Jean Lambert, the Green MEP for London, says Conservative leader David Cameron “doesn’t understand the importance of the European Union”, following comments he made regarding gay rights in a recent interview [1].

Speaking on a pre-recorded special general election edition of BBC Parliament’s EU politics programme, The Record: Europe [2], Jean expressed concern that Cameron had not realised that it mattered how Tory MEPs voted on the issue of a proposed homophobic law in Lithuania in terms of his Party’s political positioning, seeming to regard the European Parliament as a political outpost.

During a discussion about renegotiating terms of the Lisbon Treaty, Jean, who is a member of the European Parliament’s cross-party Intergroup on LGBT rights and was a co-signatory to a resolution condemning the proposed legislation in Lithuania, told presenter Shirin Wheeler:

“It’s very difficult for one leader (to renegotiate terms) who I must say seems to me to be on a very steep learning curve about the importance of the European Union. I’m not yet convinced that David Cameron really understands the European Union, just look at the interview he did with the Gay Times, he doesn’t understand the EU’s importance… the European Parliament now has powers.”

Summing up the Green Party’s top priority in Europe for the next Government, Jean, concluded:

 

“The really big issue facing the entire world, not just Europe, is the issue of climate change. And therefore if we are really going to switch to a low carbon economy, which is what the European Union says it wants to do, we have to shift things like the regional funds, we have to move the European Union budget in that direction and that means a lot of thinking about our economic priorities but it’s certainly going to deliver a lot more jobs than we are seeing in this current economy.”

 

Note to Editors

 

[1] The interview was conducted for Gay Times magazine and can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/gaytimeschannel

 

[2] The episode of The Record: Europe will be broadcast on BBC World News, BBC News Channel and BBC Parliament on the weekend of April 10 and 11. Claude Moraes (Labour), Timothy Kirkhope (Conservative), Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrat) and William, Earl of Dartmouth (UKIP) were the other MEPs on the studio panel.

 

Jean Lambert is one of eight MEPs representing London and one of two UK Green representatives in the European Parliament. Jean was first elected Green Party Member of the European Parliament for London in the 1999 European elections and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009.