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European Council, 16–17 June

My Lords, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House says that the treaty cannot proceed. Did she read Mr Christopher Booker’s excellent article in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, which I appreciate may not be her favourite reading? He details a number of significant European initiatives that depend for their legal base on the constitution but are proceeding in any case. Among them, he points out that,"““the EU has been drawing up its own £7-billion-a-year space programme, even though this is only authorised by the (dead) constitution.""The Fundamental Rights Agency is being set up in Vienna to enforce the Charter of Fundamental Rights””," again authorised by the constitution. Mr John Bruton is already ““parading around in Washington””, posing as the EU ambassador, even though the EU’s diplomatic service is again authorised only by the constitution. Most importantly, on Friday,"““in a historic but little-noted judgment, the European Court of Justice ruled that the ‘Community’ now has power to dictate on the judicial procedures to be followed by all 25 member states””." Under our presidency, will we put all those initiatives on hold or will they continue as though the people of France and Holland had not spoken?