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Treaty of Lisbon (No. 8)

I have generally welcomed the treaty of Lisbon because it brings together in a sensible form a system that will enable us to do the things in the EU that we need to do. Clearly, climate change is one of the most central matters. Let me remind my colleagues who are concerned about the degree of unimportance of these few words of the importance that they often place on a number of other single sentences in the Lisbon treaty and how much time they take explaining how dangerous they are. I have had to spend quite a lot of time explaining why they are not as dangerous as that. We cannot dismiss what is in the treaty as merely a few words, because what they say is that, at the heart of the activities of the European Union is the battle against climate change. We cannot do most of the things that we want to do effectively except on the basis of the world's largest trading organisation. There is no doubt, as The Wall Street Journal recently said, that Europe is setting the standards that the United States and others have to follow. Within the European Union, we can influence that and take a serious leadership role. I believe that that is what we should be doing. The idea that we can deal with the issues of the 27 member states by having a rotating presidency or that we do not have a system whereby we can proceed institutionally is unlikely. We depend on the European Union as a whole for a range of changes.