting out why we believed that this was a time for reflection. It was reinforcing the need for Europe to discuss the matter, starting on 16 June.
Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned that postponing the British referendum was sending a clear signal ahead of the EU Council, the PMOS said both President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder were entitled to express their view, as were any of the other leaders of the 25 countries. The place to discuss this issue was at the European Council on 16 June. We needed to discuss the implications of the vote in the wider European sense. Therefore this was why we had said from the beginning that we had to pause, reflect and go to the meeting seriously to discuss what the implications were. This was what we would do. What were we doing was reflecting the fact that we were in uncertain times. In uncertain times you should not give a knee jerk response. You should try to think your way through the implications.
Asked why we were making a statement today if 16 June was the key date, the PMOS said that in an uncertain period you did not proceed unless you got certainty and therefore we needed to recognise that we were in an uncertain period and it was not sensible to proceed until there was greater certainty about the direction we were going. Asked whether it would proceed á la carte, as the Prime Minister had said there were good things in the Constitution, the PMOS said people should not get into over-speculating on particular words. What he was saying was that there was an issue about how a Europe of 25 worked which had not been there when Europe was a 15. This was about how you addressed those issues. He believed the Constitution was a sensible attempt to do so, but we had to recognise that the French and the Dutch voters had said what they said.
Asked what lessons needs to be learned, as part of the motivation for voting seemed to be disenfranchisement at an undemocratic looking Europe and whether the Prime Minister would be looking at this during the presidency, the PMOS said that rather than getting drawn into particular measures and so on what was more sensible was that we had a genuine period of reflection and that we came to a view and that we took that to the European Council. Where the Prime Minister has put his thought and emphasis was on economic reform and liberalising services in order to regenerate the European economy. We had to recognise that was part of what was behind where we were.
In answer to further questions, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister was not running away from the issue what he was doing was what leaders should do, which was recognising when reality changed. The reality was that we had had the French and Dutch vote no. The right things to do were to pause and reflect on the reasons for that. The Prime Minister was fully engaged with this issue, not just because of his EU presidency, but because he believed it was the right for Europe to think through what lay behind these decisions. The questions had been asked and the important thing was to devote the upcoming period to producing a rational answer to the question. We were not pretending that we had some off the shelf solution, but there was a discussion to be had within Europe and our sense was that there was a growing view in Europe that that should happen. The Commission had indicated that they believed our approach was sensible. We genuinely recognised, just as others could not impose their views on us, that we could not impose our view on the rest of Europe. Therefore there did have to be a proper debate and discussion. We had to engage in that discussion, not just by asserting our position, but by explaining our position properly. We would do that. What we had was an approach, it was up to us to explain that approach and debate it with our colleagues in Europe. You were not going to find an overnight solution to the problems identified in these two votes. What you had to have was a proper debate that worked towards a solution, not a knee jerk response.
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