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ON THE RECORD
AN INTERVIEW WITH SIR LEON BRITTAN
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 5.2.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Sir Leon Brittan used to be a Tory
Cabinet Minister. For the past five years he's been a Commissioner in
Brussels - second in status now only to the Commission President himself.
When I spoke to him earlier this morning I asked him if he thought the
Europhiles were right to be worried about the way things are going.
SIR LEON BRITTAN: Well, you've got to be realistic. The
Euro-sceptics are prepared to push to the point of risking the government's
existence. The people who are more in favour of a positive approach towards
Europe are basically the Loyalists, and therefore there is bound to be the
impression that the government is being constantly pushed in a Euro-sceptic
direction even though the Prime Minister and others try to maintain a balance
in everything they say so it's perfectly understandable that people should be
worried, yes.
HUMPHRYS: What's at stake do you think?
BRITTAN: I think what is at stake is the
achievement of Britain's objectives, because there are a high degree of shared
objectives, and my experience in the last six years is that if you push in the
right way you can get them - you can get those objectives. Let's not forget
that the...our partners were not very keen to start with many of them, on
letting the Scandinavian countries and Austria into the European Union, still
less were they keen on agreeing that Eastern Europe should go into the European
Union. There was considerable lack of enthusiasm for agreeing the GATT talks
altogether and in all of those important respects Britain has been able to get
Europe becoming more open to the outside world, and when it comes to
subsidiarity, not interfering too much, that principle's in the treaty, and the
Commission's put forward about a quarter of the proposals in 1994 that it did
in 1990. so if you push in the right way you can achieve objectives, and
Britain does not stand to gain in that conference next year from just standing
still. There are important objectives which require change. If on the other
hand you give the impression of being defensive and negative, which John Major
is determined not to give, but sometimes the tone of the debate in this country
makes it seem as if we are acting in that way, then people will not listen to
your positive proposals, and we have to have a positive agenda and do have one
to achieve British objectives.
HUMPHRYS: And is what you're saying that in Europe
the attitude is that Britain has a negative rather than a positive agenda?
BRITTAN: Well, you only have to look at the
debate. People don't just listen to what ministers say, they listen to what
everybody says, and the general tone of the debate has got increasingly
negative and in some cases sour. Now there may a conflict between a short
term political objective of trying to head off the difficulties caused by the
lack of a parliamentary majority and the long term objective of securing what
Britain needs in Europe. You see if we really do want the further enlargement
to the east, if you regard that as necessary from a security point of view,
apart from everything else, you have to have changes, you have to have changes
in the way the Europeon Union operates, and the way decisions are taken, and if
you want to accommodate the fact that the United States is now wanting Europe
to take a larger share in organising its defence and that has to be done in
some way through the western European Union and the European Union, you need to
have changes, and it's not only Britain that has a veto, every other country
has a veto. You have to persuade the others to agree to those changes, so
it's not in Britain's interests to look totally defensive and to seem to regard
everything that might happen as being a possible threat. In fact it's an
opportunity.
HUMPHRYS: But if that's the impression that the
government is giving, then it's doing so because it believed that that is what
the British public wants, there is for instance as far as the single European
currency is concerned, there is a growing mood in Britain against a single
European currency.
BRITTAN: Well, you are of course entitled to your
views, but it's not a question of the impression that the government is giving,
it's a question of the impression that the tone of the debate in this country
is giving. Now as far as the single currency is concerned there really is no
need for a country that is as pragmatic and as practical as Britain is to
engage in a heated debate on this at the moment. I - let us not forget that
at Maastricht the government negotiated something as near as you'll
ever get in politics to having your cake and eating it - the option to join but
not the obligation to join, and the option does not have to exercised for
years. I don't myself believe that there's any chance of there being a single
currency in 1997. On the other hand I think that it is highly likely that
there will be a single currency in 1999. Now it seems very odd for a people
that are supposed to be practical and pragmatic as Britain is, to be arguing
now about whether to exercise an option in 1999, when nobody at all, even the
most fanatical enthusiastic people on the continent are trying to bully or
persuade Britain to take that decision now. It will look different then, it
will depend on the way in which the single currency is created, who
participates in it, because not all our partners will, what economic conditions
are like on the continent and in this country, and people will have to decide
then, do they think that the advantages of joining outweigh the advantages of
staying out, but why get involved in all that now?
HUMPHRYS: And what Mr Major is saying now, is that
he wants more conditions imposed before anybody reaches the stage of a single
European currency. How's that going to go down in Europe?
BRITTAN: Well it's not entirely clear whether
that is the position. I don't myself think that there is any realistic
probability of getting our partners to agree to a change in the conditions.
Let's not forget that those conditions are very tight and tough conditions,
they weren't set by politicians essentially, they were accepted by politicians
but they were devised by the central bankers, including the Governor of the
Bank of England at the time, as being what was necessary for a single currency
to work if you wanted to have one. The politicians accepted those conditions,
if anything the pressure will be to slacken them and to loosen those conditions
because it's clear that one or two countries, which might wish to be there in
the first phase, such as Italy, simply won't meet those conditions in all
probability. I believe....
HUMPHRYS: In other words..I'm sorry...in other
words go in exactly the opposite direction that Mr Major is talking about.
BRITTAN: There will be some pressure to do that.
I believe that pressure will be resisted very strongly because the Germans will
only be prepared to go in on the basis of the strict conditions already agreed
but the prospect of adding to those conditions therefore, is not likely to be a
realistic one. The balance will be to stay absolutely pat where we are but
it's not clear whether Britain is going to ask her partners to change.
Let me again remind you that if Britain
is going to do that, don't forget that everyone of those countries has the same
veto that people in this country are insisting and understandably, that
Britain must retain. Therefore, you have to persuade them and you'll persuade
them according to the tone which you adopt as well as the proposals that you
put forward. But the other point I was going to make is that if we're not
talking about seeking to persuade our partners, which I do not think is
realistic to accept new conditions, but imposing, if you like, new conditions
on ourself.
I would have thought that that was
premature, it's difficult to see why it's necessary to articulate new
conditions in order to decide whether to do something in four years' time from
now. Those conditions, the new ones, may themselves seem inappropriate at that
time. I think the right thing is to leave it open and to see how it looks.
The other point I would also make is of
course, that again there may be a conflict between dealing with the political
situation where anyone is bound to have enormous sympathy with the government
faced with the band of rebels, who are prepared to risk the downfall of the
government which they were elected to support, in order to pursue their
particular agenda and where the parliamentary majority is so tight. There may
be a conflict between the requirements of dealing with that situation, as
perceived by the government and Britain's national interests because, you know,
in a negotiation and this is a negotiation with our partners and our friends
next year; it's not usually the best thing to start lying down in advance
conditions in detail that you say have to be met.
Everybody knows, of course, that Britain
has a veto but to say we're not going to agree to this, we're not going to
agree to that, we're not going to agree to the other, at this stage, does make
it, I think, in the international area more difficult for us to get other
people to agree to the changes that we want.
HUMPHRYS: And that is precisely what we have done.
We have laid down those conditions, we have said, in Mr Portillo's words, no,
no, no, on three separate issues before the IGC.
BRITTAN: Well if you look carefully at the
wording on those issues. On two of them there are sufficient numbers of
adjectives and adverbs to be capable of arguing according to what is agreed
that it does meet the conditions, I'm not too worried about those. What I will
say is about majority voting, we have to be careful about that because there
are two conflicting considerations that are important for Britain. On
the one hand, of course, Britain doesn't want to be simply outvoted and more
readily outvoted. If you look at the record, the number of ocassions when
Britain has been outvoted is absolutely minute, that's so...one has to bear
that in mind but nonetheless, Britain does not want to be outvoted and
therefore, reluctant to change the qualified majority system.
On the other hand Britain has an
interest as a major country, a large country and with more countries joining,
the balance may seem to shift in favour of the smaller countries, so really
what you have to have is a certain lateral thinking in which you change the
whole system of voting and do that in a way that gives a proper balance to
population and size which perhaps is not there at the moment and isn't just
designed to stop change.....interest in change and what I'm saying is, that if
that's so, simply to say we're not in favour of X, Y and Z, seems to me
tactically although understandable, not necessarily the best way of securing a
wider objective.
HUMPHYRS: So in a nutshell, what are the dangers
of the path that we seem, at the moment, to be pursuing?
BRITTAN: Well the dangers are of course, are that
we put ourselves in a position where we can't persuade our partners to
accept the changes that we need in order to get the kind of Europe that we
want, one that is open to the outside world, ready to accept new members,
organised in a way to do that and able to organise the defence and security
poll of the European Union in a way that will make us a safer Continent in the
very difficult coming years.
HUMPHRYS: Sir Leon Brittan, thank you very much.
BRITTAN: Thank you.
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