Richard Spring: ...and before the new treaty base is introduced, there may be discrimination in funding against organisations of which the main Opposition party in the UK is a member. We are not alone. In France, the Gaullist RPR is not currently a member of a transnational party. Thus, the main centre-right parties in two of the four larger member states of the EU would lose out under these proposals. That...
Lord Campbell of Alloway: ...our release, there were many more British, together with Australians, Canadians after Dieppe, with one VC, New Zealanders, with another VC, Czechs, Poles and Yugoslavs who had served with the RAF, Gaullist French and SOE, all under the command of Colonel Tod. The Americans were under the command of Colonel Duke and the Poles were under the command of General Bor-Komorowski. By that time,...
Mr Donald Anderson: ...a somewhat different approach. Clearly, some in the European Union take the superstate approach. Any superstate must, by definition, have a military capacity, and—this may be connected with the Gaullist attitude of the past—must seek to distance itself from the United States. This Government, like this country, take a rather more pragmatic approach. We accept that there will be a...
Ian Taylor: .... Look at what is happening in France. Superficially, France has a socialist Government, but they have introduced more reformist legislation on the structure of French industry than the previous Gaullist or centre right Government under Alain Juppé was able to do. For example, there have been more privatisations. Only in the past week or two, the French Government—admittedly cloaked in...
Mike Gapes: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman recall that, regularly over the past 10 years, the Christian Democrat leaders in Germany and the Socialist or Gaullist leaders in France have issued joint communiques prior to virtually every European summit, whether it was held in this or in another country? For example, President Mitterrand issued joint communiques with Chancellor Kohl. Will the...
Mr John Wilkinson: ...squadrons out to Saudi Arabia, and Saddam Hussein was checked. I move on from such combative themes to speak about the shouldering of a burden, which the RAF does well. I have always been rather Gaullist in my attitude to logistics. The general always used to speak deprecatingly of "commissariat". Then I went to RAF Brampton and RAF Wytton, full of pessimism. I remembered Wytton, as...
Mr Michael Carttiss: ..., and preventing it from interfering with matters that should be dealt with in national Parliaments. I agree with the Government on that matter, and I have been convinced by my friends in the Gaullist party—who campaigned to vote no to Maastricht, incidentally—that France takes the same line on that issue as we do. I am not too depressed, because, although we must not express an...
Charles Kennedy: ...our Government over the tax issue since the last election, when they had to go back on their promises. Those difficulties pale into insignificance in comparison with the credibility problems of the Gaullist Administration, who promised 18 impossible things before breakfast in the run-up to the election, and have disallowed each and every one of them at a rate of knots since that election....
Anthony Steen: ...taken too seriously, to highlight the bizarre situation which has resulted in the French language prohibition Bill or le loi relatif a l'emploi de la langue Francaise tabled by Jacques Toubon, the Gaullist Culture Minister, which passed all its stages in the French National Assembly and the Senate last Friday. That Bill banned the use of English words or expressions such as software,...
Mike Gapes: .... A few days ago, I met some French politicians, led by Giscard D'Estaing, who were meeting members of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. They made it clear that the French, including the Gaullists, the socialists and UDF members, saw moves towards economic and monetary union and a single currency as going ahead. That is despite the referendum in France. They attributed the ...
Mike Gapes: ...side, we could have a growing nationalisation of defence policy and a disintegration of integrated structures within NATO. The French want a European defence without the Americans because of their Gaullist ambition—which is very slightly restrained by President Mitterrand at some levels, but is nevertheless endemic throughout the whole French political establishment, both left and right....
Mr John Marshall: I was in the European Parliament for twice as long as the hon. Gentleman. I can confirm everything that he has said. In 1984, Mr. Chirac, the leader of the Gaullists, went to a number of people who had been distinguished Members of the European Parliament in the previous five years and said, "You have annoyed me. You will not even be No. 81 on the Gaullist list." The hon. Member for Bradford,...
Mr John Marshall: ...Member of Parliament for the first day and then resigned so that someone else could take his place. People were conned by his presence on the list to vote for the French socialists. The French Gaullists had a tourniquet system under which everyone on the list spent a short time in the European Parliament. Mr. Chirac was a European Member of Parliament for a short time. The House may be...
Mr Peter Shore: I respect my hon. Friend's knowledge of the treaties, but I think that he will find that, apart from the famous Gaullist Luxembourg compromise, the treaty of Rome contains far more articles requiring the unanimity rule than articles requiring qualified majority voting. We need not argue too long about that, however. The important thing is to note the new areas of Community competence. First...
Mr David Howell: ...though it is, the beginnings of a different direction towards the sort of Europe that provides a balance between the nation state and nationhood—a Europe of nations in a modern sense, not the old Gaullist sense—and the necessary central functions that we delegate to the Community and its offices. They are not the higher authority, but the authority to which we delegate certain acts, as...
Mr Michael Carttiss: ...one, regularly visit Rambouillet, which is twinned with Great Yarmouth. It is one of the original twinning agreements and the mayor of Rambouillet, Senator Gerard Larcher, is vice-president of the Gaullist group, the second largest group in the French senate. The views expressed by people there are not unlike those that I hear expressed by some of my hon. Friends who are concerned about...
Mr Bernie Grant: ...is going to happen. I accuse the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister of creating a racist backlash by using the numbers game. Is it a coincidence that, at the same time that Jacques Chirac, the Gaullist leader, talks about having an overdose of immigrants, the British Government begin thinking in terms of the numbers game? Regarding legal representation for asylum seekers, does the...
Mr Michael Knowles: ...I but would try to find ways to derail stages 2 and 3. He was in favour of that as a policy. His suspicions are, however, shared abroad, where people are expecting "the old British tactic". The old Gaullist suspicion of Britain is still there—the fear that we will go in with no real sympathy, and that at very opportunity we will try to slow things up, and derail and sidetrack proposals....
Dr David Owen: ...issues. It recognises that President Mitterand and Prime Minister Michel Rocard are committed to those issues. These days they are more or less federalists and, unfortunately, we cannot rely on Gaullist attitudes to withstand some aspects of the Delors report. It is necessary to try to prise France and Germany apart on this issue. Holland has a splendid and independent-minded Prime...
Mr Donald Anderson: ...for a role. From time to time Governments, for their own purposes, have tried to breathe new life and energy into it, just as in the early 1960s, for example, after the failure of the first Gaullist veto, the British Government tried to breathe new life into WEU. I am confident now, as hon. Members who know the Council of Europe better than I will agree, that it has discovered an enhanced...
