BBC On The Record - Broadcast: 03.12.00

Interview: FRANCIS MAUDE, Shadow Foreign Secretary.

Explains why Conservatives want the enlargement of the European Union but reject the Nice Agenda.



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.
NB. This transcript was typed from a transcription unit recording and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.