European Affairs

Yes I can, actually. There is no proposal to that effect, and no discussions about that party being any part of the new group that we are forming in the European Parliament. I look forward to hearing later from the new Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Rhondda, about whether the British Government will grant the Republic of Ireland proper legally binding guarantees in the form of protocols in the areas where the Irish Government seek them. On the second institutional issue, the formal recommendation of the next President of the European Commission is obviously of enormous importance to the EU's agenda for the next five years. Germany and the incoming Swedish presidency have made their position clear on the timing, but I am not sure that the Foreign Secretary has. He endorsed President Barroso and his work, and I welcomed that, but I hope that the Foreign Secretary will also make it clear that there is every reason for the Council to make the formal recommendation on the President of the Commission now, rather than letting the recommendation drift until October. [Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary looks as if I have just asked a tiresome question, but I take it from that that he did not make the point clear earlier in his speech. He ought to have done. Although we certainly have some important points of difference with Mr. Barroso on some extremely important matters, such as the Lisbon treaty, there is much in his Commission's record of which he can rightly be proud: real progress on developing the single market and cutting the cost of EU regulation, including the introduction of regulatory impact assessments; a vice-president of the Commission with specific responsibility for better regulation; greater sensitivity to small businesses; a start to tackling the challenge of climate change, and so on.