Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for ITN (Madrid European Council)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: ?Palacio de Congresor, Madrid
Source: Thatcher Archive: COI transcript
Journalist: Jon Snow, ITN
Editorial comments: After press conference at 1440?
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 1167
Themes: European elections, European Union (general), Economic, monetary & political union

Interviewer

Prime Minister, was there any sense in which you came here feeling that after the defeat in the European Elections at home, you had a rather diminished clout here?

Prime Minister

Not in any way, there were only 36 percent who turned out in the Euro-elections at home which I think was sad because I would have liked to have come feeling that more people had been sufficiently interested to vote.

Interviewer

To what do you ascribe the perception that your image here changed somewhat, that you were more conciliatory, that your language was gentler on the whole process of monetary union? [end p1]

Prime Minister

I do not think I was really any different at all. It was not the kind of subject on which there were detailed things to negotiate, but generalities, perhaps that was why.

Interviewer

The principle is agreed though is it not that we are going forward towards monetary union? Your reservations are surely about much further down the line?

Prime Minister

The principle was agreed in 1972 before we came in that you had progressive realisation of economic and monetary union, that phrase has been carried forward in many other documents but that was the one which was agreed before we came in.

Interviewer

So what was all the trouble over and why were people talking about eleven to one, you in isolation, you under pressure?

Prime Minister

It was not eleven to one on the economic and monetary union in any way, at any rate I was not the one. There were times when Francois Mitterrand was the one on the text that was before us. [end p2]

I think the real problem is that one way of achieving that union has been put forward, no others have been considered which is totally and utterly wrong, and the Delors Report appears to be forcing things upon us and forcing the pace and many of us would recoil from Stage 2 and 3 and do not accept any link between Stage 1 and the other Stages and indeed do not accept the other stages at all.

The result from this Conference has been that yes we look further at the Delors Report as one basis for seeing the way ahead, but only one.

Interviewer

President Mitterrand said this morning that he regarded you as a brake on the whole thrust towards European monetary union?

Prime Minister

Absolutely absurd. We have already got freedom of capital movement. We have already abolished exchange controls. Both of those are vital for the Single Internal Market. François MitterrandHe has undertaken to do them, he has not even done them yet.

France has been able to maintain the Franc in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by foreign exchange controls. It will be interesting to see what happens when they have been abolished. [end p3]

But we are way way ahead of France in freedom of movement and freedom of trade.

Interviewer

What we seem to have seen here in this last couple of days is a collision of visions. Your vision of Europe seems to be opening up the markets, getting on, and yet there seems to be a more collective approach from the rest of Europe that wants a more caring, understanding and perhaps more united politically?

Prime Minister

That is not the division at all, there are some people who want a protected Europe, they want all kinds of protective mechanisms so that we do not have to compete in the outside world. When it comes to caring, let me say that long ago both signed and ratified this document, that is the Council of Europe, though some will criticise me who have not even ratified that document yet.

Interviewer

What is your sense then of where you stand, not in isolation, you now believe in some way that you carry the message for European monetary union? [end p4]

Prime Minister

We have won battle after battle after battle. We have won it on the Common Agricultural Policy, we have won it on getting Europe's finances sound, we have won it on enlarging and opening up the European market, we have won it on freedom of capital movement, we have won it on abolishing exchange controls, we have won it on not having a tax on savings, time after time.

But then it comes to steady argument and consideration on a particular issue. When we are on this general stuff, many of them will just agree to it without really looking at the small print and what we have done today, we have agreed to what we could agree to and on the small print and the rest we have set aside for further consideration.

Interviewer

Do you think there is any danger that at home people in Britain are beginning to look to Europe with an enthusiasm that perhaps you do not yourself share?

Prime Minister

I think young people do and I share that. But I do not share enthusiasm for a kind of Europe which ties you up like a Gulliver. I share the enthusiasm of a Europe which I believe was the vision of the founders of a very enterprising Europe, a Europe of people when you look at the history of Europe at the marvellous things that have come out of Europe, they have been enterprising, adventurous, they [end p5] have created the wealth, they found new scientific things which they have applied to all of our technology. This was not a people tied up or saying above all we must have certain social securities, this was a creative people because you have to create the wealth before you can have the greater social security.

We have created the wealth, we have created more jobs than the whole of Europe in the last four or five years. And also we have got our Social Charter which is a very very good one, I brought it along, I did not like theirs, and I do not think it is up to the Community to say precisely what social arrangements you should have, some of ours are way way ahead of other peoples, some of theirs are ahead of ours. They come from a different history but you have got to create the wealth before you can distribute it.

Interviewer

But do you finally accept the dream of a creative people with a common currency, a common central bank?

Prime Minister

I do not see what a common currency has to do with a creative people. What you have got to think is why do you need a common currency at all. And I tell you what happens in that debating chamber, many people said: “Well, if we are to have that we will need an enormous great extra subsidy to enable us to sustain a common currency” . [end p6]

Of course they do because otherwise they would have to cut their expenditure, cut their prices, cut their land prices, cut their wages. So there is a lot to argue about when it comes to the detail.

Interviewer

And against.

Prime Minister

And a lot to argue against.

Interviewer

A common currency in particular.

Prime Minister

Yes. Not only in particular but against their version of an economic union.