Duff Challenges Blair Claims on "Red Lines"

12.00.00am GMT Tue 16th Dec 2003

Andrew Duff has called for the outgoing Italian presidency of the Council to publish a precise list of the 82 areas where Italian prime minister Berlusconi claims informal agreement was reached at the failed IGC in Brussels. Speaking in the European Parliament today, Duff challenged the President of the European Council to stipulate exactly where he thinks the IGC reached agreement and where not. In a further statement, Duff said:

'The Presidency claims that 82 points were agreed this weekend at the intergovernmental conference. Prime Minister Blair says that 'consensus was close'. President Chirac says the opposite. Who is right? The fact is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Unless Berlusconi publishes the list we will have to assume that Blair's claims to the Commons that he has secured his 'red lines' are palpable nonsense.

'The European Parliament needs - indeed has a right - to know what was agreed and by whom. My understanding is that there was little agreement at all during the weekend. And with virtually no full debate among heads of government, it is hard to understand where and when such an agreement was forged.

'Many of the issues at stake directly concern existing prerogatives of the Parliament, for example in the budgetary field, and most others concern a weakening of Convention proposals to give the Parliament the power of codecision. Mr Blair brags that the passerelle clause to more QMV is suppressed. He also claims that tax, social security, EU finance and criminal law will 'remain the province of the nation state'. What on earth does that mean? If Berlusconi confirms Blair's claims the Convention's proposals will have been destroyed.

'If the Irish presidency of the Council is to be successful in re-opening the IGC it needs that list of 82 items urgently. The Irish presidency would also profit from the advice of the Convention on all the compromise proposals tabled by the Italians.

'The Convention should re-convene in January in order to assess these 82 points and establish if they conform with the spirit of the constitutional consensus. The Convention proved itself able to transcend narrow national interests and to articulate the common European interest. Now that intergovernmental methods are failing so badly, a return to the Convention indicates the best possible way forward.'