Jim Murphy

On the road to Luxembourg

A busy day today began with an interview on Sky News, rightly delayed so Sky could cover Brian Ashton's press conference in Paris.  I listened with great interest to what he had to say - he brings a common sense approach to managing the England rugby team that is a real contrast to many others involved in sport.  It's an approach Steve McClaren and Alex McLeish also bring to their management of the England and Scotland football teams, and I hope it catches on with others in sport.

Amidst all the coverage of the rugby, some of today's papers refer to a letter sent yesterday from David Cameron to the Prime Minister about the EU Reform Treaty.  I'm not going to get into the party politics of it here, but you might be interested in the detail of one or two of the points being made. 

It is not just the Government in this country stating that "the constitutional concept has been abandoned".  This is a quote from the the Mandate for the Treaty, agreed by all 27 EU member states in June (the full version is: "The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single text called "Constitution" is abandoned"). 

All of our European partners are clear about this - it was, after all, the French and Dutch people who made it plain that they didn't want a Constitution.  The President of the European Commission has made this crystal clear.  And one of the authors of the old Constitutional Treaty, Giuliano Amato (now Italian Interior Minister) has said: "In the debate about the European Constitutional Treaty, we were talking about a Treaty which would repeal all the existing main treaties; that would have been a new Constitution, a new start.  However, what was agreed in Brussels at the European Council was not that, it was a cluster of amendments to the existing Treaty.  That is a crucial difference." (He also said: "if someone in the UK is calling for a referendum, that is not because the text we have in front of us is a Constitution, it must be for some other reason and I for one would not support it").

There's also been much talk about the UK's 'red lines'.  As a Government we are certain that they protect our sovereignty in crucial areas and give us a good, UK-specific deal.  All of our 26 EU partners know that we are determined to achieve our red lines.  I wouldn't pretend that those who want to see a federal Europe are pleased that we are being so tough in the negotiations and so insistent on getting a UK-specific deal.  Nothing in the Treaty affects our ability to run our own foreign policy - where we agree with other EU member states we will act together, but where we don't we can act alone.  There have been suggestions that the European Court of Justice might chip away at our 'red line' on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.  But our Protocol on the Charter is legally binding, in the Treaty, and has the same legal force as the Treaty.

What has so far been lost in the debate is that this Treaty gives us what we want - slimmed down and more effective European institutions that can act faster and deliver more for British and other European citizens. 

If you are interested in this and want to know more, the Foreign Secretary is appearing before the European Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday.  You can watch the session on Parliamentary TV or look at a transcript afterwards on www.parliament.uk (you can see a record of my evidence to the committee from 2 October at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmeuleg/uc1015-i/uc101502.htm) 

My day continues with a radio interview for the BBC.  After that I am travelling to Luxembourg for a meeting of European Foreign Ministers (and Europe Ministers).  We'll be discussing issues like Burma, Zimbabwe and the Middle East Peace Process.  The Foreign Secretary or I will let you know how it goes.

Posted at 13:17 14 October 2007 by Jim Murphy  |  Comments[8]