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

Speaking on a pre-recorded special general election edition of BBC Parliament’s EU politics programme, The Record: Europe, 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 (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) 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.”

“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.”

For more information about the Greens view:
www.brightonhovegreens.org