French minister: 'EU won't bend rules for Tories'
Thursday 05 November 2009
Latest in Europe
Related articles
On Facebook
From the blogs
Disclosure: We’d never even been to a club when we made our first single
For most of us, reaching eighteen years of age opens up a new world for exploration, spontaneity and...
Top of the posts: Drunken rants, the Western Fail and misogyny pushers
The most read blogs this week, as determined by stats.
Sepp Blatter: Penalty shoot-outs must remain, they’re football’s great leveller
As England supporters, we should scorn at any such deciding factor within football. On so many occas...
Why do some men consider the street as a female meat market?
Pronouncements on sexual inequality in the UK are normally met with an eye roll by my generation. As...
A renegotiation of EU institutions to suit the Conservatives if they win power is "out of the question" and London risks isolation if it makes such demands, France's minister for Europe said today.
The Conservatives have given up on the idea of putting the European Union's Lisbon Treaty to a referendum, but pledged to seek the return of some powers from Brussels to London.
"It is out of the question to reopen negotiations on the treaty," said Pierre Lellouche, France's secretary of state for European Affairs, on the sidelines of a news conference by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"That would require agreement from the 26 other EU members and I don't think for a single minute that will be possible. It was so hard and took so long (to agree on Lisbon) that these institutions are here to stay, probably for decades," he said.
The Lisbon Treaty, which aims to streamline Europe's creaky institutions and make the bloc more efficient, can come into force now that Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a eurosceptic, has signed it after weeks of delay.
Conservative leader David Cameron yesterday announced he had abandoned plans to put the treaty to a British referendum, but said he would try to obtain the return of Britain's opt-out in some areas.
Asked about Cameron's stance during the press conference, Sarkozy said it was "extremely positive" that he had given up on a referendum and pointed out that the existing treaty already contained certain opt-out clauses that applied to Britain.
"(The treaty) will allow Europe to turn the page on years of institutional debate that alienated us from the European people, wasted a lot of time and caused misunderstandings," he said.
Lellouche, who described himself as France's most Anglophile minister, said that Cameron's speech had made him "sad".
"My message is simply to say 'Please, have mercy! Spare us further institutional debates.' And I say it with great friendship towards the British people and towards Britain, which we Europeans need," he said.
"The economic crisis has shown that we need unity," he said.
Lellouche said that by quitting the mainstream centre-right alliance of legislators in the European Parliament in favour of a more radical, eurosceptic group, the Conservatives had already diminished their own clout within the bloc.
"The isolation of their group means that their influence is infinitely less today than it was in the past, and as a friend of Britain, I say: 'Please do not isolate yourselves'," he said.
Lellouche said he did not wish to create a row with the historically eurosceptic Conservatives but rather to tell them that Britain's EU partners wanted a constructive dialogue.
"If the British people choose the Conservatives, we will have to work with them and for my part, I am ready for it."
"Europe is made of daily compromises because we all need one another. Of course it would be easier to go it alone. But in today's globalised world, whether you're a big or a small country, the risk of marginalisation weighs on all of us."
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 3 News in pictures
- 4 Tory chief Warsi failed to declare rent income from flat
- 5 In pictures: The bewildering face of China
- 6 Osborne to face questions over links to Murdoch
- 7 Facebook: The shares shenanigans
- 8 Is Ridley Scott the most macho man in movies?
- 9 Günter Grass attacks Merkel for Athens policy
- 10 Exclusive dispatch: Assad blamed for massacre of the innocents
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 3 Fat? Really? Olympic hope laughs off official’s jibe – but others aren’t amused
- 4 Is Ridley Scott the most macho man in movies?
- 5 Postgraduate students are being used as 'slave labour'
- 6 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...'
- 7 African monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV
- 8 Exclusive dispatch: Assad blamed for massacre of the innocents
- 9 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
- 10 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page
The secret life of the red carpet
Up and away – how '7 Up' went global



Comments