Question A
WHICH OF THIS YEAR'S DEVELOPMENTS IN YOUR COUNTRY DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE MOST IMPORTANT FOR ITS FUTURE?
MT
I consider most important the completion of the government's very extensive legislative programme for the first year of the new Parliament elected in 1987. This included some of the most radical reforms which our country has seen in the fields of education, housing and local government. They will help shape our society for the future, in the direction of increasing opportunity and choice.
This will be carried forward in 1989, with a further programme of reform, particularly the privatising of our electricity and water industries. We do not believe that it is for government and the state to run these services. They will be more efficient and provide better value for the consumer if they are run on market principles. It will also enable an ever wider circle of people in Britain to own shares, even beyond the one in five who already do so. It is all part of the radical transformation of our economy in the direction of greater freedom and enterprise - and a capital-owning democracy. All this has happened against the background of increasing prospects which has given our people a higher standard of living than ever before.
Question B
WHAT IS THE POSITION OF YOUR COUNTRY ON THE IDEA OF BUILDING A “COMMON EUROPEAN HOME”?
I agree very much that the borders of Europe go way beyond the European Community. Europe is much older than the Treaty of Rome. As I said when I was in Warsaw, the first step is to dismantle some of the existing walls, in particular the Berlin Wall, before we can really build something new. Probably the best way to give the idea substance is to concentrate on practical cooperation between the countries of Eastern and Western Europe on issues such as transport, environment and industry. This sort of cooperation is surely in the interests of everyone. Mr. Gorbachev has also made it clear that his concept of the common European Home also involves the US and [end p1] Canada, which is helpful.
But in the end this will not be enough. If the idea of the Common European Home is to have real substance, it must be a Europe where people, ideas, and resources can move freely and naturally, where everybody enjoys basic human rights enshrined in law, and where the freedom of choice which Mr. Gorbachev described, in his speech at the UN, as a “universal principle”, is a reality for all the peoples of Europe. That is what we want to build in Europe, and what we are working towards through the CSCE process.
Question C
HOW DO YOU IN YOUR COUNTRY EVALUATE OUR MUTUAL BILATERAL RELATIONS?
I believe that my visit to Poland last year was important and has set our relations on a new basis. I do not just mean official contacts, important though these are. I mean contacts between individuals and cultural, academic and institutional links of all kinds. As for the economy, we are ready to give practical support to your reforms. But as I stressed in Warsaw, economic reform cannot succeed without greater political freedom and greater responsibility.
Both our countries also have an important part to play in dismantling the barriers between East and West and I discussed with General Jaruzelski ways in which we could cooperate in that course. I hope that 1989 will see some practical results. Poland's roots lie as deep in Europe as ours. My visit brought this truth home to me more than ever. We must never forget it.