European Affairs

I do deplore the common fisheries policy, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and we have long argued that far greater control over fisheries should pass back to national and regional bodies. We will continue to make that argument, and I am sure that he will continue to make it—even though I think he has left the UK Independence party, which may be something to do with its success in the European elections. [Interruption.] We hope he will rejoin it. That might keep it under control. The draft Council conclusions for the summit on Thursday and Friday put institutional issues at the top of the agenda, but the latest publicly available version has a blank space under the heading "Institutional issues". The Council has two institutional issues of particular importance to discuss, and the Foreign Secretary mentioned both—the guarantees to be offered to the Republic of Ireland in the hope that that will make the renamed EU constitution more palatable to Irish voters, and the timing of the formal nomination of the next President of the European Commission by the European Council. The EU member states' representatives are meeting today at the EU to thrash out the first. European diplomats are nervously telling the press that the British Government are""concerned about the perils of reopening discussion on the treaty"." Another helpfully explained that""there are huge sensitivities around Lisbon for the British government"—" as well there might be.