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On
Commission or from the European Court of Justice. Amendment 27 the Foreign Secretary's statement had clearly changed the position. He hoped the Government would agree that there should be a whole day's debate on the issue followed by an immediate vote. The Foreign Secretary emphasised that the new legal advice had been passed to the House as soon as possible. It was unrealistic to expect the European Court to rule on aspects of the Treaty before it had come into force. subsidiarity, the Government had been successful in establishing it as political fact before it was a legal fact. Within the legal framework more restrictive practical rules had been negotiated: national action should be the rule and Community rule the exception.
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8. Alan Howarth urged that the Government should set out its own agenda for a less grandiose, wider Community, in advance of the 1996 IGC. The Foreign Secretary noted that Kohl and Mitterrand had taken the initiative pre-Maastricht and that we had had to operate on territory largely defined by them. He wholly agreed about the need to take the initiative before 1996. The admission of Sweden, Finland and, perhaps, Norway would strengthen our hand. He believed that the Conservative Party could unite on the advantages of an enlarged decentralised, outward looking free trading Community of states. We were more likely to achieve this with the ratification of Maastricht than without it.
9. Michael Lord asked the Foreign Secretary to confirm both that the passage of Amendment 27 would not bring the Social Chapter into operation in Britain and that it would not prevent ratification. The Foreign Secretary confirmed that this was the case. He defended the Government's strategy of setting out the arguments against the Social Chapter because the Labour Party had sought to portray the vote as being on the merits of the European Social dimension. The passage of Amendment 27 would not destroy the Treaty because the Protocol explicitly excludes the United Kingdom from its operation.
10. John Butterfill contrasted the
Parliamentary Assizes in Rome which had been dominated by federalist rhetoric with his recent visit to the European Parliament, where he had detected a palpable change in a reassuring direction. The Foreign Secretary said he was not claiming that the debate was over but believed that the tide was moving in Britain's favour.
11. Sir George Gardiner returned to the point raised by Michael Lord. He accused Ministers of spreading disinformation within constituency parties about the substance of Amendment 27. The Foreign Secretary said
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