EU Council and Woolwich

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have not seen that specific report, but I will seek it out. Different conditions apply in America, but one sees there the growth of an enormous industry employing thousands of people, lowering energy costs, making the country more competitive, and ending much of its reliance on gas from overseas. We would be really foolish if we did not learn from that.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

How many other EU member states supported the UK Government in their wish to end the arms embargo on Syria? Is there not a danger that our Government’s policy, and that of France it would appear, is likely to result in a Europe more divided on the issue, thereby weakening our ability to influence a successful outcome to the proposed peace conference?

[The Prime Minister]

At the European Council for Heads of State and Government, which I attended, there was not a long discussion about the Syrian arms embargo. The work was done by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. There was strong support, though, from the French Government and there was some support from the Italian Government. Some of those countries that have newly joined the EU from the Balkans recognise the arguments that I was making about the mistakes that the west made with respect to Bosnia, so it is important to listen to them as well. The point about the EU arms embargo—this may be a point that colleagues on the Government Benches will particularly recognise—is that we decide our foreign policy as a nation state. In Europe, if we can agree something unanimously, we can have a combined position, but in the end this is something that we decide as an independent nation state.