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European Affairs

Absolutely. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I was recently in Prague, where I had the opportunity to visit the castle to participate in certain discussions about those questions. [Interruption.] That long-standing friendship goes back about 20 years. There was a so-called diplomatic row about that exchange of views with the Irish Government. Having followed the press cuttings and the exchanges that took place, I think that the views of the President were more than justified, although he came in for a lot of criticism, which often happens when people trespass on the sacrosanct territory of the Lisbon treaty, or for that matter any other treaty, and run up against the establishment. The Czech President is a man of great honesty and determination, and I imagine that he will not agree to approve the outcome of the current discussions in the Czech Republic until after the Irish vote. I simply want to get on to the record my serious concerns about the fact that the Irish are being bullied and that our own Government are party to that bullying. That needs to be put clearly on the record. We have been dealing with another important matter in the past few days, and I want to make glancing reference to it. Yesterday's debate may seem to have been abortive, in the event; we shall see whether it was in due course. However, there is another aspect to the question of arrest. Without going into the details, I simply want to place it on the record that if the arrest in question had taken place under a European arrest warrant, important additional constitutional questions could have arisen. Under the terms of the European arrest warrant, apparently the European Court of Justice would ultimately make the decision. For example, if somebody from this country happened to be abroad and offended a law of the country that they were in, and if, within the parameters of the European arrest warrant, that led to a warrant being issued against them which was exercisable in this country, we could get into equally important—I do not say more important—constitutional difficulties. As yet, the issue has not been resolved, although no doubt it will be in due course.