---

European Union (Amendment) Bill

Does the noble Lord accept that, although under German law this was all done, as he says, in a lawful way, it was quite plainly contrary to the law of the European Union and is widely, if not universally, accepted to be in breach of Community law? What happened in Germany, not under the Lisbon treaty, but on a previous occasion, finally led to a settlement of the problem and agreement on how to handle it. German, French and Italian attempts to say that they could do what they like under their own system were recognised generally—I would say universally—as being contrary to European Union law, whatever their position was under domestic law.