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European Council: June 2006

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, that certainly my understanding and reading of the conclusions and of what happened at the recent European Council is that accountability remains at the heart of the European Union. I accept entirely the points made by the noble Lord that the Council of Ministers and indeed the Union itself have different and overlapping roles. That makes accountability more rather than less important. The onus, therefore, is on all European Union countries to take these institutional matters—and in particular these accountability matters—very seriously. I could not agree more with the noble Lord’s first point about the importance of Europe just getting on with its work.