Libya/European Council

Richard Ottaway Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which is that Europe’s engagement with north Africa and the middle east has not always been very successful in the past, particularly on the grounds that he describes. There has not been enough conditionality on the progress those countries need to make towards more open societies and the building blocks of democracy, getting rid of emergency laws and the rest of it. The European Council conclusions, like those from our emergency summit, talk about putting in place a new partnership and making a new offer to these countries with deeper economic integration, broader market access and greater co-operation and, in return for that, we should ask for more conditionality in the progress that they make. Money is not the problem; there has been plenty of money put into these areas by Europe. We need more of a focus on what we believe we should be getting out of it.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister use tomorrow’s summit to clarify the rules of engagement? He will be aware of the criticism of the attacks on the arms dumps as they have been considered to involve a fairly broad interpretation of the UN resolution. Does he agree that it is critical that the future of Libya is not cluttered up with acrimony among the political consensus that he has successfully built up?