---

European Council

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that matter, because we have made reforms in European Union expenditure. That means that more of the resources are going to the poorest countries, which was the objective of the proposals that I put forward. I wanted more resources to go to the poorest countries in the rest of Europe and I wanted member states such as us to be able to carry out our own regional policy. That is why we have advocated changes in the state aid rules, and why, for example, on venture capital, we have made progress exactly in that area.