---

European Council: 15-16 October 2008

My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to the forthcoming meeting called at the initiative of President Bush and President Sarkozy. Does she agree that, although multilateral action is absolutely essential if a conclusion is to be reached on some of the problems facing the world, there is nothing more dangerous than a very high-profile international meeting without a carefully prepared agenda and a good deal of agreement beforehand on what the conclusions will be? At first sight, a forthcoming meeting of this sort is a very unpromising scenario. The meeting with President Sarkozy and Senor Barroso was chaired by an American president who is unable to commit his country because the next meeting will take place after the presidential election. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, and others referred to the 1930s. The noble Baroness no doubt will recall that one of the more disastrous conferences that took place in the early 1930s was in Washington when there was exactly the problem that no one had prepared the conclusions beforehand.