The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Brian Mulroney

  • Mr Major’s Opening Remarks at Arrival of Canadian Prime Minister – 11 May 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s opening remarks at the arrival of the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Mulroney, in London on Tuesday 11th May 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Can I just say what a pleasure it is to welcome the Prime Minister back to London. He is a very old and dear friend of the United Kingdom and he is always a very welcome guest indeed.

    We have had the opportunity this morning of looking at a whole range of things. We spent quite a time on Bosnia. Canada has had a very distinguished role in assisting in Bosnia; many of their troops have done an absolutely magnificent job over the last year or so and I was able to express my admiration to the Prime Minister for the work that they have done.

    We had the opportunity to discuss GATT, a whole range of bilateral matters, the Prime Minister’s recent visits to Russia and to Germany and a series of other international issues.

    What I am proposing to do this morning is leave the Prime Minister with you. I have some other meetings so I am going to leave him in your good hands. We are delighted to see him. I am looking forward to seeing him for dinner.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Mr Brian Mulroney and M Jacques Delors – 17 December 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with Mr Brian Mulroney and M Jacques Delors, held in Ottawa on Thursday 17th December 1992.

    MR MULRONEY:

    The Prime Minister and President Delors have been travelling and they were sidelined to Montreal and they had to drive up here so they are understandably pretty tired and they have got a full day tomorrow in Washington. So I thank them for coming and I will just say very briefly to offer both a welcome to them and our congratulations to the Prime Minister for the excellent success of Edinburgh and the great progress that was made, the Canadians thought very skilfully handled and so we are always very happy for progress that takes place in the European Community because of its importance for Canada and for the United States.

    We just had an opportunity for roughly an hour to review some trade matters and some political matters, especially the evolving situation in Bosnia, and we will have a chance to chat again over dinner and early tomorrow morning before the Prime Minister leaves. So in the interests of time, because we do have guests waiting and you have deadlines, there will not be any individual statements.

    QUESTION:

    [Indistinct] and I would like to have the same comments from Mr Major, the decisions taken by NATO Foreign Ministers today in Brussels?

    MR MULRONEY:

    They are examining it, as we are causing it to be examined at the United Nations, and I had a call from Barbara McDougal a few hours ago and the steps taken today were prudent but our hope is that this matter will wind up with the Security Council of the United Nations and at that point in time there will be a decision I suppose that will be endorsed by the international community.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I do not think there is a great deal to add to that, it was a prudent and a balanced decision that was taken today. I suspect the matter is heading back in one form or another to the Security Council and at the moment there is a great deal of bilateral discussion taking place to determine exactly what happens there.

    QUESTION:

    [In French and not interpreted].

    MR MULRONEY:

    [In French and not interpreted].

    QUESTION:

    Lady Thatcher today said that the West must bear its share of blame for not stopping Serbian aggression and she called for a military [indistinct] in Bosnia, what do you make of those proposals?

    MR MULRONEY:

    Well of course I was a partner with Mrs Thatcher when she was Prime Minister in respect of Kuwait and her view was, and that I certainly endorsed, that action of this nature should come about as a result of the Security Council of the United Nations speaking on behalf of the civilised world, and that is what we did. The United Kingdom and Canada and France and the United States and I think 26 or 27 others were partners in the initiative under the aegis of the Security Council that allowed us to take the action in the Gulf. Unilateral action in this circumstance would be dangerous and perhaps self-defeating, it requires absolutely the moral authority and the effectiveness of the resolution of the Security Council before industrialised countries and others can go beyond where we are at the moment. That is why Canada and I think the United Kingdom and others have been pressing for this matter to come forward at the Security Council at an early moment.

    QUESTION:

    [Indistinct] whether they believe that given the danger of retaliation a No Fly Zone could be enforced in Bosnia without ground troops being available to finish the action?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    A key question, it is the question that may be unknowable until it is actually put to the test. The United Nations imposed the No Fly Zone and so far as one can tell it has been effective in that it has stopped combat aircraft flying, it has not been effective in that it has not stopped helicopters and other small aircraft flying. So there has clearly been no large-scale movement of troops, there may have been movement of commanders, there may have been movements of very small numbers of troops, that we do not know. The Security Council will clearly have to look at the question of enforcement and it will have to take into account the nature of enforcement, we need to be clear precisely what it means, whether it means that aircraft would be prevented from taking off, whether it means if they had taken off they were forced to land or whether in its most severe form it would mean shooting down aircraft that infringed it.

    These are matters that need discussing together with the impact of what that might mean for the humanitarian forces because there are two objectives and they run in parallel that the United Nations and its member states need to bear in mind. The first is the desirability, the necessity of seeking a political solution to stop the carnage in Bosnia and some of the unspeakable activities that have been going on there, that is the first objective. The second objective is one that we must live with day after day after day, and that is to sustain the humanitarian links that are actually taking food into literally hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise face starvation and have no medical care or medicines whatsoever. And we need to keep those two things running parallel, it is a very fine judgment, it is why there is so much bilateral discussion at the moment before those judgments are taken.

    But I repeat what I said a moment ago, I think this matter is going back to the Security Council, there is a mounting impatience in the West over the events in Bosnia and I do not see that rapidly being stilled.

    QUESTION:

    If the United Nations and the EC are unable to stop the killings, as they seem unable to, is a unilateral role by NATO right out of the question as far as you are concerned?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That is a matter for NATO, it is not a matter I can answer this afternoon. We have to bear in mind what nature of conflict this is. This is not the same conflict as Kuwait where you had one country forcibly invaded and raped by another country. Here you have what is in essence a civil war, beginning when people of one nationality locked together with others suddenly started to seek a greater share of the land, it grew up, it mushroomed from that beginning. It is a very messy and difficult problem, it is not one capable of easy solution. That does not mean we can stand by and take no action whatsoever, it does mean we need to be very measured and certain in the action we take before we commit ourselves to it and that is why it does need international decisions, it is right I think for it to go back to the United Nations and for NATO and other nations collectively to look at it there and I think that is the way it will be dealt with.

    QUESTION:

    Are there positions beyond which the UK is not prepared to go?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I am not going to anticipate what may happen in the future. We have made it clear at the moment that I do not think this is a matter that can be readily resolved with a few ground troops, we have got troops in Bosnia at the moment, the troops are there actually delivering humanitarian aid. We are seeking a political solution, we pursued that in the London Conference that we called during our European Community Presidency, Mr Vance and Lord Owen are still pursuing that settlement, there are a whole series of meetings that have been taking place just this very week. I am not going to anticipate beyond that, I do not think it would be wise from the point of view of the West and I do not think it would be wise in terms of indicating to others what might happen.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Mulroney are you worried about the threat to humanitarian forces and to troops already protecting them if there is military enforcement of a No Fly Zone?

    MR MULRONEY:

    Yes we are, we, like the British, have substantial numbers of people in former Yugoslavia and we are very concerned not only for their welfare but for the welfare of other NGOs and United Nations humanitarian personnel who are there because there have been indications strictly given by leaders of the Bosnian Serbs that any indications of action, multilateral or otherwise, would provoke retaliation against people on the ground and we have obviously a primary obligation to our people and the representatives of our allies who are on the ground now trying to deliver humanitarian services. And so that too, as Prime Minister Major has indicated, is one of the reasons why unilateral action, dramatically articulated, has a certain appeal, a certain cachet, but in point of fact the reality is that this matter can only be resolved multilaterally by the Security Council of the United Nations. That does not preclude under that umbrella action by NATO forces, we all happen to be allies together in the pursuit of this objective, but clearly the leadership must come from the Security Council of the United Nations and we are looking for that leadership because we are extremely dissatisfied with what is taking place, as you know, and as Prime Minister Major has just stated.

    QUESTION:

    Do you think that whatever does come perhaps should not occur before the elections in Serbia, that in fact you might strengthen the hand of Milosevic by taking a tough line at this moment?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Elections in Serbia are only a day or so away are they not?

    MR MULRONEY:

    I think the Prime Minister is right and then you are going to get this kind of unpersuasive response from Belgrade that they have got nothing to do with what is going on in Bosnia and so I hope no-one believes that. And so what is taking place there will be significant and hopefully the United Nations will deal with the situation both as it is in Bosnia and as the reality exists in Belgrade. The solution cannot come from one source alone, there is a bifurcation of responsibility here, it has to be brought together and dealt with strictly under the aegis of the Security Council of the United Nations but with both eyes on both of those areas and I think that to the extent that a solution might emerge it is in that regard.

    QUESTION:

    [In French and not interpreted].

    M. DELORS:

    [In French and not interpreted].

    MR MULRONEY:

    [In French and not interpreted].

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with Brian Mulroney – 4 July 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Brian Mulroney, held in London on Saturday 4th July 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Perhaps I might just say a few words, I will then invite the Prime Minister to add a few words and we will take three or four questions before going in.

    Can I say firstly what a pleasure it is to have the Prime Minister back in the United Kingdom. Canada are very close allies, very important allies, and although we frequently have the possibility of consultation by telephone, it is always a pleasure to see Brian back in the United Kingdom.

    We have taken the opportunity in the last few minutes of looking at a whole range of different issues: the preparation for the G7 summit in Munich, a large number of matters there that we wish to discuss before we arrive there in a day or so; we have looked also at the continuing preparation and desirability for the earliest possible conclusion of the Uruguay Round, we both see that as not only desirable in itself but desirable in the impact it will have upon world trade; I was able to express my admiration of the Canadian troops in their activities in UNPRIFOR at the moment; and we have also been able to look at a whole range of bilateral matters.

    We will continue our discussions over dinner later on, but I may say already it has been an extremely useful exchange of views.

    MR MULRONEY:

    Thank you John. I was grateful for the expression of support by the Prime Minister about Canadian troops in Yugoslavia under the UN auspices, they are doing a very courageous and impressive job there and we are grateful for the support that we have been getting from G7 leaders and from UN leaders elsewhere.

    The bilateral relationship between our countries is excellent, this is an opportunity to deal with some of the smaller matters that can irritate our relationship, and High Commissioner Fred Eton does an excellent job of representing our interests with Her Majesty’s Government here.

    I raised some bilateral matters. The Prime Minister was interested in constitutional development, as he always is in Canada. The Newfoundland fishery problem, about the dramatic effect that this has had, we are trying to protect the northern cod stocks within 200 mile limits and the damaging effect that it has when Europeans fish outside of the 200 mile limit and how incompatible that is with the resolution to the problem. So I spoke to the Prime Minister in his capacity as President of Europe, but indicated I will be talking to him later on tonight and in the next few days about it in more specifics. I wanted to acquaint him with the domestic impact that this has had on Canadians and Newfoundlanders so far.

    So all in all so far an excellent meeting and I thank the Prime Minister for his courtesy and I will be happy to answer a few questions.

    QUESTION:

    [In French, not translated].

    MR MULRONEY:

    I have just been asked, Prime Minister, about whether the G7 should be extended to a G8 and my answer is no, not because of any hostility but simply because Russia certainly does not meet, in our judgment anyway, the economic standards and the institutional standards required of participating nations whose GDP represents some 65% of the world output but whose characteristics are that they are the most powerful industrialised modernised economies in the entire world. That would be the view today of Canada.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Major, do you conclude the same about the Soviets and the G8?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I share that view entirely, yes, and for precisely the same reason. I think one could add further reasons to it but I think the G7 is working very well indeed. From time to time it may be desirable for the G7 to meet as G7 plus 1 and have discussions with the Republic of Russia, but I do not see the G7 becoming a G8, no.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Mulroney, you talked to the Prime Minister about the latest constitutional developments, could you share those thoughts with us about what the Premus [phon] talked about on Friday, what came out of that Premus meeting?

    MR MULRONEY:

    My information, Joe, is limited to what has been published and what I have told about the Premus meeting. They seem to have been in a mood to effect a compromise situation, from what I understand has evolved it seems to have a lot to commend it, but serious questions still exist, they are going to want to examine it in various quarters and they will meet again on Tuesday to see if they have satisfied their concerns. So I guess my opinion to the Prime Minister was that the Canadians want a solution to this matter and the politicians appear to be responding.

    QUESTION:

    Do you think relief aid to Sarajevo will continue to get through seeing as the fighting is carrying on?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I very much hope they will, a second British plane got through satisfactorily today and no doubt there will be more, we certainly hope there will be more. What we cannot of course control and what we cannot be certain of is what precisely will be the position in and around the airport for planes actually to get in. As you know, the airport is sunk into a bowl surrounded by hills, it is extremely difficult for the aircraft to get in safely while there is any conflict going on. I hope that we will be able to get more planes in, it is patently necessary and if we can possibly get more planes in we will, but I cannot offer you a cast iron guarantee, no-one can be certain precisely what will happen.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with Brian Mulroney – 15 October 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with Mr Brian Mulroney, given in Harare on Tuesday 15th October 1991.

    MR MULRONEY:

    The Prime Minister and I, we have been together for the better part of the day and we met a little earlier this evening and we are going back to a dinner meeting where we are going to be focusing on the Soviet Union and on Yugoslavia and related matters, including the Uruguay Round which is of great concern to us all.

    But we spent some time a little earlier this evening discussing the Commonwealth and the importance of this conference and we will no doubt both have an opportunity to answer your questions tonight and during the course of the week.

    The conference has not started yet, it starts tomorrow, we had a preliminary meeting today that dealt with the manner in which the communique or the declaration could emerge. I told our colleagues that given the choice between the draft submitted by the Commonwealth and the British draft I liked the British draft, it was shorter, crisper, to the point and it I believe will become the basis for the Commonwealth declaration that we will see emerge later on during the week.

    We discussed in general terms today and in general terms because the Commonwealth conference has not started, you cannot have 8 or 9 people in a room purporting to speak on behalf of the Commonwealth, the debates will begin tomorrow. But we talked about human rights in general and in specific terms, we talked about aid, we talked about development in what was I think the Prime Minister will agree a very good exchange this morning although it was preliminary because the conference has not started.

    [Mr Mulroney continued to speak in French, this portion not translated]

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Brian, thank you very much indeed. I think you have set out very clearly and fairly what we have been discussing.

    We have a number of areas we particularly want to touch on, some we have discussed already, others we will discuss later over dinner, but Britain and Canada are partners in the G7, we are partners in NATO and we are partners in the Commonwealth. So there are a vast range of different areas that we will wish to take one another’s mind upon.

    We are certainly going to spend rather more time than we yet have discussing the GATT Round, that clearly is very important and I believe we will also spend some time later on this evening on the forthcoming NATO conference in Rome, that is a matter of considerable importance and of considerable interest to both of us.

    And of course we will both review what happened today in our preliminary discussions in the high level group and preview what will happen during the rest of the Commonwealth conference.

    I think the atmosphere today was extremely good. There was a great willingness, a communal willingness to cast minds forward and look at what the Commonwealth is developing into. We have had the early years of the Commonwealth, it has been there for a long time, it has matured, it is time for the Commonwealth to look at itself again, review the position and decide how it moves forward from the present position.

    And that I think will be the importance of what in due course when all colleagues have looked at it will be the Harare declaration. We had a very important declaration 20 years ago in Singapore, we now need to up-date that, refresh that and point the Commonwealth to the future. And that really will be the substance of our discussions this week and also I both hope and believe the substance of the declaration we will agree this weekend.

    QUESTION:

    There was a great deal of enthusiasm for sanctions against South Africa at past Commonwealth conferences, there does not seem to be the same type of enthusiasm for tying foreign aid to human rights as there has been for South Africa, I understand this was a British proposal?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think you may not have got that entirely right. There is a very great concern about human rights, I have expressed it elsewhere, the Prime Minister has expressed it elsewhere, and that is a concern that spreads amongst the vast majority of the Commonwealth and has been expressed by them. But one has to look at precisely what our aid is geared to. It is geared firstly to help alleviate need, that is the primary purpose of the bilateral aid but we need to make sure that it is focused properly and I think it is not a question of tying aid, it is not a question of saying unless you do this, that or the other thing there will be no aid, it is a question of looking at programmes and seeking to focus aid where it will have the greatest practical effect to improve good government. And I think good government in its widest aspects, I suppose broadly we mean democratic government, accountable government, is something of great concern to the Commonwealth, it is of concern to the World Bank and of concern to others and I think that has got very much tied up in our discussions this week.

    QUESTION:

    British sources have characterised the progress made on discussions on South Africa today as slow, it does seem that momentum either on reaching perhaps changes to the New Delhi accords which you would like to see, or indeed on inviting other representatives other than Nelson Mandela here does not seem to have been achieved?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think there is a dramatically changed atmosphere as far as South Africa is concerned and that has predominantly come about of course because of what has happened inside South Africa, people have seen the pillars of apartheid be repealed. And one looks forward to the time when the constitutional conference begins, is concluded and South Africa moves on to a new non-racial future.

    The climate in the Commonwealth is very much in favour of that developing as speedily as possible. I think that has been reflected in discussions, everyone knows a tremendous amount has been achieved but there is still some way to go.

    QUESTION:

    We understand from British briefings that Malaysia, for instance, was not enthusiastic about the proposal to tie aid and human rights records. Is the going a little tougher than you envisaged?

    1. MULRONEY:

    There was no such proposal, there was no such reaction from Malaysia. I don’t know what you are talking about. There was no such proposal, Dan, and there was no such reaction. In the discussions this morning – I think, John, you can correct me if I might have missed something on a coffee break or something what took place was an overview provided by the Secretary-General of his own views and that was followed by a debate both on the Declaration and on specifics. Prime Minister Major and I and others intervened very vigorously. I gave, for example, an indication of what I believe to be the case, that more and more the evolution of foreign policy will see us witness the sweeping away of any totalitarian regimes and the primacy of human rights. This is what will dominate the spectrum, dominate the concerns of national governments.

    Canada, like any national government, reserves the right to terminate completely any aid where it feels that that would be appropriate. We did it in the Commonwealth when Idi Amin came to power in Uganda; we have done it recently in Haiti, where we want the illegal occupation and usurpation of the Presidency of Haiti to end. I signalled to President Mitterrand in Houston in 1990 that Canada would not attend a summit of Francophone nations held in Zaire because of the human rights policies there – this was a year and a half ago. I sent word to the summit [Indistinct] a few weeks ago that we want Haiti excluded from the participation at the Summet de Chyu [phonetic] and so we express our points of view in different ways and they range from cutting off aid completely to channelling or focusing aid. For example, in some cases we go through the Red Cross to make sure that the aid gets to the people who are desperately in need without any of the aid getting into the hands of the government or the governing party in that particular country. That is the way Canada has done it over the years; I think Britain has followed similar policies, but it didn’t come up in any way, Dan, other than in the way I have described it to you.

    QUESTION [in French]:

    1. MULRONEY [answer also in French]:

    QUESTION:

    In your meeting tomorrow, Prime Minister, with Nelson Mandela will you be looking for increased signs of flexibility from the ANC in terms of the timing of the removal of sanctions against South Africa?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think what perhaps may not be appreciated in the United Kingdom is how much contact I have had with Nelson Mandela and indeed with others over the last year about South African matters. It is by no means an uncommon occurrence for us to pick up the phone and talk to one another about what is going on.

    I have made no secret about what I wish to see in South Africa. I wish to see the constitutional conference convened; I wish to see a conclusion; I wish to see South Africa move forward to a non-racial future.

    I will be talking to Mr. Mandela about how the constitutional conference can get under way, what progress he thinks is possible, how he thinks things will develop, what the time-scale will be and generally how he thinks we can inch forward. I think it is a mistake always to suddenly imagine one dramatic event is going to move things forward almost overnight in a huge way. It has been a continuing series of events that have moved progress forward in South Africa and I will be continuing to discuss with Mr. Mandela how we see that progress continuing. It is going in the right direction. Many people would like it to go faster, many others are surprised that it has gone as fast as it has over the past two years so there is no great drama about my meeting with him tomorrow. It is a meeting; we have had several meetings; we have spoken frequently; and we just want to carry that debate a little further.

    QUESTION:

    Mr. Prime Minister, can those citizens in Commonwealth countries where there are human rights abuses reasonably expect that the Commonwealth will emerge from this summit with effective measures to isolate those governments who persist in abusing human rights inside the Commonwealth?

    1. MULRONEY:

    I think that what you can reasonably expect is a very strong commitment and an endorsement of the primacy of human rights and the indispensable priority that it must be given not only in the Commonwealth but in other institutions around the world. I think you can probably expect as well that more and more governments are going to factor that in a major way into all of their foreign policy decisions including aid decisions.

    As I have just indicated, there are instances where, for example, the Government of Canada has been approached in regard to a decision where we were inclined as a government to terminate all aid and we were approached by the NGOs in that country and asked specifically if we would funnel aid through them as opposed to the government, to make sure that the aid got into the hands of the needy. In our programme, for example, of immunisation, where Canada put some $25 million into a programme of immunisation, the money of course was funnelled into NGO hands, into the Red Cross, into UNICEF hands as opposed to into the hands of the government or any agent or agency of the government and I think we are going to accentuate that. I think all governments are doing that. We are going to be judicious perhaps in the manner in which these decisions are arrived at but I think that the reflection that you will find from the Commonwealth itself will be a direct and a great commitment to the primacy of human rights and individual freedoms in the intercourse among nations and particularly as members of the Commonwealth. I think you can expect that from Great Britain and from Canada.

    QUESTION:

    I come from South Africa. Overall, Sir, would you be optimistic about making substantive progress on the South African issue at the Commonwealth Conference?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think the South African issue is at this Commonwealth Conference the dominant issue. It has been because people were frustrated and worried that progress was not being made. I think now there is an acknowledgement that progress is being made – I am sure South Africa will be discussed, of course it will, it is very important. The dominant issue at this Conference will actually be to determine how the Commonwealth moves forward and to agree the Harare Declaration so I am not sure quite what is meant by “progress on South Africa”. We can’t externally make progress on South Africa; the progress that we need to see towards a new constitution and a new future for South Africa has to be made within South Africa by the people who live there and I don’t think we can externally deal with that.

    QUESTION (SAME QUESTIONER):

    I mean convincing your Commonwealth colleagues on Britain’s attitude towards South Africa relating to sanctions, for instance.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t think it is going to be a great issue, quite frankly, at this particular conference. There is now general agreement that people-to-people sanctions should be lifted – that is progress – and the direction in which the general thought of the Commonwealth is going is now quite clear: they are seeing progress made and they are reflecting in their own attitudes the acknowledgement that progress has been made, The European Community and others have gone a bit further than the Commonwealth and there are always going to be shades of difference but there are not great chasms of differences between us any more.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with Brian Mulroney – 14 July 1991

    Below is the text of a joint doorstep interview with John Major and the Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney. The doorstep interview was held in London on Sunday 14th July 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Good Morning. We have had the opportunity this morning to range over a large number of bilateral and international matters of mutual interest. On the bilateral front I was able to thank the Prime Minister personally for the tremendous help and assistance he was throughout the period of the Gulf war, there was a very close consultation throughout that period and one that was very much appreciated. The fact that the Canadian Field Hospital, so badly needed, was placed under British command was particularly welcome.

    We have also had a series of discussions over recent months, the Prime Minister has been kind enough to contact me from various parts of the world from time to time to discuss matters in the lead-up to this summit. He has of course the advantage of having chaired one of these summits on a previous occasion. So we had a series of bilateral matters to discuss.

    We also took the opportunity this morning of running through the agenda for the G7 and the subsequent meeting thereafter with President Gorbachev as well as matters of interest to us both as members of the Commonwealth. So we found it a most useful and productive preliminary meeting before the summit begins.

    MR MULRONEY:

    We had an excellent meeting this morning, as the Prime Minister has indicated, reviewing both bilateral matters and questions in regard to the run-up to the summit. Most recently I have had the occasion to spend some time with Prime Minister Kaifu and Chancellor Kohl and last Tuesday night a meeting with President Bush. And so it gave us an opportunity in respect of the agenda and Mr Gorbachev’s visit to compare notes and to get ready for what I believe will be four very challenging and important days of summitry.

    I thanked the Prime Minister for his contribution, his very generous contribution to the remarkably profitable and mutually beneficial bilateral relationship we have as evidenced by the very sensitive degree of cooperation and mutual understanding during the war.
    And so we discussed the Commonwealth, we had to cancel a meeting that was scheduled here for June with the Commonwealth because of preoccupations we both had elsewhere, but we did have a chance to review some Commonwealth matters today before we meet again on that subject in Africa in October.

    [More remarks in French but not interpreted].

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, do you think you can do business with the Soviet President?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think we will have to discuss with President Gorbachev what he has to say when he gets here, there will be ample opportunity when President Gorbachev gets here for him to set out before the G7 Heads of State and Government what his proposals and plans are and then we will discuss it. But I think it would be courteous to hear what President Gorbachev has to say before I respond to that question.

    QUESTION:

    Are you happy with the reform package?

    MR MULRONEY:

    We are still analysing the package, it is a very complicated one, and we will have to see when the seven get together. Obviously President Gorbachev is approaching this in what appears to be a quite constructive manner, whether the G7 will be able to respond to this I somehow doubt it. I do not believe that you will see either miracles or blank cheques from the G7 summit. I hope that what will take place will be a serious response to a serious proposal under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Major and then there be a meeting with the Chairman of the Summit and President Gorbachev which I hope will give rise to a process whereby the response could be geared to the implementation of a programme for important structural reform.

    But you are quite aware that for example some of the people around the table, not necessarily either of us, but some people round the table will raise questions like: Well if your economy is in such great difficulty, as it is, why will you persist in spending such vast amounts of money in refurbishing your military at a time when cash would seem to be scarce and ought to be placed into consumer goods and the rebuilding of your economy?

    So I think this is the kind of debate that probably will take place with Mr Gorbachev in the room and if his answers are appropriate. if his answers are persuasive, he may find the general approach constructive. If his answers are not I would not want to presume on the outcome.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The last point is the key, we need to know what President Gorbachev has to say.

    QUESTION (Adam Boulton, Sky TV):

    Both your national economies are in recession, do you think there is any chance that there will be a significant package emerging possibly from this summit?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    What we are going to discuss in this summit is not the individual economies of the United Kingdom and Canada and in both cases of course the principal problem that we have faced over some time has been inflation and in both cases that is beginning to abate and interest rates are beginning to fall so both economies are getting themselves into a position where there will be fresh growth. But I think there will be very considerable concern to make sure as we come out of the slow-down in world trade generally, a recession in some countries, a near recession in others, that we come out of it in a way that does not re-engender inflation, I think we will be very concerned to avoid that.

    MR MULRONEY:

    I would second that and just add one comment. We have had a tough recession in Canada but we seem to be out of it now and interest rates have come down by some 500 basis points over the last year, all of the signals would appear to be quite promising, and so we are hopeful that the policies to which Prime Minister Major referred coming out of this summit will allow for quite strong growth in Canada but in a non-inflationary climate. That is what I think we are all looking for.

    QUESTION:

    Mr Mulroney, is there a chance that trade disputes will be used as a bargaining chip to unify the group over aid to the Soviet Union?

    MR MULRONEY:

    Not a chance.

    QUESTION:

    You have had a chance to look at the economic package as proposed by Mr Gorbachev, it seems that initially you have given it a somewhat dusty response, you are not terribly impressed with it?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I have examined it overnight, we have not had a chance to do an analysis in detail, it is clearly built on the Pavlov plan. What one needs to do is to determine to what extent it can be carried out, what the impact would be of it being carried out, whether it is a plan that can be carried out by the Soviet Union at the centre or whether it actually needs the active cooperation of the Republics, to what extent it would get the active cooperation of the Republics, what it actually means in terms of draconian measures within the Soviet economy.

    All those are matters that actually deserve some form of detailed study before we pronounce upon it. That study is being undertaken at the moment and will be concluded before we have the meeting with President Gorbachev later on this week. So we will not only wish to study it in detail, as we are doing, and how it would be implemented in detail, we will also wish to hear what President Gorbachev has to say about it. For there are two points to be considered: one is that it is perfectly desirable and satisfactory to set out an economic reform programme, but it only actually has a practical application if the economic reform programme is actually carried into operation and is successful and there are a vast range of matters to consider about that and to ask President Gorbachev about.

    So that is why I genuinely think that we need to have this dialogue with President Gorbachev before we can reach conclusions upon it. It is very complex, as the Prime Minister said a moment or so ago, very complex indeed, we will want to analyse it, consider it, discuss it, listen to President Gorbachev and then we will be in a better position to draw conclusions about it.

    MR MULRONEY:

    Exactly what John has said – what does privatisation really mean to him? What does price liberalisation mean? What does currency stabilisation mean to him and how does he see technical assistance? There are definitions that I think are quite important and probably quite different but the only way we are going to find out is the 8 of us around the table, 7 with him. And so I think that will be how the Prime Minister has been leading us all if the truth be known, in a very demanding build-up to this, he has been in bilateral communication with all of us frequently and I think very effectively and so Prime Minister Major has ensured that all of us come to this summit well acquainted with the difficulties and the challenges and the pitfalls that we are going to confront and ready to I think come together, I hope, with a common response to that.

    QUESTION:

    [In French and not interpreted]

    MR MULRONEY:

    [In French and not interpreted]

    QUESTION:

    Is it too early to call it the G8?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is too early.