European Commission: President

Lord Garel-Jones Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for making that clear. There were some elements of that in the press over the weekend and indeed this morning. It is important that the right person fills the role. In terms of portfolios, these matters are still up for discussion. It would be inappropriate for me to try to comment on that at this stage.

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the position of Her Majesty’s Government is not in any way personally related to Mr Juncker but rather to our desire to bring forward the reform agenda? In that context, for example, is it not the case that Article 5 of the treaty—on subsidiarity, which was supposed to ensure that no decisions are taken by the Union that could be better or well done at a national level—has been more or less neutralised over the years? One of the points will be to make that article, which is already in the treaty, as effective as it is supposed to be.

[Baroness Warsi]

I think the overwhelming message delivered by the electorate across the European Union in the last European Parliament election was about citizens in individual member states wanting to feel as though their voice was being heard and that the views of individual member states were rightly being heard. We saw that in the United Kingdom and across the European Union. My noble friend is absolutely right to raise that point.