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ON THE RECORD
MICHAEL PORTILLO INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 18.2.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Emma Udwin reporting. Mr Portillo, the
Maastricht Treaty signed us up, working towards a common defence policy for
Europe. Are we now backing away from that?
MICHAEL PORTILLO: Working towards are not words used in
the Maastricht Treaty actually.
HUMPHRYS: But that's the essence of it.
PORTILLO: Well, we signed a general declaration
about foreign and security policy, and part of that says that it will include
defence policy. There was nothing very specific in those words at Maastricht,
because I think everybody understood that the day for a proper discussion about
all of that would be the next inter-governmental conference, the one that is
beginning in 1996. But I wonder if I can just take a step back, so as to make
the position clear from our point of view. The European Union plays a vital
part in the security of Europe; the development of the bonds between the
nations, trade and cultural and economic are vital for security. When it
comes to defence, for the last nearly fifty years NATO has been the really
important body, and that includes the Americans and the Canadians. Now we
think that Europeans should be able to demonstrate to the world and to America
that they're able to do more for themselves. Whatever arrangements we come to
they mustn't be in conflict or competition with NATO, the mustn't undermine
NATO, and the problem with lodging it too closely with the European Union, I
think, is that because the European Union has institutions, the European Court,
the European Commission, the European Parliament whose decisions for the future
we cannot know, we can't know either then whether the future decisions of the
European Union would be compatible with NATO. That in essence is the problem I
think.
HUMPHRYS: But the Maastricht Treaty was quite
clear about talking of the WEU as the defence component of the European Union,
to strengthen its role in that direction for the long-term defence, for a long-
term defence policy - common defence policy in Europe. Quite clear about that,
the role of the WEU.
PORTILLO: But quite clear about something else as
well. The WEU has two different functions, that it is the defence arm of the
European Union and it is the European side of NATO. Now we thoroughly support
the WEU. Its membership, as your map showed, includes countries like Norway
and Turkey who are not members of the European Union, but obviously are very
important to NATO, and they're on the flanks of you know - the old Soviet
Union - that's why they are in NATO. So the WEU which has a treaty going back
forty years, seems to us the right body, both for the European side of NATO and
for helping the European Union to be able to pass on its feelings about defence
and security to a body which actuallly controls military forces.
HUMPHRYS: Helping. You use that word.
PORTILLO: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: What you then do not want quite clearly
from what you've said there, is you don't want the WEU to be an integral part
of the European Union defence policy.
PORTILLO: That's right. You've put your finger
entirely upon it. We think there should be a very intimate relationship
between the European Union and the body which has this defence capability, the
western European Union, that they should meet very close to each other, that
their ministers should exchange dialogue, that there should be a possibility of
passing feelings from the European Union to the WEU, but we don't think that we
should merge the two, because we feel that that would begin to draw into
question the future in the commitment to NATO.
HUMPHRYS: But the other nine main members - full
members do. They want - they use the word absorbtion, they want it absorbed,
they want it integrated.
PORTILLO: And there is the very matter for
discussion at the inter-governmental conference on this issue.
HUMPHRYS: How are you going to resolve it?
PORTILLO: Well, first of all we have a White Paper
coming out quite shortly as you know, which will set out our positions and our
arguments, and thereafter the Prime Minister obviously will want to take this
discussion forward in the inter-governmental conference, an inter-governmental
conference which is obviously going to cover a very very wide range of issues,
and that's really for him to decide how to play that hand.
HUMPHRYS: But play that hand he will. In other
words you, we, Britain will stand out against the other nine in defiance of
something that they, all of them, want.
PORTILLO: Well, the bit that was missing from your
map of course was America, and we're all agreed - including Mr Ruehe and Mr
Millon who are on your film - we're all agreed that NATO is the vital component
for the future of European security. We can see how effective NATO is today in
Bosnia, and how much more effective than everything that went before. So your
map really ought to include the United States as well, and the United States
will also have its feelings about the development of the European expression of
its defence identity, that's the jargon. I'm making sure that that is
compatible with NATO, because the last thing we want to do is to make the
United States feel as though we're determined to go it on our own and
cold-shoulder the United States.
HUMPHRYS: We, and everybody else in Europe,
there's no dispute about that. Everybody recognises the importance of NATO,
but you talk about what the Americans want. Well, what the Americans want is
bringing the Western European Union into Europe to strengthen the institution.
That's terribly important from their point of view. Mr Holbrooke's made that
clear.
PORTILLO: I think what Dick Holbrooke has said
quite rightly, is that the Europeans must be capable of more activity and more
action themselves.
HUMPHRYS: And at the moment they're not - they're
not fit for the task as he put it.
PORTILLO: I entirely agree that we must be able to
do more, and that's why in the six months that we hold the presidency of the
Western European Union, including, as I say Turkey and Norway, we are putting
all our emphasis on building up its capabilities. In other words not worrying
so much about institutional change, but concerning ourselves about what
European soldiers and sailors and airmen can actually do together, and I think
the conclusion we all know is that we can do a bit more, but we would not have
been capable of mounting for instance, the Bosnian NATO operation without the
assistance of the Americans, and with European countries presently reducing
their defence expenditure of course, some of the important capabilities for
which we look to the United States are not in the short-term going to be
supplied by European countries.
HUMPHRYS: That's as may be and you talk about
capabilities and so do many other people but they also talk and the Americans -
Mr Holbrooke talks - about institutional change specificially.
PORTILLO: Well, institutional change is on the
agenda at the Inter-Governmental Conference but what I think really matters -
and I put this point to Dick Holbrooke directly - is not what bodies people
meet in but actually what we're able to do.
HUMPHRYS: But he doesn't accept that point.
PORTILLO: Well I'm not sure that he doesn't.
HUMPHRYS: Well.
PORTILLO: I think the thing that really matters to
him is indeed what Europeans are able to do. But I would like to put a
different perspective - let me just put a different perspective. You like to
talk about Britain being isolated and so on. I think the argument has strongly
come our way over the last six months or so. I mean, six months ago you would
not have had the French saying in the unequivocal manner that they now are that
they believe that NATO is essential for the-that it is the essential
institution for the defence of Europe. And I very much welcome France's coming
nearer to us and of course it's France that since 1960 has not been part of the
integrated military structure of NATO and it has been in the isolated
position. So our concern that NATO should be reinforced has been confirmed by
others and that's very, very good and also in the last six months we have had
the most intimate working together with French forces in Bosnia and indeed the
Dutch and the Germans and with many others. But that also has helped to build
the relationship and I think put the emphasis upon what we can actually do
together rather than the fora in which we meet.
HUMPHRYS: Well perhaps up to a point .... all of
that may be important, it doesn't avoid the fact that the issue that-what Mr
Holbrooke has said that the institutions, the institutions of Europe are not
fit for the task and that's something you've got to deal with. It's not just
the other nine members, the other nine main members, it's America as well.
PORTILLO: Well we will receive, in due course,
perhaps a considered view from the United States. My impression-
HUMPHRYS: Well I think Mr Holbrooke thought he'd-
PORTILLO: No.
HUMPHRYS: Fairly considered about...
PORTILLO: My impression is that the United States
would not be relaxed about the European Union becoming the defence organ of
NATO in Europe. That is my impression. But anyway it's for the United
States...
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but you don't really-
PORTILLO: It's for the United States-
HUMPHRYS: -crystal ball when you can read the
Holbrooke book do you?
PORTILLO: But what I want is to make sure that in
an organisation that's had a treaty going back forty years, which operates at
the level of sovereign nations working together - that is the WEU - that we
make that able to do some of the simpler military tasks. And here of course we
come to the crux of the matter that within NATO and within the WEU we're
talking exclusively about sovereign nation states, co-operating together
closely, signing a treaty, giving each other pledges of support, but always
remaining sovereign in their decision making.
In the European Union, in due course,
one couldn't say what role there would be for the Court, for the Parliament, or
the Commission, for the super-national bodies, and that is the point of
concern. That these, in defence matters, as you heard Volker Ruehe saying, the
decision about the foreign troops must always be one that national Parliaments
are responsible for.
HUMPHRYS: This is the point isn't it? You don't
like the European institutions. You said - and I quote you: "We need to get
away from this institutional fixation." That is a view that is increasingly
rejected in Europe and by the United States. This is where your problem comes
in doesn't it?
PORTILLO: It is not that the British Government
doesn't like institutions.
HUMPHRYS: Well you've said so.
PORTILLO: No. It is-
HUMPHRYS: "Need to get away from the fixation"
PORTILLO: From the fixation which is a different
matter. We need to get away from the fixation and we don't think that in the
Defence field, super-national bodies have a part to play in deciding where
troops should be deployed. Now those are the essences of the discussion.
HUMPHRYS: The essence really is your worry, your
dislike for Federalism, isn't it? Your dislike of Federalism. Your underlying
worry is Europe might get its act together in this regard and then we really
would be moving towards a common Defence policy, and you don't want that
because that might lead to a common Defence.
PORTILLO: What I want is the most intimate
co-operation between all the nations who are in NATO, all the nations within
the European Union, all the nations that may enter NATO in the future, in order
to give us security and to give us Defence. But, as Volker Ruehe said on your
film, the Minister from Germany: in the end the decision to deploy troops must
be one for national government, for national parliaments.
HUMPHRYS: Never been disputed.
PORTILLO: Well I wouldn't say it's never been
disputed, it's not disputed at the moment by Volker Ruehe. Now the reassurance
that I think it is very difficult to give to the people of Britain is that if
the WEU and the EU were to merge that that possibility of determining for
yourself how your troops were deployed would last for all time.
HUMPHRYS: So the message of all this is there's
going to be an almightly bust up over this at the IGC, the Inter-Governmental
Conference.
PORTILLO: I don't think so...probable. There is
so much that we have in common, and as I say, over the last six months it's
been clear that France wants to get closer to NATO; we've had Volker Ruehe
making the statement that he's made on your programme that I keep talking
about, which I think is so welcome. And, at the practical level, which is what
matters so much, we have been doing marvellous work dealing with really superb
soldiers from other countries in Europe, working shoulder to shoulder with them
and showing that we can do things together. Now, our whole theme is: let's go
on at the practical level, seeing how we can work better together and let's not
become as you say, fixated with institutional changes.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Portillo thank you very much.
PORTILLO: Thanks very much.
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