Brussels, 22/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - "Jack Straw has come a long way in moving British European policy forward. It is good that he now supports the pooling of more sovereignty and an extension of qualified majority voting, including in the highly sensitive area of asylum and immigration policy", but "the UK can do better than this once it gets into the Convention, or it risks isolation". This is the comment made by Andrew Duff, British Liberal Democrat member of the EP (and of the Convention on the future of Europe) on a speech the Secretary to the Foreign Office, Jack Straw, made in The Hague on Thursday. Mr. Duff, however, accuses Mr. Straw of "not acknowledging the democratic necessity of enlarging the legislative powers" of the European Parliament.
In his speech in The Hague, Jack Straw said in particular that the adoption of a text setting out "what the EU is for" could be useful in gaining the understanding of public opinion, and that the text could even be called a "Constitution", but that the United Kingdom would not agree to a binding document. According to him the EU's democratic legitimacy would gain by an enhanced role for the Council, where the EU's rotating presidency would be replaced by "a team presidency": thus, the different Councils would each elect a president for two and a half years and the latter could "work together as a steering group" (See A Look Behind the News, of 20 February for similar suggestions by Peter Hain, British minister of European Affairs).