Speaking at a joint press conference with EU President Jose Manuel Barroso, the Prime Minister said that the UK had succeeded in having its “red-lines” written into the text of the EU amending treaty.
Read the transcript for the film below:
Prime Minister:
Thank you very much for joining us again today. I have the greatest of privilege to welcome to Downing Street President Barroso and to talk to him about some of the central concerns both this week and of course next week when we have the European Council meeting.
We have talked about the European economy in the light of the financial turbulence of recent months and about the measures that we can take together to improve the functioning of the global economy.
We have talked about the trade talks that we want to see resumed in the most positive way to get a result this year so that we have a world trade agreement.
We have been able to discuss the situation in Burma and the situation in Zimbabwe and I have told President Barroso that we are pressing for investment sanctions against the Burmese regime so that the full horror and the atrocities of what has happened in Burma is made known to the population of the world and we show that we are determined to take action. I made it clear that we are condemning what is happening at the moment in Zimbabwe and we will not attend the African Union-EU Summit, when these issues were raised.
And we have also talked about climate change and the progress we can make in the run-up to the Bali Summit where I applaud President Barroso for his leadership on matters of environmental change and reform and the bold programme that he has set out for the future of the European Union in dealing with climate change.
The final issue that we have talked about is the Reform Treaty and I have made it clear, as I have made clear on so many occasions here, that we have to achieve in detail the red lines that we set out, in other words we must have the safeguards in the protocol on the charter, in the opt-in on justice and home affairs, we must be absolutely sure that we have the emergency break in veto powers in relation to social security, and of course be satisfied, as we have been, that national security is outside the scope of the amending treaty. If of course we did not achieve our red lines we would not be able to accept the amending treaty and I think that is well known to people right across Europe. But we want to make progress with the reform of the European Union in a way that does not affect the fundamental constitutional issues and that is why we want to achieve our red lines.
So we have had a very useful discussion. President Barroso is also speaking and giving a major speech here in the evening. He is here tomorrow to meet the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and I am delighted to ask him to speak now.
President Barroso:
Thank you very much Prime Minister. It was a pleasure to meet you and to speak about the most important issues in the European and global agenda, and I say the European and global agenda because in fact we need to work more actively for Europe to shape globalisation. This is the agenda of my Commission, this is the agenda of the European Commission. How can we prepare Europe to shape globalisation, to be more competitive? How can we move from the reform treaty to economic reform? How can we reform Europe to be more competitive and for Europe to be leading in the world, namely against climate change, in terms of energy security, in terms of fighting international terrorism? This is the issue and that is why we need to solve the reform treaty, we need to put this institutional debate behind us, we cannot spend all our time discussing institutions.
I think now we have a very good basis, we are well aware of course of the specific concerns of Britain, Britain has negotiated hard to get some opt-outs. I fully respect those opt-outs. We have to now close this issue so that we can move for the issues that I believe are the most pressing ones for the European citizens, to have a Europe of results, to make the most of these dimensions, that we have now 27 countries, almost 500 million people, we can lead in the world because we are experts in globalisation. Europe is a great success in terms of pulling together, pulling the capabilities of such different member states, so if we get things right we can move forward. I believe it is your first priority, it is also my priority, is economic reform, a global Europe, a Europe that delivers concrete benefits to the citizens.
Those were the most important issues that we have discussed. Of course I will not repeat what the Prime Minister has just said about the issues regarding trade. We have been working very closely with Britain to try to achieve a solution for the donor round, we believe it is very important for the global economy. We have been also working on other issues. I welcome what Prime Minister Brown just said about Burma. We have to have a tougher stance on Burma. We are also supporting everything that we can do in terms of smart sanctions, sanctions that punish the regime but not the people of Burma. And I understand also of course the specific positions of Prime Minister Brown regarding Zimbabwe. We in the European Union believe it is important to have a summit with Africa, it is not because of one individual that we should avoid that summit, and it is indeed a great occasion to make it clear to all African leaders what we think about good governance and about respect for human rights.
So those were the most important issues that we have touched. Once again thank you very much Prime Minister for the very interesting conversation and also I am looking forward to what can be a very successful summit next week in Lisbon so that we can move forward our agenda, an agenda that to a large extent I think I will say we - the European Commission and Britain - share for a more modern reformed Europe that is embracing and if possible shaping the world of the 21st century.
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