JOHN HUMPHRYS:                Francis Maude, enlargement 
is a matter of principle as far as the Conservative Party is concerned. 
That's the case isn't it?  And you want it to happen sooner rather than 
later?

FRANCIS MAUDE:                Yes, absolutely.  We've 
been urging this very strongly for years and we think it's really important. 
 This is a divide which has disfigured the European continent now for fifty 
years.  I remember back in nineteen-ninety we were saying to the countries 
of central and eastern Europe, you should be able to join the European 
Union in five years.  Now ten years on they're complaining, we're saying 
to them it's still five years on.

HUMPHRYS:                    In that case one has 
to wonder about your attitude to what's going on in Nice this week, because 
your policies are positively self-defeating.  The policies that you're 
adopting would make it impossible for that enlargement to happen.  These 
reforms that you're opposing must happen in order for that enlargement 
to take place.

MAUDE:                    No. Simply not the case. 
 That's what's being peddled.  That's the myth that's being peddled at 
the moment, but it is simply isn't true. None of this is about, with the 
exception of a couple of things which we would support, can be said to 
be about enlargement.  The thing which is most damaging to the spirit of 
European unity, which is the proposal to get rid of the veto in a whole 
lot more areas is nothing to do with enlargement at all.  It's actually 
to do with - nakedly to do with the programme of political integration 
- driving the politics of Europe much more closely together by force rather 
than by co-operation. It's not to do with enlargement.

HUMPHRYS:                    But you're not opposed 
to getting rid of vetoes as a matter of principle.  Again, are you  - qualified 
majority voting as it's called, more qualified majority voting, you're 
not opposed to that in principle are you?

MAUDE:                    Well no.  But we are saying 
that at this stage the - it's the wrong thing for Europe to be doing.  
As a part of our relentless one-way street towards ever closer political 
integration it is actually something that will cause division and discord 
in Europe and that's why we say that is the wrong thing to be doing.  Extending 
the areas where the majority can enforce, can impose their will on the 
minority is just the wrong thing to do.  It will actually be divisive not 
unifying.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well, it's funny how 
you've changed you mind on that, because it's not that long ago back at 
Maastricht you supported thirty changes towards QNV from the veto.

MAUDE:                    Well, it is quite a long 
time ago actually.  It's eight years ago, and Europe.......

HUMPHRYS:                    Well, what's changed 
in that time?

MAUDE:                    Well, the shape of Europe 
is very different now and the tenor of public opinion is very different, 
and in any event I do have to reject this notion that because one's agreed 
a lot of qualified majority voting up till now, therefore you must be in 
favour of it continuing ever further.  It's like saying, you know, you've 
walked to the end of the pier it  must therefore make sense to carry on 
walking.  Of course it can't be right.  The fact is that it's the wrong 
thing for Europe to be doing, and you know, some of these areas are matters 
of great concern.  It is in fact my experience with the Maastricht Treaty 
that makes me of all people particularly concerned about this endless process 
of further integration because I've seen how some things which in the eighties 
and the early nineties we agreed to in the best of good faith have turned 
out with hindsight to have been over-interpreted by the European courts 
and the European competencies have been extended further and further well 
beyond what we envisaged when we signed these things, and that does make 
me and a lot of other people very cautious indeed about proceeding any 
further.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well, yes that is interesting 
because at first sight at any rate many of the things that you are now 
opposing are the sorts of things that you approved of at Maastricht.

MAUDE:                    Well, that is exactly my 
point, that a lot of these things have been used to extend the powers of 
the European Union into areas that weren't envisaged.

HUMPHRYS:                    So you were na�ve in 
 Maastricht were you.  I mean you got it wrong?

MAUDE:                    Well, I wouldn't say we'd 
got it wrong but perhaps we were na�ve.  Perhaps we were na�ve when we 
signed the Single European Act, when we accepted all the assurances that 
these were going to be limited competencies which the European Commission 
and then the European Court of Justice has steadily extended, and so I 
think perhaps we are a little concerned that Britain doesn't go down the 
same path again.

HUMPHRYS:                    Let me give you an example 
of the sorts of things that are up for qualified majority voting, that 
are being considered for qualified majority voting at Nice.  Changing the 
rules of procedure of the Court of Auditors.  Now complex stuff obviously, 
but hardly life-threatening.  You're not opposed to that are you?

MAUDE:                    Well, you wouldn't say that 
that's life-threatening in itself, of course you wouldn't.  You wouldn't 
say that that's the end of the world if that happens.  But there is a general 
concern here that all of this agenda goes in one direction, in the direction 
of further political integration and I make again the general point that 
if there was a balanced agenda here with some areas being decided, discussed, 
being apt for more decision-taking being made by the member states, but 
some other things, the veto might be considered for being got rid of, then 
I would be much more relaxed about it, because it would be a balanced agenda. 
 This is not a balanced agenda.  This is actually all about relentless 
political integration, and I'll give you just one example of that.  If 
this summit, if this treaty was genuinely about enabling enlargement to 
happen then there would be one big item on the agenda which isn't there 
at all, and that's reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.  That is what's 
actually holding up enlargement.  It's a massive road block on the path 
to enlargement.   Tony Blair has said he's very much in favour of reforming 
it but has he got that on the agenda for Nice, to really enable enlargement 
to happen?  He hasn't even asked for it to be on the agenda.

HUMPHRYS:                    There wouldn't be a lot 
of point.  There wouldn't be a lot of point as far as that one is concerned 
because without qualified majority voting you'd get absolutely nothing. 
 We've seen over and over again - why forecast what has happened when you 
can look in the history book.  I mean there is no point in even trying 
it without dropping vetoes on that particular one.

MAUDE:                    Well there isn't any proposal 
to drop the veto on that one.  There's no proposal that it should happen.

HUMPHRYS:                    So would you say yes 
to that?
If that were proposed, would you say yes let's abandon our veto, let's 
lose our veto on that particular area if it were proposed?

MAUDE:                    Well there already is a 
lot of qualified majority voting in relation to agriculture.  I mean the 
idea that this is all unanimity is simply not the case but let's be clear 
about it, if there was a general will, a real determination, a political 
will to seize the destiny that European enlargement offers then countries 
would be ready to tackle the difficulties that lie with agricultural reform. 
 But actually what I sense, everywhere I go round Europe is that the imperative 
to go for enlargement is weakening.  There's a growing sense of resentment 
and betrayal in the countries of the east of Europe and Central Europe, 
 people who say, 'well hang on... we've been lead on, we've been encouraged 
to reform on the basis that there was this prize if you like of European 
Union membership coming up soon at the end of it and now it's constantly 
being pushed back.  It's always five years ahead.'  And I think now's the 
time, I think if Tony Blair is really ready to be a leader in Europe he 
would actually be insisting that our partners face this and those who aren't 
prepared to embrace the changes that are needed, especially the changes 
to the Common Agricultural Policy that are needed to enable enlargement 
to happen, that they shouldn't actually carry the blame for it.  I find 
it a bit hard that the Conservative Party in opposition is being accused 
as being the barrier to enlargement when all we're doing is saying that 
enlargement doesn't require relentless political integration.  What enlargement 
requires is more flexibility.  It requires a looser, more modern European 
Union of the type we've been advocating for some time.

HUMPHRYS:                    But you're making it 
impossible by objecting to really very, or at least on the face of it, 
very trivial issues for anything to happen, for anything to change in that 
direction.  Whatever way you go you're going to be stuck because of this 
veto and I mean you'll accept it, you'll accept losing the veto on relatively 
big areas, very big areas indeed like agriculture, but you're putting the 
block or would like to put a block on many more smaller things.  It seems 
odd.

MAUDE:                    Yes but actually just to 
take your argument back to where you started John, the idea that having 
a veto on changes to the rules for the European Court of Auditors, the 
idea that that's necessary to enable enlargement to happen is simply absurd.... 
(talking together) ...to see how absurd it is.

HUMPHRYS:                    It's a matter of getting 
the business done isn't it, that's the point.  And if you have an endless 
series of veto's you can't get business done and then you cannot extend 
the Union.  This is the argument:  It would just simply be impossible. 
 The whole thing would run into the sand.

MAUDE:                    Well I understand the argument. 
 I think it's wrong for this reason:  That's what's being said is that 
it's very difficult to get all of these decisions taken through the mincing 
machine.  The mincing machine keeps bunging up.  The right answer to that 
is not to put, as it were, a more powerful engine on the mincing machine 
and make it go faster and just grind everything up more quickly, the answer 
is to try and put a bit less into the mincing machine in the first place 
so there are fewer decisions that the European Union should be taking. 
 There are more decisions that should be taken by the member states, that's 
actually what most people in this country want.  That's the mainstream 
majority of the public in this country want to see that kind of European 
Union.  And it's also.... can I just make this point because I think it's 
important.  It's also the kind of European Union the modern world requires. 
 We're moving into a new age, a network world where physical geography 
matters less, where much more is going to be done by networks and where 
there'll be a real premium on flexibility.  It's absurd for the European 
Union to be committing itself to ever more rigidity to this sort of outdated 
dogma of one size fits all integration when the world requires something 
more modern and more flexible.

HUMPHRYS:                    Ah well, that's exactly 
the point I wanted to raise with you, because you are very much in support 
of the much more flexible Europe, so that if one group of countries, or 
one country, wants to move ahead of the others then they should be allowed 
to do so, and if Britain said alright, we'll stay out of EMU or whatever 
it happens to be, we can do so.  In practice though, you would make that 
more difficult, if not impossible because you want to keep a veto which 
would allow one country to stop the other countries moving ahead, so again, 
you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

MAUDE:                    No, we're not, in fact our 
view of this is that we are very relaxed indeed about other countries' 
going ahead with deeper integration amongst themselves if that's what they 
want to do.  It's not something that we would want to do, nor something 
the majority of the public here would want to see happen.  But we don't 
froth at the mouth about it and get anxious about it, we do however say 
that Britain should have a right of veto over it, even if we say, as I 
absolutely clearly do, that we would not expect to be exercising that veto. 
 You need to be absolutely sure that such a process of integration can't 
be used to damage Britain's interest, I'd find it hard to envisage circumstances 
where it might, but you can imagine circumstances, and we should retain 
the veto against that eventuality.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well, you've been able...

MAUDE:                    ...but the other point is 
this, the other argument is this, that you shouldn't give up that veto 
without there being some significant changes in return for it, some significant 
moves towards the kind of modern, multi-systems, more flexible European 
Union, that we are arguing for.

HUMPHRYS:                    Your difficulty with 
this whole Europe issue, which is supposed to be your strong suit, I mean, 
if one of the things that, that you will be using in the General Election 
campaign to prove to the people of this country that you've got a better 
plan for Britain than the Labour party, but you're being undermined all 
the time, aren't you, by the sorts of things that we see happening within 
your own party, still see happening with your own party: people back-biting, 
briefing against each other, the kind of thing we've seen this last week, 
I discovered in one of the newspapers, the Times I think, it was only on 
Friday the sorts of things that you were going to be telling me today, 
I didn't know about, I didn't know I was going to ask you questions about. 
 Somebody's been briefing against you.  It's damaging for you, isn't it? 
 You've got to stop it, haven't you?

MAUDE:                    Yes we have.  Absolutely 
have.  We have to recognise that, you know, the Conservative Party doesn't 
belong to any of us who are in it, it actually belongs to the nation.  
It's the longest standing, most successful, political party in the history 
of democracy, and we have been that, and we can be that, because we belong 
to the country, we exist to serve the nation, not to serve any individuals 
within the party, and we have a duty, actually, to get ourselves seriously 
together to campaign vigorously for what we believe in, which I believe 
is what the majority of the public believe in, and to make that case vigorously 
we cannot let the case against this government go by default, nor the case 
for the kind of values for which we speak, which are deep values of this 
country, go by default.  We've got to get ourselves absolutely together, 
fight with each other against Labour for what we believe in.

HUMPHRYS:                    Francis Maude, thank 
you very much indeed.

MAUDE:                    Thank you.