JOHN HUMPHRYS:                Peter Hain, it's a familiar 
story in a way this, isn't it? What we're seeing is our colleagues in Europe, 
our partners in Europe, many of them anyway, want to go further than we 
do, we argue against it. Perhaps we ought to be more co-operative, I mean 
just to take an example, Germany and the Belgians want a sort of Europe 
tax that would pay for the doings of the European Union. Might be quite 
sensible, stop a lot of squabbling and all that, wouldn't it?

PETER HAIN:                No I don't agree John but your 
report made very clear that we're not isolated on this matter. Germany 
and Belgium, Belgium in a way are isolated, in wanting ever more greater 
federalism and some kind of federal super state. Italy doesn't want it, 
the Prime Minister and I accompanied him, was talking to the Italian government, 
Prime Minister Berlusconi in Rome on Friday. They don't want that, Spain 
doesn't want it, many other countries including Sweden and Denmark don't 
want it. So there is a healthy debate about how we can have a Europe which 
has got twenty-five members, which it's likely to have after the enlargement 
of the European Union in a coupe of years, how we can manage that more 
efficiently and some things need to be done at the centre, such as the 
fight against terrorism. We agreed extra security measures, which you can't 
do on your own, there's no point Britain standing aside and saying, we 
can fight terrorism on our own, we can only do it by co-operating with 
other countries in Europe and we're doing that very very effectively and 
without the European Union we couldn't have put in place these extra security 
measures which defend our own livelihoods and our own freedoms.

HUMPHRYS:                        But I mean, given 
the sorts of problems that inevitably this kind of expansion is going to 
bring with it, perhaps a Europe-wide tax of some sort might not be a bad 
idea, as I say, it would sort out all the squabbles there always are about 
who pays what for, how much for what, and all the rest of it.

HAIN:                            I don't agree 
and I don't think there's majority support in the European Union for that, 
and since you take on my point about enlargement, I found travelling to 
Poland, to, rather to Czech Republic talking to the Polish ministers, to 
Slovakia, Slovenia,  Hungary and so on, and talking to others recently, 
to the Latvian Foreign Minister and also to the Romanians, that I found 
that actually there's more interest in those countries like Britain, preserving 
their national identity and their nation states, after all they've just 
become independent, most of them, from the Soviet Bloc and they are very 
jealous of their nationality and their nationhood as we are. And I think 
there's now a debate, a healthy debate as there will be in the convention 
of Europe where I'm representing the government, which really says that 
we ought to put the nation state at the heart of Europe, inter governmentalism 
as being the driving force, rather than electing a commission president 
and having the European Commission and the European Parliament as the strategic 
driving force of Europe. That's the position of our government.

HUMPHRYS:                        But what they 
do want, what our partners do want, I'd have thought what we wanted, was 
to make Europe more effective, to work better, given these various problems. 
So surely, in that sense removing the veto on...that we have at the moment 
on certain areas. Maybe that, but I mean imagine, twenty-five countries, 
each one of them able to veto certain things, be chaos won't it?

HAIN:                            Well that's 
why we've agreed qualified majority voting as indeed the Tories did, David 
Heathcoat-Amory was a supporter of that government.....

HUMPHRYS:                        ...but we still 
have veto on some things don't we?

HAIN:                            .... Yes 
we do. Taxation's one, that's absolutely right. Social Security is another. 
So is committing our troops to an armed operation of some kind, so is Foreign 
Policy. These are all ultimately matters for national veto. But we can't 
agree common environmental standards to protect our air, to clean up our 
beaches, to ensure our water's purer without common majority voting, so 
we don't need a veto in those areas, but on some key issues, vital to our 
national rights and our national independence, including taxation policy, 
we have a veto and we intend to keep it. 

HUMPHRYS:                        And all the vetoes 
that we have will remain, is that what you're saying?

HAIN:                            Well, on 
justice and home affairs, in response to September 11th for example, more 
qualified majority voting was brought in, because it was easier to deal 
with quickly, with security measures, a common arrest warrant for example, 
to arrest people wherever they are in Europe, rather than complicated extradition 
arrangements, to do it without having the veto remaining and stopping that. 
So where it's sensible we'll consider it on its merits, but there are some 
very strong red lines for us, taxation, social security, foreign policy, 
defence, these matters should be subject to that the veto should remain. 
So we should just approach this on a common sense basis, not on some kind 
of fanatical basis, pro-Europe, or anti-Europe.

HUMPHRYS:                    Would it make common 
sense to have some sort of constitution for Europe. People like Mr Heathcoat-Amory 
say that it would sanctify a federal structure, which I imagine you would 
describe as a bit of yabooing, the sort of thing that you perhaps wouldn't 
want to get involved in, but it could be very popular, it could be very 
sensible, couldn't it, it might connect the people of Europe with the institution 
of Europe in a more effective way.

HAIN:                            Well there 
is a need to make that connection more effectively and I agreed with what 
some of the points made in your report and if we were talking about a European 
constitution that enshrines certain values of the sort that Pierre Moscovici 
the French Europe Minister was talking about earlier, freedom, solidarity 
and so on...

HUMPHRYS:                        ...fundamental 
rights then?

HAIN:                            Well let's 
look at that in terms of enshrining basic principles and clarifying what 
is an enormously complicated set of Treaties that no ordinary member of 
the public frankly, no Europe minister can fully get to grips with. They 
run into millions of words. So if there's a desire as I think there may 
be, to have a set of principles enshrined, call it a constitution if you 
like, that lay out exactly what the European Union does, where our rights 
are, where the opportunities for advance are, that's one thing. If it's 
a blue-print for a federal super state centralising all power in Brussels, 
that's quite another, we wouldn't accept that.

HUMPHRYS:                    So where would this Charter 
of Fundamental Rights fit in then? Again, Mr Amory says it would be a betrayal 
to make it legally binding. Our own Robin Cook, former Foreign Secretary 
of course, said it's a political declaration and that's the way it should 
stay. But Heather Grabbe, whom you say in that film, says you...there is 
a thinking in Downing Street now and in the Foreign Office that maybe there 
is something in it, maybe we ought to agree to it. What do you say to that?

HAIN:                        Well it depends what 
it actually means...

HUMPHRYS:                    How, what do you take 
it to mean?

HAIN:                        Well, I'm about to 
tell you John.  If it meant that we would have it as an alternative to 
the Convention on Human Rights and therefore, if it was some kind of rival 
to that, then you'd have to be very careful about that. If it could be 
enforceable in British courts, we would find that extremely difficult. 
If, on the other hand, it were a set of principles put in a new treaty 
or not, as the case may be, with very clear delimitations and restrictions 
around it, well I think we can have a common sense look at that, because 
it would be an advantage in basic values of rights and solidarity and dignity 
being stated so clearly in the treaty. Because I think there is, as we 
saw in the Irish Referendum, when they rejected ratification of the Treaty 
of Nice, allowing for enlargement, we saw the No campaign running on the 
slogan "if you don't know, vote no" and there is a gulf between the citizens 
of Europe, the led of Europe and the leaders and the institutions of Europe 
which must be closed in all our interests.

HUMPHRYS:                    What Mr Moscovici would 
like, and many others of course, is to see the existing, the Charter, made 
legally binding. You're saying no to that are you? Or...

HAIN:                        I'm saying let's 
find out what that means. If it means by legally binding that it runs right 
across the European convention on human rights and it runs right across 
the European Court, well,  then that's not something that we would go down 
the road on.  If it means that it would be able to be enforced in British 
Courts, that's something we would object to, so I think we need a common 
sense discussion as to exactly what peer means and what others mean and 
I think we should go into this debate, so I am representing the government 
with confidence, because if you look at what we've done under this Labour 
government, we've actually won argument after argument in Europe for no 
federal super state but a Europe based on Europe of nations for economic 
reform, an important agenda there, for having a peace-keeping capability 
so that we can take action in the Balkans and so on.  These have been British 
agendas and I think the British agenda will win out in the convention about 
building our kind of Europe, a Europe that delivers better security for 
people, more jobs, better rights, a cleaner environment.

HUMPHRYS:                    Peter Hain, thanks very 
much indeed.