Nick Peters
Mrs. Thatcher, the money that you have achieved for the rebate for 1983 is considerably less, I think, than you wanted and that Britain expected, it adds up to a fairly limited achievement doesn't it?
Mrs. Thatcher
I did not expect to be offered anything here, according to how the reports were going. Some other heads of government came here determined not to offer a penny piece which was going to put me in acute difficulty because then I'd have had to have gone to Parliament and seen what measures we had to take. Nevertheless Chancellor Kohl was determined to get a settlement, both of the short term and guidelines for the long term financing of the Community. He was a very vigorous and effective chairman and I was faced at first with something like an offer of two hundred million—and I speak in terms of European currency—ecu—which was wholly unacceptable, four hundred million—wholly unacceptable, five hundred million—wholly unacceptable. They then said supposing we put that in a provisional agreement and then go on negotiating, I said no, if we can negotiate next week, next month, we can negotiate now, so in the end we got seven hundred and fifty million.
N. Peters
That's about four hundred and fifty million pounds …
Mrs. Thatcher
… . million pounds. Yes, I am pleased with that because if you average it up over four years in which I've been negotiating, what we've got—we've got back for Britain two thousand five hundred million pounds and it's almost exactly the same percentage of our contributions back that I was promised at the outset: I was promised sixty five point nine per cent, this averages out at sixty five point four per cent, so it's very good.
N. Peterz
Given the fact that these negotiations get more difficult year by year, does it not mean that 1984 looks like being even tougher and that we might not even expect a rebate for next year?
Mrs. Thatcher
Well now, the other half of the story is we have agreed guidelines for setting up a new method of financing the Community. As you know, the present method is thoroughly inequitable and unfair, that's why we have to come each year and say, look, it won't do, you can't leave it like this, we have to have rebates. Now the coming … they're running out of money, their expenditure is going to exceed their income if they carry on like this, so they've got to look at new methods of financing altogether and in looking at new methods of financing they have to look at how they're spending existing money and how the burden is formed between those who contribute. Now we've got agreement on to how we shall look at that and we've got agreement without my having to agree with any increase in what are called own resources which is any increase in contributions to the European Economic Community. So I hope that that new arrangement will come in in time for 1984. If not, we shall have to say, all right, you've got another unacceptable situation and we shall have to start all over again.
N. Peters
But this agreement is only a framework for a working programme leading up to the Athens summit in December, the issues are still as divisive as ever on spending on agriculture, on this question of increasing the Community's available income. Do you not think that it's going to be a very rough six months and that we might not have an agreement by December, in which case we have got to get a rebate for '84? [end p1]
Mrs. Thatcher
It is possible that we might not get an agreement by December. In which case we have, as I indicated, to go back and have another ad hoc arrangement for the next year and that too would be hard pounding. But there is a particular spur to them to get a new long term arrangement, it's quite simply this: their expenditure is going to exceed their income if they go on like this and therefore first—for the first time they have to agree to limit the increase in agricultural expense, to look at limiting the increase in agricultural expenditures and look at the sound, financial control of all their expenditure policies. You would say they've looked and agreed before … . 75, you see, they're going to run out of cash now, that's the difference. So they've got to look at it.
N. Peters
Do you think the Community came as close this weekend as it has ever come to a real split, a really divisive split, between the member states which could have seriously damaged the Community's future?
Mrs. Thatcher
Well … you get people getting obviously very forceful in what they say, I mean we were after all ourselves … I was pretty forceful at one stage, I said what they were asking was absolutely shameful, but all right, these words were exchanged, I don't think any of us think of breaking up the Community, good heavens no, it's too valuable to all of us, it is very very important for the future of jobs in Britain.
N. Peters
But people are still arguing for limited national interests these days, there doesn't seem to be a very strong European dimension to the discussions.
Mrs. Thatcher
Yes, it's like a family and you are one family, and my goodness me, you have pretty fierce arguments but you know you're one family—yes, all right, it's all right to have fierce arguments so we do have fierce arguments in the Community, yes, we do fight our corner. I fight Britain's corner and I fight it hard and we thought it was a very good weekend for Britain in Stuttgart this weekend. I got really sums beyond my wildest dreams. Taking into account both the short term settlement and taking into account what we do in the long term and taking into account what we've had over the past three years, so it was a very very good weekend for Britain but we got it by tough argument and tough negotiations.
N. Peters
Thank you Prime Minister.