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European Council

I hope that is correct. One of the reasons why we should get off the endless debate about institutional mechanisms is that I have noticed from the European enlargement through which 12 new countries have come in, that Europe today works essentially though political alliances. To be absolutely frank, even under QMV, if our country has a major interest but we cannot assemble a blocking minority—incidentally, I cannot think of an occasion on which we have not been able to do that in the past 10 years—there is something wrong with the way in which we are going about building up political alliances. The key thing is for Europe to decide its coherent direction. Whether it is on energy policy, the environment or any other issue, the institutional mechanisms will be only as good as the political direction that is using them. If the political direction is right, we have a chance of making Europe work more effectively. It is interesting that most objective observers would say that Europe has tended to move in the direction in which Britain has wanted over the past few years. We should use that and work on it.