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European Council, 16–17 June

My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept my congratulations on having omitted from the Statement the customary pieties about the brilliant performance of the presidency? Certainly, in my view, on this occasion the Luxembourg presidency lacked a certain amount of objectivity. The statements made after the Council were completely absent in that respect. Will she also accept my welcome for what the Council approved on the reform of the United Nations? It was an extremely important statement of support for the UN Secretary-General, which I hope demonstrated that we are not just going to involve ourselves in a purely navel-gazing period in which we pay no attention to the important events that are happening in the rest of the world.