Interviewer
Good morning, Prime Minister! You will be in Paris from Thursday onwards to celebrate our bicentennial and also to take part in the Industrial Summit.
Are you aware that you are the only kingdom representative attending these celebrations?
Prime Minister
I only knew that a few days ago. I am very flattered.
Interviewer
Do you find it embarrassing?
Prime Minister
No, I do not find it embarrassing.
We had our celebration of 1688, as you know, which was a much quieter revolution in which Parliament quietly took control. It was a much more quiet celebration but a very effective one. [end p1]
Interviewer
You are very much the veteran of these Industrial Summits, having been in power for more than ten years. Is it shocking to you in any way that this Summit happens to coincide with the French Bicentennial?
Prime Minister
No. I think President Mitterrand has arranged it that way.
The Summit is usually either in May, June or July and I think, obviously, he thought it would be rather nice to have them together. It makes for a very busy time for us but it gives us a chance to see many other Heads of Government before we get down to the Economic Summit so perhaps that is quite a good thing.
Interviewer
Including Heads of Government from poor countries perhaps?
Prime Minister
Oh yes! But last year in Toronto, at the Economic Summit, we wrote off the debt of the poorest countries each in our own way, so we are very much aware of that problem and did something about it last year. [end p2]
Interviewer
In the same way France has done, you cancelled &dubellip; debt of the poor African countries. Would you be in favour of a new collective gesture at this forthcoming Summit?
Prime Minister
I think you have to deal with it as we have previously. You have to deal with it country by country because they are all different. We each decided either to write off some fundamental debt that we should not have been repaid anyway or to write off a part of the capital, or to alter the scheduling of the interest rate payments, but we all had to do it each in our own way - each country - through the Paris Club and that is right. I do not think you can have a big massive demonstration. You must deal with each country separately.
You have to remember that some countries have faithfully and truly been paying off their debt and we have to remember the sacrifices they have made and they are the ones determined to get their economy sound and to uphold their reputation of repaying their debts.
Interviewer
Would you be willing to put some pressure on the British private banks &dubellip;? [end p3]
Prime Minister
No, I do not put pressure on private banks. They make their own judgements. If they make bad debts, that is their judgement and I think it quite wrong to put pressure on them. They should know the commercial world and be responsible for their own actions.
Where Government comes in is if they lend more money than they should to people who cannot afford to borrow it and their debt is a bad debt, then of course it is written off against their profits for taxation purposes, so in that way the tax-payer does come in when the commercial banks make a bad debt.
Interviewer
If President Mitterrand next Friday or next Saturday actually appeals for more active and collective action from the rich countries to help out the poor countries, would you oppose a new &dubellip;?
Prime Minister
We were one of the first to write off the debt of the poorest South African countries but that is government debt - that is debt for which we are responsible and answerable to the tax-payer and so we did that.
As you know, there has been a Brady Plan, which we agreed in the International Monetary Fund - that is the American Plan - which we support. [end p4]
Obviously we look at anything else which is put up but it is not for us to tell the commercial banks what to do because if we do and it goes wrong, then we would have a liability towards them. They are in the commercial world and they must make their judgements.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, what is your own priority in the Paris Summit? Is it environment this year?
Prime Minister
No. I think the priority always with the Economic Summit is to agree that we must run our economies in a sound way; a sound money; not spend more than we can afford to spend. There are not any magic wands, you know. It is no earthly good expecting some magic formula.
In the first seven years, we were not so good at it. We were doing what is called “fine tuning”; in the second seven years, which is just complete, we really all came to the same conclusion: that you do have to run your finances in a sound way. You do not get too big a money supply because if you do you get inflation. You do not build up enormous deficits in your budget because if you do, you are soon in trouble. You try to get down subsidies for industry because you cannot in fact have fair competition unless you do and that is vital for Europe. [end p5]
All of these things you do and we must continue to do. And then you must have a taxation policy that gives incentives to people to work hard because there is just no substitute for working hard and having good design and success. So we have to keep that formula and recipe going. Too many people are looking for a system which means they will not have to make any effort. Life is not like that.
Secondly, this time of course we have to take a look, as we did at Toronto, at the debt problem but it has to be sorted out through the big international institutions, through the INF, through the World Bank, through the Paris Debt Rescheduling Club, but we might look and see what we are prepared to do.
Thirdly, of course the environment is very important. It is very important economically too. Do not forget that the higher standards we seek can only come about through prosperity. The countries of East Europe, they do not care very much about the environment or about what they pour into Europe's rivers and so we have to pay quite a high price for having a much better environment. I think people are prepared to pay it.
Interviewer
Environment is indeed becoming in our countries a very important motivation for public opinion and the latest European elections have shown it in your country as well as in ours. What would you suggest the seven richest countries in the world do in that respect? [end p6]
Prime Minister
Almost all of us have our own practical programmes. We are very much concerned, for example, with the ozone layer where we had big conferences following up the Toronto Summit. We had the Montreal Protocol; that is urgent because the gases go up there and they are creating a hole in the ozone layer and we have to take action immediately, which we have done.
The big major conference and the big kind of framework resolution we have not yet got round to, though we proposed it in the United Nations, is one concerning the greenhouse effect and the amount of carbon dioxide we are putting up into the atmosphere, which is staying there, which can be very serious.
Those are the two big world systems which we always assumed were there in the world's atmosphere and would go on almost regardless of what Man does. We now know they do not so we have to take steps with regard to those.
Then we have the other more local ones and we did have a North Sea Conference, you know, the pollution of the North Sea, and we all agreed to take very effective steps to pollute it far less and it is vital to keep the life support system in the seas going because that also has a great effect on the world's eco-systems.
Interviewer
And you believe there should be a new international body to try and regulate? [end p7]
Prime Minister
No, I do not. We have got one. I am fed up with people when they do not know what to do, saying “Well, let us set up a new body!” It is dead easy for national or international civil servants to do. They love new bodies. I like action. We have got the United Nations. We have the United Nations Environmental Programme - ozone layer conferences are geared into that - and we should use the United Nations to get a big greenhouse effect conference which I expect the United States will host, and have a similar agreement to that which we have got on the ozone layer.
But you know, no matter how much we do in the Western countries, it will fail unless we get the big lesser-developed countries along with us. China, for example, over a billion people, masses of coal. What we do could all be cancelled out if China does not also come along with the necessary things that we have to do and so much would be cancelled out if some of those countries which have tropical forests go on cutting them down for agriculture because they will make desert out of what was forest and then, of course, you alter the whole world's climate if those forests are not there. [end p8]
We have just made the first international diplomatic agreement that has ever been made on tropical forests with Brazil because it matters to us what Brazil does with its forests, it matters to the whole world, so we have just set up an agreement with them.
Interviewer
You just mentioned China. China is very much on the political agenda and on our minds for other reasons. Do you believe this forthcoming Paris Summit should publish a joint communique to judge what has been happening in China? [end p9]
Prime Minister
I think almost certainly, just exactly as the European Summit at Madrid did a few days ago. I do not think we could ignore it, people would not understand if we ignored it. The world was so shocked about what happened and most of us thought that the economic reforms which were giving more latitude to the people of China had made such an event unthinkable.
And I am afraid in this world we are all being taught a very severe lesson that even today, even with all we know about civilisation, people can still go back to the policies of former ages. So I think the world would not understand unless we made our views known once again. [end p10]
Interviewer
Are you disappointed with President Bush's pragmatism towards China?
Prime Minister
We have none of us stopped trade with China, none of us. There are quite a number of contracts which are now being carried out. France has not stopped trade with China, nor have we. We have stopped any military trade and we have stopped all high level visits and so on.
But I think that President Bush was very swift to condemn what happened in China, as indeed we all were. Having condemned it, we must I think make it clear that these events will not easily be forgotten and the question then is precisely what we do next and for that we shall need quite a lot of discussion.
Interviewer
Including in Paris?
Prime Minister
Yes, including in Paris. Do not forget we have Hong Kong where of course most of the land will revert to mainland China in 1997 and Hong Kong does a great deal of trade with China and China with Hong Kong and it is vital for the future of Hong Kong that she continues to be prosperous because then she is most valuable to China. [end p11]
And the Agreement that we have made with China will most likely be carried through exactly as we made it which is what we are concerned about.
Interviewer
It is not what local people might want?
Prime Minister
I think local people in Hong Kong are a little bit fearful of course, would we not be if we lived there? But the Agreement that we made which will give fifty years of a similar system as to what Hong Kong has now, a capitalist system, a free system under a rule of law, continues for fifty years after the land has reverted to China.
I believe that that would be upheld provided Hong Kong remains prosperous and continues the kind of system that she has now and gradually going to more democracy which she wants and so do we.
Interviewer
National experts are already working on the final draft of the Paris Summit and this draft includes some French proposals referring to new rights for countries, like the right to economic development or the right to a better environment. According to the French press, the British, that is you, do not agree with that draft. Why? [end p12]
Prime Minister
I have not seen the draft but you cannot have a right to a good environment. What happens when you have a volcano, a hurricane, a great big massive fire? Fundamental human rights are very personal rights - freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of worship, the certain rights of family. These are deeply human, personal rights which no-one can take away from you.
The other things which people call rights are not personal human rights at all, they only come into existence provided someone else does something economically, they are not human rights. They are objectives for Government to carry out and that we agree.
Indeed for example 95 percent of our rivers in this country are classified as good or fair. That is better than any other country in Europe. We led on the Ozone Conference. We watch the environment very carefully because there is a tendency to sort out one problem, for example the emissions from cars by a three-way catalyst, and in the way in which they have sorted out that problem they have made cars less energy-efficient, they will use 10 percent more petrol which in fact makes the greenhouse problem worse.
That is not a human right at all. What you indeed perhaps say is: “Look, we agree on common policies”, of course we do, we are all citizens of the earth and if those great eco-systems are interfered with by man then it can have quite devastating effects, the full import of which we do not know. But do not call it a human right, it is not. [end p13]
Interviewer
So you prefer, as always, a pragmatist approach to the more theoretical?
Prime Minister
No, I prefer an approach which is sound - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of thought, freedom of movement. These are things which we have as human beings but we do not automatically have a right to an unpolluted atmosphere. We have in fact to do things for that.
Do you not think it is time people began also to talk about our obligations to the world and the country and the town we live in instead of all saying: “We have rights”? We also have obligations. There are certain human rights which no-one can take away from you, they are not given by the state, they belong to humanity as a whole.
But other things consist in doing things for one another in a sense of community and in a sense of obligation. And yes I was very critical at Madrid of what was called the Social Charter. I said: “There is not a single thought about your duties to the community of which you are a part, only rights.” You only in fact get a good country, a good town, when people recognise their obligations and I think we should think a little bit more about that.
People recognise that for a higher standard of living they must look to themselves for their own efforts. And after all, no-one can have any political rights unless someone else has first carried out an obligation. [end p14]
We have a right to vote. That has been won for us over the years and it carries with it responsibilities.
One of our famous playwrights, you will know him, George Bernard Shaw, used to have a saying: “Freedom incurs responsibilities, that is why many men fear it”. It does incur responsibilities and we must give a little bit of thought to that at the Economic Summit otherwise the world will get nowhere.
Interviewer
On European affairs, to the French at least, you often appear as a rather lonely and rather negative force against the acceleration of the European pace. Do you feel that view is wrong?
Prime Minister
No, I think you will find that I am one of the most positive. We in Britain have free movement of capital. France has not. We have no foreign exchange control. France has foreign exchange control. We pay this year, over and above anything we get from the Community, a net contribution this year of £2 billion, that is the second largest contribution to the Community. We were responsible for being insistent on sorting out the Common Agricultural Policy because we did not like half the whole budget going to the creation of food mountains and lakes. Yes, we persisted, we persisted positively, we persisted and we went on and we got it sorted out. [end p15]
We got the budget sorted out because you could not go on without having a sound budget. On the environment we have a record as good as many and better than most. And then may I also point out that we keep 70,000 troops on the front line in Germany and that costs us a lot of money across the exchanges.
You will not find anyone who in fact is ahead of us in what we are doing. We have fewer subsidies to our industries than either France or Germany. So when you talk about free and fair competition in a common market we are ahead. We have more open financial markets than either France or Germany. Germany is not coming along very fast in freeing up with the Common Market, we are, we are ahead.
So if you look at what we do, yes, we are very very positive indeed. Indeed we are ahead of what most other countries have done. We do not talk in great big visionary terms. In practical terms we are among the best of the Europeans.
Interviewer
Is that a way to say that the French often talk too much in visionary terms?
Prime Minister
No, but I have just pointed out that when France criticises us she has not done some of the freeing up which is necessary for the Europe about which she talks. She has not done as much freeing up as we have. [end p16]
And she will have to, she will have to, because that is Stage 1 of Delors, that is what the Single Market is all about.
Interviewer
Precisely what do you expect or what do you fear from the French Presidency?
Prime Minister
I do not fear anything from the French Presidency. France has agreed that she must free up her capital movements and abolish her foreign exchange controls by July 1990. I believe she will do it, but we have already done it. We abolished exchange controls ten years ago.
Interviewer
And monetary union?
Prime Minister
It just depends how you define monetary union. I do not define monetary union as a common currency in any way. Neither I notice does Karl Otto Pöhl now who signed the Delors Report. He says, and I agree, that it is far closer monetary cooperation, what matters is that you consistently follow the same policies. And that really goes beyond Europe, it also goes to the Summit seven. [end p17]
Interviewer
And the Social Charter which the French are adamant about?
Prime Minister
Well, the Social Charter, as I said, is full of rights and not a single duty. You cannot run any country that way. But moreover, as we discussed it I pointed out that we belong to the Council of Europe, which is twenty-six countries, to their Social Charter and that we have signed it and we have ratified it. Not all countries in Europe have ratified it.
I also took across with me our social policy which has grown up here over the years. It is a very very good one. It has grown up according to our history, according to our National Insurance Scheme, according to our Health Service. And it is absolutely right that we each continue to have our own social policies because they are tied in with years and years of our own history and so you will find that many other countries agreed with that, that you simply cannot just say: “Everyone must have the same”. There is no reason why you should. And what is more, if you did we would all have to pay massive subsidies to the poorer in Europe and that just could not be done.
So it is quite absurd to think of Europe as a central government which imposes on separate countries things which those countries' Parliaments would not agree to. That is not the way to get progress. [end p18]
We believe in getting progress the way we have got progress over the years, by cooperating voluntarily and going ahead in a spirit of goodwill and you go ahead much further and faster that way.
Interviewer
On Friday in Paris you will be celebrating our Revolution. In your view are human rights, which will be very much part of that celebration, are human rights a French invention?
Prime Minister
No, of course they are not, they are far older than that. We had Magna Carta 1215 and human rights were part of Classical Greek. And of course, if I might say so, even deeper than that the concept of human rights really comes from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. Those are the only religions which regard the individual as having supreme dignity, being personally accountable and having certain fundamental human rights which no state can take away.
Interviewer
So there is no French leader on human rights. [end p19]
Prime Minister
Good heavens no, nor do I think France would claim that. 1215 Magna Carta, 17th Century the Bill of Rights here, Parliamentary control here 1688. No, surely no great civilised country like Europe, which was once the centre of Christendom, which is where your human rights, Christendom and Judaism, the religions which gave sanctity to the individual, dignity, which no government should take away. I hope no-one is going to suggest that those should be ignored.
Interviewer
Do you believe though that the French Revolution still has some sort of universal message?
Prime Minister
No, forgive me for saying so, but no. It heralded an age of terror. Then came Napoleon that started to unite Europe by force. No, the message is the age old message that each human person has certain human rights which no state should take away and which every state should uphold. They are not given by the state, they are much deeper than that. But for France it was a great occasion and so of course because we are great friends of France we come to celebrate with her.