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European Council

If the right hon. Gentleman studies carefully what the Dutch Prime Minister said, he will see that he said the same as everyone else. In Holland, unless there is a change in the no vote—I said all this last year—the constitution cannot be proceeded with, so there will not be a situation where the constitutional treaty is implemented in its present form. The question is: how do we secure the best set of rules for the future of Europe? That is something on which we as a country should be engaged, in negotiation with our European partners. The debate about whether the constitutional treaty is dead can go on all over Europe, but it does not make the slightest difference to whether we secure a sensible outcome to the rules that will be necessary to govern a Europe of 25, then 27, then further countries. The issue for us as a country is whether we can build sufficiently strong alliances with other like-minded countries so that the necessary changes in rules can be made to make Europe more efficient, without going down the federalist path. That cannot be done unless we build those alliances.