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European Affairs

We join the Foreign Secretary in her comments about the importance of enlargement and in hoping for new impetus to achieve the necessary improvements in the emissions trading scheme and for development in Africa. We also strongly support the broad thrust of her comments about the positive results that enlargement has brought to so many member states joining the European Union. This EU affairs debate comes at a critical time in the development of the European Union and the position of the member states within it. A year and a half after the French and the Dutch rejected the proposed constitution, we are approaching what was supposed to be the crescendo of a massive national debate about the future of the EU—a debate that the Government promised to lead. Instead, in the words of the European Scrutiny Committee:"““the Government's general position appears to be to shelter behind the obvious absence of any consensus on the future of Europe and to say that it will inform the House of its views once there is one””." Meanwhile, the German Government are preparing to try to salvage as much of the constitution as possible during their forthcoming EU presidency. French politicians are talking about a mini treaty that would similarly increase the powers of the EU, with an EU Foreign Minister, a permanent President and the surrender of national vetoes, but in the hope that approval could be slipped through in parliamentary votes without the need for further referendums.