9 December 2005
Tony Blair held two days of talks in Downing Street with a number of European leaders to discuss the future financing of the EU. Afterwards he spoke to journalists.
Opening statement
Perhaps I can divide my remarks into two separate bits. The first is just to tell you a little bit about the process. Obviously now we have had discussions with all the countries concerned, all 25 members of the European Union, and they have all made their various points as to what they think, and some of these negotiations get incredibly complex, some of it is about money, some of it is not about money, it is about the way money is paid, or the basis upon which certain things are calculated and so on. So there is a whole complex set of discussions that have taken place.
There will then be a revised negotiating box put down next week which will take account of some of the comments that people have made obviously, and I think that will be that before we get into the European Council. Our Luxembourg colleagues, for very good reasons incidentally, had I think no fewer than six different negotiating boxes along the way, I think we will manage to make do with two before we get into the Council. And then there will obviously be discussions happening next week as well with various countries about the issues that they have got.
I think that the overall mood is one of people wanting to reach agreement, but I would have to say there are still some very tough negotiations ahead because the room for manoeuvre is very limited, including obviously with ourselves. So I don’t say anything other than that it is going to be difficult to reach agreement, but we are going to do our very best and I think there is a general will to do it.
I would just like then, as the other part of my remarks, to say one or two things, partly for people here in Britain, just to explain why I think it is necessary to have such a deal, why it is important that Britain makes a contribution to enlargement, which is what we have done, why the rebate will though remain, and probably rise, in fact will rise, and finally why Common Agricultural Policy reform has to be, and remain, on the agenda.
Why is it important that we have an agreement? It is important for this reason. People sometimes say to me: Well what are you getting in return for any budget deal? What we in Britain are getting is economic development in the new member states of the European Union that will not just be to the benefit of those states, but will be of enormous benefit to us in this country. I asked people over the past few days just to dig out the increase in trade that there has been between Britain and Ireland, and Britain and Spain since those countries came into the European Union. And for a payment from Britain, which actually doesn’t amount to a very great deal of money annually towards their economic development costs, there is somewhere in the region of $40 billion worth of additional trade that we have had. So anybody who says: Why is it in our interests to have this enlargement - it is massively in our interests economically, and of course many of those new member states are strong political allies for us in the European Union.
Why is it necessary to do it now? The answer is very simple. Frankly, if we do not do this budget deal now, in December 2005, I think it highly unlikely that we will be able to do it in either the Austrian or the Finnish Presidencies, for reasons nothing whatever to do with the competence of those two countries; on the contrary, both of them are highly efficient competent countries that will be very competent and efficient Presidencies. But the reality is things aren’t going to shift between now and the Austrian Presidency, or now and the Finnish Presidency. And the real importance for the new member states is this. If we cannot get a deal now, and we cannot get a deal in the next year, then in 2007 under the European rules the budget is then transferred to the European Parliament to do on an annual basis. In my view that would not be a good idea. What is more, it would be transferred under the existing financial regime, which would mean that for the new accession states, the new European countries, they would only be entitled to around about one-third of the spending that they would be entitled to if we reach a budget agreement, because it would be under the old financial regime. That would leave those new European countries unable to plan ahead, unable to do any of the work they need to do for budget preparations, and it would cast a real shadow, not just over the European Union but over the future of enlargement too, and of course it would do absolutely nothing for the prospect of a further Common Agricultural Policy reform.
So that is why it is very important that we get the deal now if we can.
The second thing is, and again it is worth just explaining, why does the issue of a UK contribution to enlargement arise? What is happening in the European budget is the overall budget is not rising very much at all, but within the budget about 35% of the budget, that is to do with the economic development money, the so-called structural and cohesion funds, that part of the budget is of course being massively re-engineered in favour of the new countries. So all the existing E15 if you like, if I can call them that - the 15 original members of the European Union - are seeing their money come down for economic development, and that money is then being transferred effectively to the new European countries. Now unsurprisingly what people are saying is: Well it is all very well for Britain to say, where it is the existing 15, why should we pay more; but when it is the new countries that are going to be getting more of the budget, obviously there is a reason why we should make a contribution.
We of course would be prepared, were there fundamental reform of the whole of the budget, including the agriculture policy, to go further, but since there isn’t that possibility at this moment, ie December 2005, and I will come back to that in a moment, we should make a contribution that ensures we are roughly equal, and this will be for the first time ever in the history of the European Union, with the contributions of similar sized countries.
Now as for the rebate, the rebate on any basis is going to rise and be bigger. We will keep the rebate in full on all Common Agricultural Policy spending in the new, as well as the existing, members of the European Union, we will keep the rebate in full on all the economic development money, as well as the Common Agricultural Policy money, of the existing 15 members, what we will do however, by whatever means we choose to do it, is to pay our fair share of the economic development costs in the new member countries.
Finally, it has been said often in the past few days that we have given up the prospect of Common Agricultural Policy reform before 2014. Emphatically this is not the case, and I just want to say a word about this. The Common Agricultural Policy funding has come down, it was at a percentage of the budget round about 70% years ago, indeed at the time of the rebate I think it was certainly well over 60%. It is now down to 40% of the budget today, but frankly, in our view that nowhere near reflects the reality of European employment and the European economy today, which is why we want to see further reform.
It has never been my case that we would get agreement to reform this December, my case has always been however that since there are countries, France among them, but not only France, there were actually thirteen countries that signed the letter on Common Agricultural Policy recently, since there are countries that at this moment are not prepared to agree a change to the Common Agricultural Policy that was agreed a few years ago, then what we should have is a budget deal that includes a review clause, which puts both the Common Agricultural Policy, and the rebate, and every other issue on the table, is done by means of a Commission document that the European Commission prepare, that this should be published around 2008 and it should then allow us to change the second half of the next financial perspective, in other words from 2009-2010 onwards.
Now there will be other countries who will of course at this point say: We don’t agree to such a change. But my insistence is that we must at least have the prospect of being able to make a change if we wish to do so. And as I said back in June, I cannot force such a change now, but I can insist that we leave open the possibility of such a change for the second part of the financial perspective. If we do that of course we can negotiate a far more rational financial perspective.
Just one other point as well, that the WTO negotiation will of course by that time be concluded, that will make a difference to how we view Common Agricultural Policy, and of course as I was saying a moment or two ago, the rebate will be if anything larger then than it is now, and so that is a very significant lever for reform.
Look, I am sorry to go through that in such detail, but I think it is important that people understand the facts about what we are discussing here. A deal is necessary for enlargement to be a reality and for the economic development in those new European countries; it is right that Britain pay its fair share of that enlargement, but not more, because we have championed enlargement and we need that economic development, it will be good for Britain as well as for Europe; thirdly, it is right that the rebate remain, and not be applied or disapplied in any shape or form to agriculture policy until there is fundamental reform; and finally it is right that we achieve the possibility of such fundamental reform before the financial perspective in 2013 comes to an end.
Now as I say, I am sorry for doing that at length, but there has been a lot written about some of the detail of this in the past couple of weeks that has simply been factually inaccurate and it is important that people understand the facts.
Did you follow any of that at all? No. You are probably looking absolutely blankly, when is he going to finish? But anyway, we can deal with some of the detail now.
Question and answer session
Question:
Prime Minister, can I ask you something? Can you clarify this? Would there be a budget deal, or could there be a budget deal, without agreement at the very least to review the Common Agricultural Policy, something which France hasn’t accepted so far?
Tony Blair:
No, and this is an issue. I can’t agree a deal that doesn’t allow the possibility of a fundamental review for this next financial budget period. Now I can’t force people now to change their position, and I am not expecting that, I never have said that, but we have to ensure that at the very least the European Commission is in a position to present us with a review of how the money should be spent more rationally, and to leave open the possibility of change in the second half of the financial perspective. Now countries will have their positions at this point in time. France and other countries will say: Well we won’t agree, when such a review is published, to change. Myself and other countries, I think it is about half and half in Europe, will say we want change. We can’t resolve that now. What we can resolve however is to have that fundamental review, and then discussion, within the next few years and not wait for 2013, and that for me is absolutely central to this deal.
Question:
Does that leave France as the ultimate road block? They are never going to go for a proper review of the CAP.
Tony Blair:
Look, the position of France, and it is important incidentally here because everyone talks about France, I have spoken to all the members of the European Union, if you speak to someone who in every context is a very, very good friend of mine - Bertie Ahern - with whom I work as closely as with any other Prime Minister in the whole of Europe, he will take the same position on the Common Agricultural Policy, these are big interests that are there. What I am saying is that people must leave open the possibility of change, because if the Commission presents us with a review that says look here is rationally how you would spend the budget, and no-one suggests incidentally you can get rid of the CAP overnight, I have never said that, but if the Commission presents us with that within the next few years, to me it is just common sense that we should leave open for ourselves the possibility of changing.
Now if that happens, then all the issues that people like to talk about in respect of Britain come on the table. That is why I am saying, I am the first Prime Minister that has said I will put the rebate on the table for discussion, but only if the reason for the rebate is there at the same time. Now I hope we can find a way through this because it is a fundamental question, as well as obviously all the financial details that have to be discussed.
Question:
Prime Minister, just could you say as a result of your discussions how many countries you think would now go along with that possibility of reopening the agricultural thing, how far do you think you have got on that? And in terms of numbers, you say about the rebate going up, but at the same time I assume our net contribution to the EU would go up, could you tell us how much it might go up and what you regard as a fair share of paying into the EU in future?
Tony Blair:
Well the first thing - and I hope George if I can say this very gingerly, that this is reflected in your paper, amongst others - is that there is a sense in some of the reporting that Britain is the only country being called upon to pay a contribution towards enlargement. What I have tried to explain to people is that within a relatively static budget there is a huge shift in expenditure going on from the existing E25, to the new accession countries, the Ten. And therefore all the countries in the Europe of the existing European Fifteen, or certainly the vast majority of them, any of the bigger countries, are seeing a shift to a greater net contribution. And actually if you look at the position of other countries, Britain has relatively, in terms of the increase in our net contribution, we have got an easier time than some of the others.
Now that is because we have always been big net contributors, that is true, but the point is that you know some countries like for example Spain, or Ireland, are going to see massive changes from being big net beneficiaries to being either net contributors or more or less level. Do you see what I mean? So this idea that only Britain is making a net contribution, obviously everybody is. What is the fair share for Britain? Well in my view the fair share is to leave us in the situation where according to our wealth we are roughly equal with countries of a similar size, which obviously is France and Italy. So I think that that is what is if you like the right principle to apply, until you get to the point where you can have a fundamental review of the whole budget. So what I am saying to people here is, you know when people say well you have sort of given away the rebate and got nothing in return, actually the rebate will rise, insofar as we make any contribution, what we get in return is the economic development of eastern Europe and central Europe, which is what we have always fought for, that will actually be of benefit to our country. And in the meantime, as for the rest, we should be for the first time in the history of Britain’s membership of the European Union, not contributing vastly more in net terms than other similar sized countries. So I would say that that is a good deal if we can achieve that.
Question:
Prime Minister, if the problem is the CAP, as you say, why you don’t accept to give up all the money from the rebate which is not related with the CAP?
Tony Blair:
Right, well that is the question from the other way round. Yes, because the simple answer to that is we have been, over the last period of time, the second largest net contributor to the European Union. We are going to remain, on any basis, the second largest net contributor, but that is not unfair because we are the second largest economy. But what we can’t do, without the fundamental reform that I have always argued for, is be in a position where we are going to do more than pay our fair share towards enlargement, and this will allow us to pay our fair share towards enlargement, but it is not going to lead to a position where that fundamental reconstruction of the rebate mechanism is there, because that can’t happen until you get a fundamental reconstruction of the CAP. But the only question is, are we paying under our proposals our fair share of enlargement? And the answer to that is yes, because if we go along with our proposal, if the Council goes along with our proposal, we will be roughly equal to similar sized countries.
Question:
Prime Minister, if I may ask a question outside the budget deal. BAA has been declared the highest bidder in the privatisation of Budapest airport, this is a transaction which has been stirring political controversy in Hungary. Can you clarify, did the UK government lobby in any way at any time for BAA to win this privatisation, and more specifically did you raise the issue last week when you were in Hungary and held negotiations with the Hungarian Prime Minister?
Tony Blair:
Well I am glad you have asked that question because I want to give a clarification. And obviously we are very pleased at the position that BAA has got, although there is still a whole process to go through, but it is quite useful I think for my own media here to realise that this is part of the whole benefit of countries in central and eastern Europe doing well and making changes, because this is a contract worth well over a billion pounds, so it is a major contract. However, I want to make one thing clear. At no time have I discussed this with the Hungarian Prime Minister, and incidentally there would be absolutely nothing wrong, because Prime Ministers always do, but this suggestion that I think is there in parts of your media or public opinion that somehow myself and the Prime Minister came to an understanding about this contract, and this was somehow related to our discussions on the budget, I have to say to you this is completely and totally untrue.
I think it profoundly irresponsible if there are politicians in Hungary saying such a thing, and it would not, if that is the attitude taken, do a great deal for relations between political leaders. And I can tell you, your Prime Minister put the points in a very strong way on behalf of the budget deal that Hungary wants, but there was no discussion whatever between us of the airport. Indeed I hadn’t realised that BAA was actually in for this until my Ambassador happened to mention it to me on the way to the airport from my meeting with the Hungarian Prime Minister, and otherwise I wouldn’t even have known of the possibility of this. So I hope that clarifies the situation.
Question:
Prime Minister, it is very difficult for us all to cleave our way through the jargon here, and when you talk about leaving open the possibility of change in the second half of the financial perspective, what exactly is the latest date that you would accept for fundamental reconstruction of agricultural subsidies as the price for putting the British rebate on the table? And didn’t you hog tie yourself back in 2002 when you agreed to let France and Germany say no change in farm subsidies before 2013?
Tony Blair:
Right, first of all I am going to deal with that latter point because again it is important, because people have said well surely we would have been better never to have reached this deal in 2002. This was the deal that paved the way for enlargement, and if we had ended up vetoing such a deal, we wouldn’t have had enlargement. So it is extremely important that people understand. Actually there were certain changes that were then agreed in the Common Agricultural Policy, I think in sugar, beef, arable, one or two of the other areas, the reason we had this agreement to reform the sugar regime the other day was in part because of that. So there was a certain amount of change in the CAP agreed, but I agree not as much as we wanted, but that was because if we had vetoed such a deal we wouldn’t have had enlargement.
Then let me come to the position on the review. As people know, what happens is these financial perspectives are agreed in seven year periods and the perspective we are trying to agree now is between 2007 and 2013. We have suggested a Commission Review that is published in 2008. That would then allow us to make changes sometime shortly after that, and that would effectively then change the second half of that financial perspective.
So that is roughly, without completely tying myself down to precise dates, the type of thing that I would like to see. Now let me emphasise again to you, Robin, I understand at the present time that France and probably another 11 or 12 countries will say: Well we are not going to change. My insistence however is that we have the review on that timescale and that we leave it open to ourselves, at that point in time, to change should we wish to do so. Because by that time three things will have happened: one, we will have had the WTO negotiation on world trade; two, we will be up against the ceilings of CAP expenditure; and three, the rebate will have grown in size. Now all of those are powerful levers for change. Therefore as I say, I am not in the position because I think this will not be negotiable in any event and in a sense would be unreasonable, of saying I insist that those countries today say they are going to change the second half of the financial perspective, but what I do insist upon is that they allow those of us who want to argue that case to argue it on the basis of the review, done by the Commission, that allows us to change that second half of the perspective.
Question:
Prime Minister, in an interview in June you said that you don’t want to see the new member countries disadvantaged. Now I am sorry, but most of them feel they are disadvantaged under the last proposal. Could you say now that under the new proposal you are going to present next week, the new member countries could be less disadvantaged, do you think it is possible that the cuts in structural funds for the new member countries could be less than 10%. And another question, if I may. Did any of the Prime Ministers you met yesterday and today support you in your bid to gain that CAP review clause?
Tony Blair:
Well the answer to the latter point is yes, there are those who will support this. So anyway we will see where we can get to, but obviously there are others who may not be in agreement, but I think I had better let them state their own positions on it. But for me this is something I have to have if this deal is to go forward. On your first point, let me just make two points to you. The first is that we are proposing a series of changes in the way you receive, in Poland and elsewhere, the economic development money, which will allow you to get that money more quickly and use it more flexibly. That is a very, very big gain for you. And secondly, I hope you can see, since you are based here in this country, you can see the attack I am under here for offering any sort of deal at all. Now I am doing it because I know that Poland and other countries who are our allies, the single biggest disadvantage is no deal, because if you get no deal going forward, in 2007 the European Parliament will handle it annually, you will have no opportunity to plan ahead, and you will get only one-third, or possibly less than one-third of the money you thought you were going to get under our proposal.
Question:
Is that a warning?
Tony Blair:
No, it is not a warning, it is a statement of fact. If we can’t get a deal, this is just a statement of fact, and that is why I think it is so important that everyone realises that if we don’t get the deal in December, and look no-one can ever say never in anything, but I can’t see it being done in the next 12 months, and that would be bad for everybody, and it is precisely because we have championed enlargement that we want to do that deal. And one other point is that you will know that you are a Pole working in London and there are many, many, many of your fellow citizens here, and they are here because this country opened up our labour markets when others didn’t.
Question:
Prime Minister, you have made clear that you are willing to give up around 5.5 billion of the rebate towards the costs of enlargement, but you are under pressure to give up more. Is that 5.5 billion a red line you are not willing to cross?
Tony Blair:
Well I said just a moment or two ago, the room for manoeuvre is really very, very limited indeed, and this thing cannot be decided simply on the basis of rebate money. In the end, what the rebate is, as I keep saying to people, it is a correction mechanism that arises because of what would otherwise be a very acute and unfair imbalance in the budget. And so as I say, I have said all the way through, we will pay our fair share of enlargement prior to a proper restructuring of the whole budget, but we can’t pay more than that.
Question:
When you open up your new negotiating box next week and rummage through all the jargon, is it going to be substantially different from the negotiating box that we have got at the moment?
Tony Blair:
Well the first thing to say is that one of the things that I am more familiar with the intricacies of the European budget than I ever either expected or wanted to be, is that some of these issues are actually technical issues to do with special ways that money is applied in special areas. Now I won’t go through all the things to do with it, and obviously you go through certain iterations of negotiation, but you come back to the basic self same pillars and principles. Anyway we had better just wait until you see it before we speculate too much on it.
Question:
Prime Minister, one of the British positions is that we need to cut back the budget because the accession countries can’t absorb all the money that would otherwise be thrown at them. As you are meeting the leaders of the accession countries, are they accepting this argument, because it might sound a bit difficult to them?
Tony Blair:
Well they don’t accept the argument put in that way, and I am grateful of the opportunity actually again to clarify it. The reason there have been difficulties with countries absorbing the European money that is given to them, and as I pointed out, in all the years of Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Spain taking their money, I don’t think any one of them in any year ever reached the 4% aim. I will check on that for you, but I think that is true. However, that doesn’t mean to say that that was the fault of the countries, and here is the critical point. One of the reasons why countries haven’t been able to absorb all of the money that has been available from Europe is because of the inflexibility and the bureaucracy of the system in Europe. And therefore what we are saying is we will make it easier for countries to access that money and to use it more flexibly. And so I don’t mean to suggest that the problems of absorption are problems to do with the competence of the recipient country, the problems are often there to do with the way that Europe works.
Question:
Politicians use reviews all the time to get out of tight corners they find themselves in. What guarantees will you seek that this review genuinely has got teeth and isn’t just going to be some sop?
Tony Blair:
Well I think you can see in the resistance that there has been to it that people understand that if the Commission comes forward, look if the Commission produces a report that says how the whole of the European Union budget could be restructured and we could apply the money more rationally, of course you are absolutely right, the rest of Europe can turn round and say we are just ignoring it. But on the other hand, it is quite difficult for people to do that in circumstances where if they do do that we carry on with a budget that the European Commission, on behalf of the European Union, has said well actually we could do this more sensibly a different way. Look, I have all the way through said, and you can go back and see the words that I spoke in June, what this has got to do is offer a forward perspective for the European Union.
I know it can’t all be changed today, it is not possible to do that, you can’t renegotiate the whole of the CAP today, in December, that is not going to happen, but what we need to do is to offer a proper sensible forward perspective for the budget for the future, and in the meantime have a deal that allows the European Union to function and doesn’t end up prejudicing the ability of those eastern and central European countries, whose cause we championed to come into Europe, doesn’t prejudice their ability to develop economically.
And that is what this is about, Rosemary. And when people say to me here: Well why are you doing this deal? I mean you could tell from our Polish colleague that obviously people in the accession countries would have preferred to do the same deal as was on offer from Luxembourg. On the other hand, I can absolutely assure you the thing they would prefer least is Britain turning round and saying we are not even bothering to try and reach a deal here, we are just going to leave them in this situation. So if you believe in European enlargement, then you have got to try to get a budget deal meantime and then offer a forward perspective for change later, and that is what we are trying to do, and that has always been my strategy, not to think I could solve all the problems of the budget now, today, because we can’t, but at least to give us a proper modus vivendi, a modus operandi, at the moment whilst we plan ahead for the time in 2008 - 2009 when it is possible then to have a reconsideration.
And it is interesting if you talk to the leaders of Europe, I would say there are two major issues that are changing in Europe today, I am not saying all countries agree with this, but this came out particularly incidentally in my conversations with the Spanish Prime Minister earlier today, and those issues are a real acceptance in Europe that if we want to succeed, we have got to have open economies that are investing in research and development, innovation and technology and so on, all the modern aspects of a modern knowledge economy; and the second thing is this issue to do with illegal immigration and the need for Europe to act in a concerted manner against that. And I think that there is a real desire in Europe at the moment to settle the things that we need to settle at the moment in order for Europe to function, but then to start concentrating on a more imaginative and creative forward agenda for Europe. And I would say that the prospects of that actually moving forward are quite good now. But you know whilst Europe can’t even agree a budget, which after all when you put all this money together and express it as a percentage of the overall GDP of Europe, you are not actually talking about vast sums of money here, but if Europe can’t even agree its own budget just to get itself functioning in the meantime, it doesn’t say a great deal for the European Union.
And I think all of us collectively feel it is our duty to try and do our best to reach a deal so that Europe can move forward and so that these new countries, that after all have emerged from the most terrible circumstances and dictatorships, and are now young vibrant democracies and market economies, so that they can make the development they want. And I think that would be a pretty good signal for us to send out at this point in time in Europe if we were able to give them the leg-up that they need, and then concentrate on the future agenda for the European Union, not the past one.
Question:
This looks to be your last Presidency of the European Union. You once promised that you were going to change forever the relationship between Britain and Europe, but now it looks like you are going to end your last Presidency with a bitter row on the budget and the rebate that was negotiated by Margaret Thatcher 25 years ago. Are you happy with this kind of legacy, your personal legacy in Europe, or if you could choose you would have liked to have something else to mark your last Presidency?
Tony Blair:
Well you know there isn’t ever going to be a budget negotiation in Europe that is going to be easy. There wasn’t 20 years ago. I don’t know whether you remember Berlin in 1999. I do, and that was a relatively easy negotiation. This is fantastically difficult because you have got the new countries coming in. And I think it is a bizarre construction of this to say this is about Britain fighting Europe, this isn’t about Britain fighting Europe, it is not an issue to do with euroscepticism, it is an issue to do with how you get a rational budget for today’s world in which Britain and many other countries, including your government, are allies of ours in that cause. And I would say that our position in Europe today, Britain’s position, is completely transformed from where it was in 1997. Some of you here will remember the beef war. When I first came in, and I was President of the European Union shortly after coming to office, every single summit was Britain isolated on this, that and the next thing, and we really had very little influence in Europe at all.
Today if you look at the situation in Europe, I think you have got a European Commission, who is President Barroso, despite whatever disagreements we have on aspects of the budget, is someone who is definitely a reformer, wants to take Europe forward; you have got a situation where you have got these new countries who have come into the European Union, are strong allies of reform; and you have got a situation in which Britain, working with many other governments in Europe, is articulating the case for economic reform and change in Europe in a way that I think would have been unthinkable a few years ago, and that is the best testament to our relationship in Europe today.
And you are going to have a difficult budget negotiation, you always will, and what I would like eventually to have happen, because I agree with you actually, for us to carry on arguing about the CAP and the rebate for ever and a day is not very constructive, but the only way of dealing with it all is to deal with it all, put it in a different restructured budget, and this is what would be rational, isn’t it, in a European budget, that here is the money that you want to spend, here are the contributions based on relative wealth of the countries, and here is how you are going to spend the money. Now that would be a rational budget. What has actually happened with this European budget and the mechanisms is that it has grown up topsy-turvy as a result of deals here and deals there and there has never been that fundamental reconstruction. Well that is what I want to see, and if we can open the perspective for that then we have got a chance of doing it.
Question:
Norman Kember, the British hostage in Iraq, might be in the last hours of his life, his captors want to see the withdrawal of British troops. I am genuinely sorry to take you away from the European budget, but can you say anything at this late stage which might give some hope to his family?
Tony Blair:
I can’t, and I don’t think at this moment I want to comment on it, I don’t think that would be helpful.
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