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European Council: 14 December 2007

My Lords, I should acknowledge that I signed the treaty for the accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Union in Madrid and Lisbon. I regard that—perhaps the Minister will agree—along with the other treaties mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the one signed last week, as one of the less than elegant but essentially necessary components in progress towards the coherent development and success of the European Union. I would not seek to argue that it was a meticulously perfect document, but they never have been because they have all been the result of endless negotiation. I am glad that it has been signed. I hope that there will be no undue enthusiasm about referendums. I have always regarded those as suitable exercises for Welshmen approving or disapproving of the opening of pubs on Sunday, but not for the merits or otherwise of a treaty of this complexity and importance. Having said that, does the noble Baroness not understand the shameful impact of the Prime Minister’s leadership on the management of these closing stages? I am reminded of the old legal joke about counsel asking for a case to be adjourned by saying to his Lordship, ““I'm afraid that the alibi witnesses are at present busy in another court””. Nothing can justify the Prime Minister's failure to play the role that ought to have been played. Frankly, I worry about the explanation for such an inadequate and incoherent performance—the reluctance to give any evidence of effective participation in team membership and support of an important project, and a reluctance to proclaim the merits either here or there in the way in which they ought to have been proclaimed. I worry that the Prime Minister, so it is said, experienced some difficulty in coexisting and cohabiting with his officials at the Treasury, demonstrated some difficulty in cohabiting with some of his own colleagues in Cabinet and demonstrated almost no ability whatever to work the room of the European Council meeting in the way that President Sarkozy did. The Prime Minister arrived late and walked straight through the crowd as though he were among strangers, instead of taking advantage of the situation and promoting our interest by his personality and presence. Is it not this that the Prime Minister needs to learn, if he is still capable of learning such novelties—the importance of his personality at assemblies of this kind in promoting British interests in the way in which they ought to be promoted?