David Walker, Channel Four
Prime Minister, when you hear descriptions of yourself as “an elephant in a European china shop” how do you react?
Prime Minister
Well, elephants never forget!
I think it is really rather a silly description, because we have done a great deal for Europe. I do not think any country has done more for the liberty of continental Europe than the United Kingdom, and I think it would be advisable never to forget that.
David Walker, Channel Four
Do you accept, though, that some of your descriptions of the ideas of a federal Europe have been unduly harsh at times? [end p1]
Prime Minister
No, I do not. I think they have been very very practical.
We negotiate in Europe with heads of government, twelve sovereign states. We negotiate very toughly because we have got to be able to put the viewpoint of our people and make certain that what we agree is fair to our people.
Some people will talk in very vague terms about a United States of Europe as if the only thing that mattered was belonging to Europe. Europe is far older than the European Community and we all belong to the continent of Europe but equally, we all have a national pride, we all have a national identity and you need to be able to relate to some unit far smaller than the continent of Europe with a very diversified history like ours.
David Walker, Channel Four
You accuse them of talking in vague terms. They say you are talking in strident terms comparing a federal Europe with the Soviet Union, for instance, talking about a nightmare!
Prime Minister
Look! What is happening is the Soviet Union is coming away from very detailed regulations. The danger is that some of the proposals that have been put up in Europe are going to be very detailed regulations and I am saying that is the wrong way to go. It is the wrong way for prosperity; it is the wrong way for increasing enterprise; and it is the wrong way for removing the constraints on trade. [end p2]
What we want are a few clear regulations for safety, for no subsidies, for getting similar regulations on the electric equipment, and so on, and that does not require a bureaucratic nightmare.
David Walker, Channel Four
You have been talking in terms of a federal Europe which other people say simply is not on the agenda anyway—you are talking… .
Prime Minister
I wish I were! At the same time, there are other people who are trying to give the impression it is only the European identity that matters and are trying to talk about a United States of Europe. It will never come about and people do not want it. They do not feel that way. They want to cooperate between Europe, because they recognise the enormous things that have been done in Europe and the world as a whole.
Democracy is an idea founded in Europe. The whole Renaissance, the whole burgeoning of art and music came about in Europe. The whole turning of the values of science to the benefit of people came about in Europe. It was Europe that explored the world and found so many things and charted the world. [end p3]
All of this is a remarkable achievement of the countries of Europe as a whole. Note what I say: “of the countries of Europe” . Why should we try in any way to concentrate only on the Europe and not on the separate countries? We should cooperate together.
David Walker, Channel Four
It is said that some institutions, like a European Central Bank, are inevitable—if you do not support it, we will lose the chance of having it in London.
Prime Minister
What absolute nonsense! A European Central Bank means giving up the Parliament and Government, giving up control—its own control—of the way in which the economy is run. I cannot see any heads of government actually giving that up and so I just do not think it is on.
David Walker, Channel Four
Is the EMS also a long-term possibility for Britain?
Prime Minister
We belong to the European Monetary System, in that we put some of our reserves with that System. We do not belong to the exchange rate mechanism. We are, in fact, far more advanced than [end p4] some of the countries who do belong to it, because we already have absolute freedom of capital movement, which many of them have not; we have already abolished exchange control, which many of them have not. When they have done that, I think they will find that it is a very different problem of keeping their currency in a specific relation with others. So let us see how they get on when they have done what we have already done.
David Walker, Channel Four
Finally, Prime Minister, are we any further at all on Gibraltar?
Prime Minister
No, but I did not expect to get any further on Gibraltar. Gibraltar is governed by two factors: one, by a treaty between Britain and Spain as far back as 1713, which is that Gibraltar became British and if it ceased to be British then it would revert to being Spanish. So independence, in the sense in which we have given previous colonies independence, was not a possibility because of that statute, so she could not have sovereign independence, but she could have self-government. So when we gave Gibraltar self-government, we gave her a pledge in the Act which passed through our [end p5] Parliament—so it is a pledge of our Parliament to the people of Gibraltar—that the status of Gibraltar would never be changed except with the consent of the people of Gibraltar. That is a pledge. We must honour it.
Therefore, the only way forward is by cooperation on practical matters between Spain and Gibraltar through negotiations between Spain and Britain, like an Airport Agreement. We could not force it on Gibraltar. We believe that it was in the interests of Gibraltar. The airport, as you know, is very much on the edge of Gibraltar near Spain. We believe it would be beneficial to Gibraltar, beneficial to the people of Spain, but they have not implemented it yet. We hope they will, but we stand by the initial treaty and we stand by the pledge. So the way forward is only by increasing cooperation and friendship, but that is right in a democratic world.