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European Union (Amendment) Bill

There is a slight inconsistency between the hon. Gentleman's position and that of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The Chairman was arguing that the development of having a president who served a term would improve the external representation of the European Union's common policy, but the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the president would be constrained in the policy that they represented and would have to follow narrowly the instructions of the European Council. However, I am at a loss to see why a president serving for a period of two and a half years would be any more capable of representing that narrowly constrained common policy than the Prime Minister, President or Foreign Minister of one of our European partners.