Interviewer
Mrs. Thatcher, why couldn't a compromise be reached tonight? Who do you blame for the failure?
Mrs. Thatcher
Well, I think that the other nations, most of whom are net beneficiaries, were just not prepared to yield up enough of their benefits to enable us to have a fair measure of contribution.
Interviewer
But you've been accused of being inflexible, were you ready enough to compromise?
Mrs. Thatcher
Oh yes, we put up a number of compromises until I could not go any further. I have in the end to recommend a fair deal for British Parliament and if it's not there I can't recommend it and what we were being offered was less good than the deal we got four years ago. I can't recommend that.
Interviewer
Now you said that the refund for last year's payments is being blocked by France and Italy. Now if you do not get that refund by the end of March, and you've said you must have it by the end of March, if you don't get it what are you going to do then?
Mrs. Thatcher
Well we shall have to consider that on Thursday morning in Cabinet. We ought to have it, it should come into the accounts for our financial year which closes at the end of March and it'll be a severe embarrassment if it doesn't. I think it should also be an embarrassment for the Community if they're going back on decisions reached in good faith at the stuttgart conference as long ago as last June and it does undermine one's confidence in the Community when they do this.
Interviewer
Do you expect to get the money by the end of March?
Mrs. Thatcher
I shall be very surprised now. Indeed I don't think it can happen because there's a procedure. Regulations have to be passed, they have to be passed by the council of foreign ministers. They met tonight after the European council specifically to block it and I'm afraid there's no possibility of getting the money before 31st March.
Interviewer
— it's been suggested that you might retaliate by withholding an equivalent sum from the British contribution to the market. Would you do that?
Mrs. Thatcher
That is a possibility. After all it's a great embarrassment that we have not got the four hundred and fifty million pounds coming to the British budget. We were expecting it. We were entitled to it. It had been agreed, and it should come, but it's not going to. [end p1]
Interviewer
But if you withheld a similar amount of money, would that not be illegal?
Mrs. Thatcher
I'm not sure because it was agreed at Stuttgart and I'm not sure that they're entitled to hold it up. … . I think though that they might say, well, it didn't have to be there by the 31st March, to which we would say—by custom it has been. So there might be a technicality there.
Interviewer
Now each summit seems to be called a make or break summit, how long can the EEC go on failing to agree?
Mrs. Thatcher
I hope no longer. This is the second European summit that we've had where we couldn't agree. I hope we'll agree at the third one. But don't forget, when we're talking about money it is quite difficult to get agreement. I started with our refunds in 1979 in I think July at Strasbourg. That was when I first raised it. We then went on to Dublin where we had a very difficult meeting, even more difficult than this one and we didn't agree and we had a massive press conference, never will I forget it. Then we came to the next summit and that was at Luxembourg and that went on really rather late into the night, like this one, and we didn't agree, and I was called all sorts of names, including inflexible, abrasive, damned unfair etc, you know, the usual ones and we nevertheless quietly persevered and in the end we got a reasonable agreement but it was not long lasting and I'm fed up of having to raise this question every second year or sometimes every year, I want a formula that will begin to operate, that gives us a fair net contribution and a fair refund. Some would agree on a formula, others wouldn't.
Interviewer
You still believe it's worth staying in the EEC though?
Mrs. Thatcher
Oh very much so. It's in the interests of all of us I think to be in the European Community. We negotiated a trading bloc with other countries, we're a democratic area of stability: many companies come to Britain because we're a part of the Community and therefore they have access to European markets, so it's worth being in the Community and it's worth it politically, we really must stand together.
Interviewer
Now this has been a very long, tiring, negotiation: what do you feel at the end of it? Do you feel despair at the failure?
Mrs. Thatcher
No, I don't feel despair but then I very rarely do feel despair. I've learned that when things are a bit gloomy, you pick yourself up and you just keep cool and you just persevere and then you usually come through.
Interviewer
Thank you.
Mrs. Thatcher
Thank you.