Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for TV-AM (Madrid European Council)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: ?Palacio de Congresor, Madrid
Source: Thatcher Archive: COI transcript
Journalist: Gerry Foley, TV-AM
Editorial comments: After press conference at 1440?
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 1272
Themes: European elections, Monetary policy, European Union (general), Economic, monetary & political union, Foreign policy (Asia), Race, immigration, nationality, Strikes & other union action

Interviewer

Prime Minister, you seem quite pleased with the outcome of the Summit and yet you acknowledge that there were difficult discussions ahead on issues that you feel most strongly about.

Is there a possibility that you might have won this particular battle but will end up losing the war?

Prime Minister

I think when we get on to discussing the other stages following Stage 1, people will find much at fault with it which they cannot accept.

What I was very anxious to do was to avoid the general approval of the Delors Report as the way ahead. We have endorsed the first stage and we are going to look at the other stages of the Delors Report along with alternative proposals.

Interviewer

Is there a danger that you are being sucked into a process that you fundamentally disagree about, that bit by bit you are edging away? [end p1]

Prime Minister

In Stage 1 of the Delors Report, which we have approved, there are things that we would have to have done anyway under other Articles of the Treaty so we have not been sucked into anything.

You are quite right! The main battles are still ahead but I hope that when it comes to those, instead of talking in generalities when you are talking of actual proposals, many people will find totally unacceptable the massive transfer of sovereignty from control by their own parliament to some twelve men and women who are not publicly accountable in a democratic way at all. I think they will dislike that intensely.

Interviewer

But would you accept, Prime Minister, that whatever form of words—clever form of words—which might be agreed at the end of a summit like this, that you still have a fundamentally different vision of the future of Europe compared to leaders like Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand?

Prime Minister

I am not sure, when it comes to it, that they will accept some of the changes. You know, they resist very much. For example, President Mitterrand resists very much the abolition of foreign exchange controls, the free movement of capital. The free movement of capital has been in the Treaty since it was first signed in 1956. It should have been implemented a long time ago. They are not anything like as free with their trade as we are, not anything like as free with financial services. They just are not. [end p2]

Interviewer

Do you think this representation of you as being somehow anti-European is fair or is it misjudged?

Prime Minister

It is totally misjudged. We are very much for the kind of Europe which we believe in which is a Europe of freer trade and freer movement of citizens, free movement of capital and taking away all of those tiny little constraints which people like to have because it protects their trade against other people's trade and there are plenty of those!

Interviewer

Prime Minister, in outlining your opposition to the proposed Social Charter, you talked of Britain's record in job creation over the last couple of years and indeed, of our record in industrial peace and yet you are heading back to Britain which is facing another national railway strike and other important disputes. Has it started to go sour in Britain?

Prime Minister

No, it has not started to go sour in Britain. What you notice has happened is that it is the public sector unions whose task is to serve the public, in other words to see that their fellow citizens can get to work—not in fact just to down tools and walk away for their own selfish reasons. It is the public sector unions that are failing Britain, failing their fellow citizens. It was the [end p3] Passport Office. Surely you have a right to expect when you go to a Passport Office you get reasonable treatment and you get reasonable and swift service. No! It was those public sector unions, there to service the public. They are not serving the public. The in fact are serving their own ends.

Interviewer

But in each of the disputes the unions would claim that they are protecting the rights of their members because of Britain's high inflation rate. They are laying at the door of the Government that you have led to a position where we have very high inflation.

Prime Minister

The inflation rate is too high at the moment and it is our first objective to get it down, but may I point out that the inflation rate has been very much higher under Labour Governments than it is under this one—very much higher. We shall get inflation down.

But that is not the gravamen of their charge. They want other things. Some of them want back-pay for a very long time and it has to do partly with having trains run by one person only. [end p4]

Interviewer

On arriving at this Summit, some people were suggesting that perhaps you were no longer being perceived as the strong woman of Europe because of your losses suffered in the recent European elections. Did that impose upon your judgement when you came here? Did you feel under a little bit of extra pressure at this Summit?

Prime Minister

Not at all, not in any way! I do not think you will find the debate was any less direct and persistent and sustained and that we won most of our arguments.

Interviewer

Do you feel that the last couple of months have been a sticky patch for the Government in general—between inflation, between some of the public rows?

Prime Minister

I do not like inflation, obviously. It is fundamentally against everything we believe in. It is absolutely top priority to get it down—absolutely top priority.

Interviewer

You are not losing your touch? [end p5]

Prime Minister

Not in any way!

You say this every time we have a drawback. You said it in 1983, in 1986 and so on, but of course, every government goes through difficult phases, but let me point out that right now under this Government we have a higher standard of living than any we have ever known—our citizens have; that we have a higher standard of social services; we have a higher standard of investment in manufacturing industry; a higher standard of investment in business. That is really not a bad record.

Interviewer

Finally, Prime Minister, the Community leaders also discussed the situation in China and the Foreign Secretary is going to Hong Kong pretty shortly. Will he be bringing any sort of message that will reassure the anxieties of people living in the Colony?

Prime Minister

It is very difficult to reassure them, of course it is. How do you think we would feel if we were there? They live on the mainland of China most of them. If we were there and had seen what happened, we would feel precisely the same as they do, so it is not possible wholly to reassure them, but their best interest and ours too is that Hong Kong is a valuable asset and as it comes up to 1997 will still be a valuable asset to China and therefore our best hope is to keep it in good trim, very healthy, very prosperous and doing the trade that it has been doing. [end p6]

Apart from that, as you know, we are looking at certain specific cases of people who may have to come here because they have served our Administration in Hong Kong so well.

Other than that, we have mentioned them specifically in our communique here because both Sir Geoffrey Howe and I were anxious that they should know that whenever we discuss China we are very concerned about the fate of the people in Hong Kong, so they are never forgotten.