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Quote Of The Day
"When men and women with sweeping ambitions for Europe decide to make use of this treaty, they will be able to rekindle from the ashes of today the flame of a United Europe."
Former French President and president of the Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted the rejected 2005 Constitution Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on the new "reform treaty."
In an open letter to newspapers published in the Independent, Giscard is critical of Britain's stance, but argues that "the proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged".
The Word On The Treaty
Here's a round-up of quotes on the EU "reform treaty" agreed by government leaders in Lisbon late last week
"It was apt that Gordon Brown's agreement to the EU treaty should have coincided with the announcement that MPs are to get an additional two weeks' holiday a year because there is so little for them to do.
"The Lisbon Treaty, after all, is another giant step towards a new form of government, empowered to decide most of the laws that govern our lives, making our Westminster MPs even more redundant than they are now."
- Christopher Booker, The Daily Telegraph
Gordon "Two Jobs" Brown
The "Governor General" hears the Empire's call
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown is off to Lisbon to batter out a final text for the EU Reform Treaty. Before leaving, he answered calls from the opposition and members of his own Labour Party for a referendum on the treaty, which everyone except the PM, the Foreign Secretary and the leader writers of the Independent admit is identical to the Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
It's beginning to sink in that the "red lines" Brown has pledged to defend are being revealed as "red herrings" by sharper Eurosceptics. In what seems like a desperate attempt to stem criticism in Britain, Brown has launched the European Council meeting in the time-honoured fashion by bashing the French.
UK Foreign Secretary Upset At "Chamberlain" Slur
David Miliband has demanded an apology after a fellow Labour MP compared his attitude to the EU with that of Neville Chamberlain, who came back after meeting Adolf Hitler in 10938 promising "peace in our time."
Michael Connarty, who chairs the European Scrutiny Committee, made the remarks while the Foreign Secretary faced questions over Britain's "red lines" on the revised EU Constitutional treaty.
Miliband said, "You are saying what we are doing today is equivalent of Neville Chamberlain coming back in the late 1930s from Munich claiming to have an agreement with Adolf Hitler - that is not worthy of you."
