Interviewer
Prime Minister, eleven of the Member States have agreed to start Stage 2 of EMU on a specific date, 1 January 1994. There will be those who say the European train is now moving and Britain is not on board?
Prime Minister
First, they have set a date but they have not decided what the substance of the next stage is which seems to us putting the cart before the horse. You set a date for something to happen but you have not decided what it is that shall happen. That seems to me a quite absurd way of going about things and people who get on a train like that deserve to get taken for a ride.
Interviewer
But they are not only discussing Stage 2, there are already plans in the paper today for looking ahead to Stage 3, the transition to Stage 3 under which there is a single currency, the train does seem to be moving fairly quickly? [end p1]
Prime Minister
No, it does not necessarily. We have had two sorts of things being discussed at this particular conference: one, the urgent things: and two, the distant things. The fact was that on the urgent things like trading arrangements which are being negotiated now in a round which ends at the end of this year we were not able to reach a decision. So we were in the silly position that we could not reach a decision on the urgent things and indeed the Presidency curtailed discussion on the urgent things but took refuge in the things where opinion could be cloaked by grand words and vague words because we have not really got down to the nitty-gritty of negotiation. And the general inter-governmental conferences, one on political union and on economic union come in the latter thing.
So the urgent things we could not take, the ones that are distant well we cloaked with vague words.
Interviewer
Do you intend to block a revision of the Treaty of Rome providing for economic and monetary union if the other eleven Member States stick by this starting date for Stage 2?
Prime Minister
I have said before, we do not know what Stage 2 will be. And it seems to me cloud cuckoo land if you say: “Right, that is the beginning of Stage 2 but we have not got a clue what it is going to be and we have not yet got down to decide.” It is much better to decide what it is going to be and then you can set a starting stage for it. [end p2]
We shall block things which are not in Britain's interest, of course we shall. And may I point out that there is no-one else in the Community which has the kind of Parliament that we have that goes into these things very thoroughly and very carefully and there is no-one in the Community who has to go to its full Parliament and report as I do and be cross-examined on precisely what we agreed. That makes us very very careful when we are negotiating on Britain's interests and if anyone is suggesting that I would go to our Parliament and suggest the abolition of the pound sterling - no.
Interviewer
But is the mere mention of this date, setting down a certain milestone in some people's eyes as it does, going to divide your own party?
Prime Minister
No, I do not believe so at all, I am amazed that you go so much on the date. Do you not think it would be wiser to say what it is we are supposed to be doing on that date? Here you have a date, a date in the middle distance, 1 January 1994, that is the date for the next stage and you have not decided what the next stage will be.
Interviewer
Moving to the GATT talks and the failure so far to agree on reducing farm subsidies, why is it so detrimental for the Community to go through this albeit long drawn out but agonising debate over whether to meet the American request, people's livelihoods are at stake and after all when it gets to the negotiation the United States is going to play it fairly tough as well? [end p3]
Prime Minister
Quite right, so they should. The European Community is the only big trading group that has not tabled its negotiating position. We have been at it trying to find one since September 1986, over three years. There are only two months left to table our position and then to negotiate on it. Quite right, others should be critical, but please do not be critical of Britain, we have been trying to accelerate it, we were prepared to come to a conclusion on Friday, so were a number of the others. It was blocked by the national interests, national note, on the part of those who in other fora will be saying: “Ah, but you must not have national positions, you must have federal”. It was blocked by the position of France for national reasons and also by Germany for national reasons, although the Community has all the power to reach a decision by majority vote.
So we are not to blame in any way and if that Uruguay Round fails because of the Community not doing its stuff it will not be because of Britain, it will be because of the others. I hope it will not fail, but when we left and had the communique we were going to have another meeting of the Agriculture Ministers on Tuesday. By the time one gets to the press conference one has heard then that they do not want it on Tuesday, they want it on the following Tuesday. This is no way to conduct business, no way at all, it is not competent.
Interviewer
Do you think the climate surrounding the discussions on this question at this summit was helped by the comments of Mr Gummer after the meeting in Luxembourg in which he used fairly forthright [end p4] language to describe the stand of France and Germany, terms like nationalist posturing, sabotage. Do you think that might have endeared Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand to try to reach an agreement?
Prime Minister
That is moderate compared with some of the things that we are called sometimes. But the fact is that the Agriculture Ministers had seven meetings, that one on Friday they were negotiating for sixteen hours, they thought they had practically got agreement when all of a sudden the French said: “No, we are not going to agree at all”. And at this meeting Francois Mitterrand, the President of France, said: “There is no way in which France is going to agree to those proposals on the table.” Now that is plain straight nationalism, it is not looking at things from the view point of the Community, and yet we could come to a conclusion in that particular meeting by majority vote. It is a mess and we should have resolved the mess today but the Italian Presidency decided not to deal with the difficult things which are urgent but to deal with the things which are far away because they are not nearly so keenly contested.
Interviewer
On the Gulf, fairly strong language on the hostage question, hostages in Iraq, in essence reasserting the Community's all for one and one for all policy. Do you think that the declaration today effectively ends the kind of one-man missions to Iraq like that undertaken by Mr Heath? [end p5]
Prime Minister
That I think is what it is intended to do because other countries feel that if representatives from each nation are going to go then we are going to be played off one against the other and the real point is that Saddam Hussein should take no hostages, those he has got he should release immediately and that is the position on which we stand.
One does make it quite clear that Mr Heath went on his own initiative and there is no question of our trying to stop him, he would have gone, he chose to do that. We as you know before that had got out nine hundred women and children, we had got those out safely. Mr Heath got out I think something between thirty and forty. And we also still have there 1,400. And I think if people go either formally or informally from a country it puts other countries in a difficult position. So for the future we have come to this, no-one shall send formal emissaries to Saddam Hussein and they will discourage anyone who wishes to go for that purpose. That is the view of all twelve.
Interviewer
Opinion polls in Britain this morning show Labour moving ahead to a 16 per cent lead - grim news for you?
Prime Minister
We have had that before, we have had it before and we have won the following election. I believe the same will happen this time. [end p6]
Interviewer
Lots of speculation about your own position this morning, do you think your party will stand a better chance of winning that election without you as leader?
Prime Minister
I would just say I am fine, how are you doing?