EU Presidency (Hansard, 12 June 1996)

§ 2. Mr. Jon Owen Jones
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next plans to meet the Irish Foreign Minister to discuss the priorities of the forthcoming Irish presidency of the European Union. [30843]

§ Mr. Rifkind
I expect to meet the Irish Foreign Minister on 17 June.

§ Mr. Jones
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the priorities of the next six months for the European Union will be to ensure the success of elections in Bosnia? How, then, would it help Britain's campaign to lift the beef ban for us to block financial assistance for those elections? Is that not another reason why the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), last night described the Government's policies on the beef ban as lamentable and why he called on the Government to rescind them?

§ Mr. Rifkind
The hon. Gentleman is just a little out of date. He is obviously unaware that we did not block the proposal for assistance for the Bosnian elections when it came up on Monday. The hon. Gentleman should do his homework before he asks questions.

§ Mr. Mark Robinson
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is important to gear up for the forthcoming intergovernmental conference because the policy of non-co-operation will, we hope, not last for ever and because we shall at some stage resume normal business?

§ Mr. Rifkind
Yes, and even at this moment we are participating fully in the discussions within the intergovernmental conference. The concept of an empty chair was a French initiative, not a British one, and is not one that we have chosen to follow.

§ Mr. Menzies Campbell
Will the Secretary of State be surprised, when he meets his Irish counterpart, to find that his priority is to persuade the United Kingdom to abandon its policy of non-co-operation? What possible justification is there for this policy which aggravates our European partners and, so far, has produced nothing? The United Kingdom would not negotiate under duress. Why do we expect our European partners to do so?

§ Mr. Rifkind
The hon. and learned Gentleman may have heard the President of the European Commission say yesterday that he was now optimistic that there could be an agreement next week on a framework for the lifting, phase by phase, of the ban on British beef. No one was making that prediction a week or 10 days ago.