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European Council

What the European Union has been doing—I think it is right—is to rewrite its neighbourhood agreements and neighbourhood partnerships to make them more conditional on political reform and economic progress. I am still optimistic about what is happening across the middle east. For all the difficulties there are in Libya, at least that country has the prospect and the chance to make peaceful progress. We see that happening in Morocco, but what is happening in Egypt is clearly far more challenging. Europe has a real influence to bring to bear here, but we should be clear that our money and our help has some strings attached in terms of political and economic reform.