Prime Minister
Ladies and Gentlemen, you had a long press conference, I will try and be as brief as possible with the opening statement and as brief in my replies as possible.
We have done a good day's work at this informal or semi-formal meeting of the European Council. From Britain's point of view I feel we have succeeded in getting our main concerns across, in particular on political union, and I am satisfied with the conclusions.
Let me take you quickly through the main points. We have agreed clear guidelines for the detailed discussions which will be needed to incorporate the GDR within the Community. I do not think there were any basic disagreements between us. Chancellor Kohl said very helpfully that he was not looking for any special fund for financial assistance from the Community for East Germany, but of course East Germany will have access to normal Community funds for Eastern Europe and to European Investment Bank lending. [end p1]
Another point which I particularly welcomed was the stress on the importance of NATO and a united Germany's membership in it. We confirmed our commitment to complete the Single Market by 1992 and to continue the preparations for an IGC on European and Monetary Union. This will start in December this year.
We agreed to try to complete association agreements between the Community and individual East-European countries as soon as possible. This builds on the proposal which Britain made at the last European Council.
The main topic over lunch, as you have heard, was political union. There is a very wide range and variety of views on what this means. I said that the term “political union” raised fears and anxieties among many people, that it would involve a loss of national identity and national institutions. I suggested that we should proceed by setting out what we do not mean when we speak of political union, that we do not mean giving up our separate Heads of State or our national parliaments or legal systems or our defence through NATO or many other things. I found a number of my concerns echoed by other colleagues and indeed the Charles HaugheyChairman indicated at the end of lunch that the sort of matters I had listed would, he thought, be outside political union.
We instructed our Foreign Ministers to analyse more thoroughly what political union should cover and prepare proposals for the next European Council at the end of June. We shall reach a decision then on whether and when to hold a further IGC. [end p2]
My own view is that this further work will underline the varying views of Community members as we tackle the practical problems. I suggest that what most of us are talking about is ever-closer cooperation and reform to make the Community's existing institutions more effective and more efficient.
In addition, we have confirmed that the six priority tasks for 1990, which the Douglas HurdForeign Secretary and I have identified, remain absolute priorities and must not be overlooked.
So we have given a useful steer and impetus to further work before the June European Council and on the two matters on which this Council was convened: the consequences for the Community of German unification and relations with Eastern Europe. We have set the way ahead. [end p3]
Question (John Dickie, Daily Mail)
In the past some people have complained that you have been a reluctant passenger on the train towards European and political integration, taking a seat in the last coach. As a result of today's statement saying that the European Council is committed to political union, does that mean that you have now established yourself in the front coach and perhaps even in the driving seat?
Prime Minister
No, I think you had a lot of questions in the previous conference on this and also I will give my view. Clearly they do not quite know what political union means, it astounds me. I thought we ought to start to define it first and suggest that that is the reason why you get the Foreign Ministers charged with the duty of analysing what it means and preparing various different proposals for the next Council. And I was very concerned that to many people at home it means something quite different from what I think many of my colleagues on the European Council mean. Listening to all of the discussions today, there is no question, believe you me, of any of them losing their national identity or their national sovereignty. And you should hear them when it comes to the seat of the Community institutions, you know then that national identity and national sovereignty is really very up-front. [end p4]
Question (Richard Ingham, AFP)
If I could just speak on M. Delors who held his press conference just before you, he was asked for his response to your belief that the Community should proceed by a process of elimination with regard to political union and discard all the concepts which it considers unacceptable and M. Delors responded rather sardonically, he said: “If I had thought about the things which should not constitute mankind, mankind would never have been created.”
Prime Minister
What did Jacques Delorshe say, there seems to be some disagreement between your version and your colleagues? You tell me precisely what he said and I will do my level best to reply, as usual. He said what?
Question
Basically his criticism was that your approach was far too negative, that one should not look at the negative aspects of this procedure.
Prime Minister
Look, I heard him so you do not need to tell me. He said something like this: If I had said everything that we should not do, Adam would have never been created; to which my reply is: well, God did do better on his second thoughts when he created Eve! [end p5]
Question (Graham Leach, BBC)
Could you explain to us what it is in your view about the Franco-German initiative which is esoteric?
Prime Minister
If you look at it, I think the Franco-German initiative had three parts, we are talking about the one on political union: first, making the institutions work better—I have no difficulty with that, we would have a lot of proposals to put up; and then on political union it referred to having economic and monetary union—well, you cannot define political union by another sort of union; and then on the third part of it, common policy on foreign policy and security—well we already signed a Treaty in the Single Act on cooperation in foreign policy, it commits us to consulting with one another before we go firm upon any particular policy.
Well, that is not really honoured fully, as you have seen in the last few days. The Foreign Ministers Council put out a statement on Lithuania and within a matter of days Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand were putting out another one on Lithuania which varied from the first one. And so there you are, we have actually a Treaty obligation on it which we passed in conjunction with the European Act on foreign policy cooperation and this is one thing which makes me realise they will never think of giving up national sovereignty, which I do not criticise, I am very pleased about. When I meet President Mitterrand now in a few days we shall be able to issue a very nice statement, I am sure, on something that is very very pertinent. [end p6]
But you see you cannot, you have got it on foreign policy but again all of the discussion on defence, you have only got to think about it, I listened to it. Ireland has a special position on NATO because she is neutral. France has a special position with regard to NATO. Others of them take up slightly different positions with regard to nuclear in NATO. If we had Austria in, she has a different position on NATO. You simply cannot have a common defence policy in the Community as it is and as we spent some considerable time saying the importance of NATO and how important it was to have the unified Germany in NATO, it does not really make sense to say that you should have a unified foreign policy when we are not observing this Treaty, or a unified security policy.
And therefore I think that I have a good deal on my side when I say that most of them have no more intention of giving up their national identity or surrendering their national sovereignty on these matters than we have. After all, in the ultimate, war or peace is a sovereign decision.
So I think that the trouble is that there is quite a lot of rhetoric and far too little nitty gritty and I hope the Foreign Ministers will get down to the nitty gritty and come up with something which does improve the European institutions, which does look and see if we need any modification and see if that modification needs a Treaty reform. [end p7]
We will have quite a lot of views to put up ourselves but they will be with making the European institutions work better with a view to closer cooperation.
Question (John Palmer, Guardian)
If political union is such a vague, airy-fairy, not to say contradictory set of concepts, why did you lend your signature to the statement in the draft conclusions that you reaffirm your commitment to political union? And if security policy is difficult to imagine in the Community, why did your government push so hard during the Single European Act for a rather stronger commitment to a European Community security dimension than the one which finally emerged?
Prime Minister
Because, as I have quite clearly indicated, political union at the moment means very different things to very different people. But when you come down to it I am quite certain that the other eleven round that table neither think ever of giving up their national identity nor their national parliaments nor surrendering NATO in defence because all of it is absolutely vital. And therefore I think, Mr. Palmer, it means a good deal less than some people attribute to those very words. [end p8]
And of course when it comes to security I have sometimes wondered if we could amalgamate the Western European and NATO because it would have really great advantages in some respects. But although they are very very different, NATO is the decision-making body on defence and it is quite clear from the firmness with which we are indicating, and which Chancellor Kohl is indicating, that the reunified Germany must stay in NATO, that NATO means a very very great deal to us, and that is the executive, decisive body on defence. [end p9]
Jim Pringle (RTE)
Prime Minister, Mr. Haughey, in here a short time ago, said that he believed that political union—and I presume whatever that means— “is inevitable like the Rhine” ; he says you cannot stop the flow of it. I know we have not yet decided what it is but do you believe, whatever it is, that it is inevitable? (laughter)
Prime Minister
That is a very Irish question!
I believe that we shall steadily have closer cooperation. I believe that will grow organically. I believe that they will discuss precisely what are the next steps we can take and I believe we shall take them, but I think that you do far better when you willingly cooperate together, willingly step-by-step increase that cooperation—you get far better results than trying to get out in front with artificial rhetoric which raises fears rather than increasing cooperation. [end p10]
Question
Prime Minister, you set out today in some detail what you thought political union should not be. Was this not an example of what your predecessor on Wednesday described as “negative nagging” ?
Prime Minister
No! It was very positive nagging, as a matter of fact! You get a long way by nagging! You get your point across for a start! No-one argued with it—they just went to say: “Well, we want political union; we don't know quite what it is but we must have it! But we'll analyse it and we'll set the Foreign Ministers to sort it out!” so that is Douglas HurdDouglas's job—he'll do it!
Boris Johnson (Daily Telegraph)
On this nitty gritty stuff, is one of the things that you think political union should not be increasing the scope for majority voting in the Council of Ministers?
Prime Minister
In the Single Act, as you know, we did increase the scope for majority voting and it has been to Britain's advantage because otherwise you would get one country having a veto over something which we very much wanted.
We are quite prepared to look at majority voting again but there are certain things which are set out in that Single European Act which require unanimity and I think we would stand pat on that. [end p11]
David Buchan (Financial Times)
Are you not the victim of a somewhat sleight of hand in the communique, which has added to the previous Strasbourg formulation about the Monetary Union Conference that there should be an objective of ratifying it by the end of 1992? And then that sleight of hand is redoubled by the words on the Political Union Conference, which says that it should take place in parallel and be ratified in the same time frame?
Prime Minister
No, no sleight of hand. We did that knowingly—that the two should be within the same time span; “time frame” is the precise word.
You ought to be able to make up your mind within that time frame. It is now 1990. We ought to be able to do that.
As you know, an Inter-Governmental Conference can be called with just a simple majority of votes. Agreement, however, has to be reached on unanimity and nothing short of unanimity.
I would have thought that two years should be enough to know, certainly on political union, which way you should go. Economic and monetary union is, I think, a much more complicated thing and will give rise to much longer consideration and much fiercer debate than I think the political union will because I think, as I have indicated, that there is underlying the phrase “political union” much more agreement than the phrase itself would indicate. [end p12]
Question
Do I take it, Prime Minister, that if some people's rhetoric became reality and the essential national interests you outlined were breached, Britain would bow out?
Prime Minister
No, no, no! We shall hope to convince them but as I indicated, on an Inter-Governmental Conference the recommendations for a treaty have to be unanimous and, of course, every single one has to be ratified by our national parliaments. That is the sovereign act.
Sovereignty does not come from the Community. The Community has come out of a certain delegation of sovereignty and that is the expression of sovereignty. You can say the Community is an expression of sovereignty but every single new proposal which impinges on sovereignty has to be agreed by not only each representative but by each parliament.
Charles Grant (The Economist)
The Conclusions say that the work on EMU—the Inter-Governmental Conference and the ratification of EMU—should be finished by the end of 1992. Does this not mean that your thinking on EMU has evolved somewhat since Madrid, which was only about a year ago? [end p13]
Prime Minister
No! We have certain very deep differences. The matter was debated in our Parliament, as you know, and it was made quite clear that we could not possibly accept a large part of the Stage 2 and the Stage 3 of Delors as that Report is.
I did raise the difficulty of ratifying by the end of 1992 but long before that there will obviously be pretty hotly-argued debate about the nature of Economic and Monetary Union. Again, we will have some more and different proposals to put up but I do suggest to you that as you go from the general phraseology to the particular practical consequences, that there may well be different views taken from those in the Delors Report. We certainly shall put up different views ourselves but you cannot jump to the conclusion that you will get an agreed Inter-Governmental Conference by that time. Some of them may take longer, which is why the phrase “the objective” is in and not the precise date. Indeed, that was precisely because I raised it so that it was toned down to “the objective” . It is not an absolute date in any way and I think that that is going to be a very difficult argument and debate between fellow members of the Community.
Question (Bulgarian TV)
Prime Minister, would you support help for a government of Bulgarian Socialists if they will be in power after the democratic elections in June? [end p14]
Prime Minister
We hope that Bulgaria will become fully democratic; we hope that she will go the further way to have a rule of law based on human rights and that she will have a market economy. We most certainly hope that she will do all of that like some of the other countries in Eastern Europe and then obviously we, too, will be prepared to help as we have done in the same way with other countries of Eastern Europe.
Douglas HurdForeign Secretary
You will see she is mentioned in the Conclusions specifically in the context of the work of the Group of Twenty-Four so she is included in the general approach.
Michael Binyon (The Times)
You said earlier that the meeting today will decide in June whether and when to hold an Inter-Governmental Conference. Mr. Haughey said a little bit earlier that he thought there was no longer any question of whether to hold the conference. Do you regard the holding of the conference therefore now as a foregone conclusion and if so, is there anything that the Foreign Ministers might or could say in their report that might now possibly still make it unlikely to hold such a conference? [end p15]
Prime Minister
They could in fact do a model of political union which could be achieved on the basis of what we have now. Do not forget that one of those things in the Mitterrand-Kohl Conclusions was on foreign policy and if you look, there is a very good foreign policy cooperation treaty in here already. It is quite possible they could put up improvements that would not require a treaty amendment. It is also possible they could put other models which would.
My guess is that most of my colleagues would want to take models which would require a treaty amendment, but we will see. It is one thing to call an Inter-Governmental Conference—it is another thing to agree. Frankly, if we call one, we do try to agree as far as we possibly can but agreeing between many different people does mean substantial compromises and often something much smaller comes out at the end than went in at the beginning.