The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

Michal Kaminski - a problematic past, but pragmatism must overcome principle

With Tony Blair having failed to get a job that doesn’t exist, Vaclav Klaus is going to have to do something seriously amazing to hold off on signing the Lisbon Treaty for another seven months. The Labour Party desperately wants it signed because it knows a Conservative Party promising a referendum on this issue will gain votes that it would not otherwise get – once the issue is dead it is a significant disadvantage to DC. If this happen, he needs to steady the ship and take stock rather than be rushed into knee-jerk European policy - while keeping on with the message that we should have had a referendum if Gordon Brown had kept his promises.

If I were him I wouldn’t be making hay over Europe. There is still a thorny issue of Conservative partners in the EP that is a tricky one to avoid. By asking for David Miliband to apologise over his comments at the party conference, DC is raising a tricky issue unecessarily and is hardly likely to succeed in his  request. Voters will turn a blind eye to Michal Kaminski for the moment to get rid of Gordon but sooner or later, the Grauniad, the Liberal Democrats and Mr Miliband will get this issue further into the mainstream.

The essence of this issue is the different ways the nations of the EU see the European Parliament. For France and Germany, the architects of the EU, the parliament is an important body that they see as having a consequential role in their domestic policy and the policies across the continent that they are trying to control influence. Other countries such as Italy and Greece ignore the EP and its deliberations completely, whereas eastern European nations look at it hopefully, doing as they are told in order to gain as much financial benefit as possible.

Only Britain frames the European Parliament around the federalism/sovereignty debate. So we position ourselves with those other European groups who on this issue and this issue alone align with our place in this arena. For Labour, it’s the socialist group, for the Lib Dems it’s the Liberal Group. For the Conservatives, though, the centre-right EPP grouping – while aligned on issues of economics and social policy – is not aligned on the sovereignty question because those governments don’t see the EU in that way.

Those groups that do focus on the sovereignty question in other countries tend to be small because it is a low priority in other parts of Europe. It so happens that some of their members have unfortunate pasts. I’m not delighted with this but if it’s a choice between falling into line with the federalists and gritting our teeth to stand up for what we believe in on the greatest political question of the age, I can accept it – just.

Update 1/11: Okay, so it’s only the Grauniad foraying around in the trash but this story gives an idea of the kind of trouble that could be in line for DC unless he lays off the European stuff a bit. Being criticised by other European leaders will go down well with some people but not with others. He needs to concentrate on the election winners – the NHS, schools, the economy. Europe at the moment is a mug’s game and the more he looks at it the more he will be pressurised into stating his position. It’s playing into Labour’s hands.