Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

I believe that the emergency brake will apply across the board. That certainly appears to be the legal opinion according to what I have seen, although I do not know what the Minister said in Committee. On the sensitive matters that we are discussing, there is no doubt that the emergency brake applies, that the European Council position is as I have described and that for the first time in any EU text it is made clear that the European Council will proceed by unanimity. Another important difference is that the provisions in the Lisbon treaty that allow legislation to be adopted on passports, identity cards and residence permits have moved from the citizenship part of the treaty to the immigration part. That means that the UK can opt out, as can Denmark and Ireland. That is an important part of the case that the Liberal Democrats have sought to argue—the Lisbon treaty is fundamentally different from the constitutional treaty in terms of the safeguards that are provided.