European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and this also relates to the previous question. Of course, everyone in Europe wants to see higher growth rates. That is one of the ways we will get deficits down and ensure that we have more jobs in our countries. However, Europe needs to ask itself, “How can we get higher growth?” That should be done by completing the single market, extending it to services, taking a more forward position on the Doha round and, frankly, stopping some of the things that the European Union is currently doing that add massive costs and burdens to business. At the European Council dinner, I pressed the point very strongly that unless Europe starts making those decisions, people will not take its growth strategy very seriously.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister has not referred to one of the most important issues that is currently going on internationally, and I would be grateful to know whether it was considered and discussed in the European Council—that is, the deteriorating situation in west Africa, specifically the fact that the former defeated President of Côte d’Ivoire, with the support of the military and brutal thugs, is clinging on to power and threatening to expel the United Nations from that country. What is the European Union, with its common security and defence policy, going to do to assist the African Union and the UN to restore democratic government in Côte d’Ivoire?