European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has made a very good, very clear case. He has always held that view. I shall set out in my speech in the middle of January the path that we should take for the future, but let me say now to Members in all parts of the House that, as I tried to explain in my statement, what is happening at present in the European Union is a process of change, driven by what is happening in the eurozone. As a number of Members have pointed out, it is quite a slow process at the moment, but I believe that at some stage it will speed up radically. When we discover that we really do need greater elements of banking union, fiscal union and other co-ordination, a greater treaty change will be proposed within Europe, and I think that that will give us an opportunity to secure the fresh settlement that we want.

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

Is there still an EU arms embargo? It has been reported that France is already supplying equipment to some opposition groups, and at the same time this country is providing non-lethal equipment. What exactly is going to happen? What kind of equipment will we be providing? Given that Qatar and Turkey are already arming the more extreme jihadist groups, is this an argument for rebalancing within the Syrian national coalition?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman has made a number of important points. On the first part of his question, I have seen no evidence that any European Union powers have broken the arms embargo. We certainly would not do that; it would be wrong and illegal. I think it is worth looking at the embargo and asking how we can best work with the parts of the Syrian opposition that want a proper transition to a free and democratic Syria. The hon. Gentleman made that point in his own question.