The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Douglas Hurd

Sir John Major’s Article in The Times on Constitutional Reform – 11 July 2009

The text of Sir John Major’s article in The Times on Constitutional Reform, written jointly with The Lord Hurd of Westwell [Douglas Hurd], published on 11th July 2009.

SIR JOHN MAJOR:

The row over Parliamentary expenses and the Cabinet crisis have triggered a much wider debate about Parliament and Government. The expenses system must be thoroughly cleaned out and overhauled; but it is also the right time for fuller discussion of the health and reputation of our political system. Within a few months, at the latest, we will have a General Election. Both the main parties are in the market for ideas, the Conservatives preparing for government, Labour searching for a formula which might give them a fourth term. This is a good moment for all of us outside the Party leaderships to put in our word.

The Prime Minister’s statement on 10th June was deeply disappointing. It added nothing of substance to the debate. At present, Parliament seems to sit fewer days each year. Working hours have been shortened. Debate on legislation is routinely curtailed with much of it poorly (sometimes never) debated. Unelected spokesmen have moved from the backroom to the limelight, often with more influence than Ministers. All of this weakens Parliament. We need a House of Commons reduced in size, as David Cameron has suggested, and galvanised with greater efficiency.

As for Government, Gordon Brown’s reshuffle was forced on him by the disintegration of his team. But for weeks the commentators had confidently predicted a reshuffle as a tactical diversion away from the Prime Minister’s other difficulties. The possibilities were analysed in the narrowest possible terms. Is he or she a Brownite or Blairite? How does their expense sheet look? How do they stand within the Labour Party?

This is all trivia. No-one has been speaking up for change to improve the quality of Government as a whole. No one asks the critical question: who is best for this particular job? It is as if the actual daily work of Ministers – the analysis of advice and taking of decisions – is peripheral, whereas it should be the point and purpose of their existence.

The result has been poisonous for the quality of decisions. Defence is the striking example. The Armed Services of the Crown are under formidable strain. For years, they have endured Secretaries of State who were left in Office hardly long enough to learn the ropes. Prisons are another example; we have had eight prison ministers in nine years. This is frivolous government. Of course a Prime Minister must be free to make changes when necessary; but his obligation must always be to secure the best available leadership for each department of State.

There are too many Ministers. The total could be reduced by about one-third. Only Cabinet Ministers need Parliamentary Private Secretaries. The Treasury should remain with two Ministers, both in the Cabinet. DFID should be reunited with the Foreign Office, likewise with two Cabinet Ministers. Thus, the number of Junior Ministers could be reduced significantly. We support the recent expansion of overseas aid, but believe that Britain’s aid programme has become dangerously divorced from British foreign policy.

Recent changes have substantially weakened the Home Office, which ought to be one of the great Offices of State. It, too, would benefit from a second Cabinet Minister and fewer Junior Ministers. This would enable us to reunite all elements of the criminal justice system, police, probation, courts and prisons, under one roof. The current system, as established by the Labour Government, is simply not working.

Once these simplifying changes have been made, and the Cabinet appointed, we would hope that – short of disasters – the Prime Minister would leave the structure of government in place, and – subject to competence – give each Cabinet Minister a clear run of two or three years.

Within the total number of Ministers, there are now too few with experience of life outside politics. Almost all Ministers rise through the Commons, and nowadays most MPs of all parties have moved straight from further education into some form of professional politics. The ambition of professional politicians also weakens the ability of Parliament to hold the Executive to account. More outside experience would strengthen Parliament and Government. Conservative and Labour Prime Ministers have tried to remedy this by bringing businessmen and professionals into Government through the House of Lords. This device can work well, but there is a defect of accountability which limits its use. We would look for a way in which all Ministers in the House of Lords could appear at the Despatch Box to answer to the House of Commons as a whole, and not just to Select Committees.

We would make a more adventurous experiment in the same direction: a Prime Minister could appoint a small number of unelected Ministers of State, who would be answerable to Parliament without being members of either House. This is, of course, a device borrowed from the United States, France and other democracies which practise the separation of powers. It could deepen the quality of Ministerial government without undermining the principle of accountability to Parliament.

The same narrowing of skills and experience needs to be remedied in the House of Commons itself. Somehow, we have to persuade talented individuals to come forward, and constituencies to accept candidates, from a wider range than at present. We have in mind professional people who have succeeded in their chosen career and have years of energy and good health ahead of them which they could use, not as Ministers but as backbenchers, to control the government of their country. The conditions of service have to be tolerable to such individuals, which bears on the issue of salaries and expenses. More important, such men and women have to feel that they can be effective Parliamentarians. Useful proposals to this end have already been made. The Select Committees should be totally freed from the control of the Whips. We would favour Parliament scrutinising and approving a two year Government policy programme. The Commons must re-establish the ability to scrutinise legislation, both domestic and European. This will mean looking again at Parliament’s not particularly vigorous hours of work, and compelling Government to limit the quantity of legislation to the Parliamentary time available for proper scrutiny.

Out of these and other changes should emerge a Parliamentary career structure in parallel to the structure of Government. The Chairmen of Select Committees should be paid the same as Ministers of State, and emerge as nationally known figures. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee should have the salary of a Cabinet Minister. The Speaker would stand at the apex of this parliamentary career, universally known as the spokesman and champion of a Parliament of which its electors could be proud. We are some way from that now, but the time is ripe for reform. Such reform must extend beyond correcting abuses, and centre upon ensuring that the quality of Government improves, and the Executive is held to account more effectively than in recent years.

The necessary elements are there in our history. Those of us who have been privileged to serve Parliament, in both Houses, have a duty to breathe new life back into the ceremonies, traditions and magnificent buildings of which we have been so proud in the past. Such a debate is vital to secure its future.

The Rt Hon Sir John Major, KG, CH

The Rt Hon The Lord Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC

London SW1
11th July, 2009

July 11, 2009
Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Chancellor Kohl in Bonn – 26 May 1995
Below is the transcript of Mr Major’s joint press conference in Bonn with the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and the German and British Foreign Ministers, on Friday 26th May 1995.

CHANCELLOR KOHL:

Prime Minister, Ministers, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. First of all I would like to apologise for the fact of keeping you waiting. You know that I am not in the habit to do so normally but we had our normal and regular consultations here today and it was all of a sudden today that the events in former Yugoslavia took a fairly dramatic turn, so at this point I would only like to make very briefly a few introductory comments on what loomed on the agenda of our bilateral consultations and then the Foreign Ministers will give a report on what happened today.

The delay took place because the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, whom we both wanted to call, and we did so, was not in Moscow but in Minsk and it took a little while to establish a telephone link with Minsk and unfortunately we had to keep you waiting. I would like to ask for your understanding.

On the 25th Anglo-German consultations, they take place at a very important time in international politics. I would like to use the opportunity here, John, to thank you most warmly for the friendship that you have shown us and the support that you have shown us throughout these times that are so important in the history of our nation and where such painful memories come back into one’s memories. I would like to thank you for what you did on 8 May and I would like to thank you for the very good speech that you gave in Berlin, a speech that was characterised by friendship. On the issues that we discussed, well first of all we agreed on a private visit of John Major and his wife for the autumn of this year and I will be very happy to receive him as my personal guest at my home.

We talked about the G7, about the preparations leading up to the G7 meeting in Halifax, to the EU meeting in Cannes, about all of the issues that we are going to discuss there, and we were at one in our desire before these important conferences, that is both for Halifax and for Cannes, to come to the closest possible consultation and cooperation between our two governments. And there are a number of priorities that we set for ourselves. First of all drawing the central and Eastern European countries closer to the European Union, legal harmonisation, looking here at the White Book of the Commission to that effect. Both governments have always been at one that drawing the young fledgling democracies of central and Eastern Europe closer to the European Union is one of the pre-conditions for being able to maintain peace in Europe.

We talked about contacts and the relationship to the countries of the Mediterranean area; we talked about internal and legal policy about Europol and other related subjects; and obviously, and here too we closely cooperate, we talked about unemployment and the employment situation in general, and that incidentally was also a very important issue that loomed large on the agenda of President Chirac and myself last week.

We also would wish that the Commission will submit the report in such a way to the Cannes meeting that we may be able to discuss the principle of subsidiarity. On the request of both of our governments, a German and a British group of entrepreneurs has brought in a number of proposals on deregulation and the Prime Minister and myself will, in a joint letter to the President of the Commission, submit this proposal for further examination,

PRIME MINISTER:

Helmut, thank you very much. Let me just add a few words to what the Chancellor has had to say. We have had a very friendly, very wide-ranging, very candid, very practical and very constructive meeting, and as always it has been immensely enjoyable.

As the Chancellor said, we spent some time discussing the prospects of a G7 meeting in Halifax, we have had a very close look at some of the ideas that are around for reform of the international financial institutions and the United Nations. We looked particularly at the agenda for the Cannes European Council on deregulation, as the Chancellor said. We have been working together. There has been an Anglo-German business group working together, they have reached some conclusions and we have jointly written to all our fellow Heads of Government in the European Union, and the President of the Commission, sending them a copy of that report with our full support.

We also discussed transatlantic relations, trade relations and other relations. We are certainly keen on building those up, keen on looking at the prospects for building on the GATT agreement and the advent of the World Trade Organisation, and this is something else that we will continue to return to time and time again in the future. I will not run through all the details of the points the Chancellor mentioned. He set out I think accurately for both of us much of the substance of our discussion.

The Foreign Ministers have spent this morning talking about Bosnia and the Chancellor and I have spent some time on that as well. Let me just say a word or two about that and what has been happening in the last couple of hours. Clearly the situation is very serious there and there is no doubt that we need to look very carefully at what is happening there at the moment and what will need to happen in the immediate future. I had the opportunity about an hour ago of speaking on the telephone to General Rupert Smith in Sarajevo and he reported on the present situation there, I think, as you know, a substantial number of people have been killed and wounded in the attacks, the precise numbers, some have been reported, but the precise numbers in truth are not yet known and may not be known for a little while yet.

What is perfectly clear is that what has happened over the last couple of days is immensely serious. The remedy for this overwhelmingly lies with the Serbs. They need to observe the ultimatum that has been set and they need to return their weapons to the collection point.

A second point I think that needs making very forcibly. Whilst it is necessary for the Serbs to do that, it is also necessary to ask the Bosnian government to restrain themselves and not to add to any of the difficulties that at present are being faced by the United Nations protection forces.

And the third point I would make I believe is equally very important. I hope there are no more attacks against United Nations personnel, either direct attacks against them or attacks with the intention of taking hostages, at all. I believe that would not be a way for them to proceed. Putting pressure on the nations who have troops there in the protection forces is not the right way for us to proceed at the moment and I hope that is fully understood by the Bosnian Serbs.

Clearly we have some difficult decisions to face in the near future. The Chancellor and I have sent a message to President Yeltsin asking him to use his influence with the Bosnian Serbs, and after sending the message we managed to find him on the telephone at Minsk, and also had the opportunity of speaking to him and delivering precisely the same message, and I am very hopeful on the basis of that that he will use his influence to try and calm matters down in and around Sarajevo.

I think for the moment I will leave events at that, return it to the Chancellor. He may want the Foreign Ministers to say a word about their morning discussions and then perhaps we could take any questions you may have.

CHANCELLOR KOHL:

Allow me to add, if I may, that we also established contact with the French Prime Minister. He is familiar with our message and the text of our message that we sent to Boris Yeltsin, but he is on the road somewhere in France and he is just now coming back to Paris. Klaus Kinkel will immediately try after this press conference to establish contact with him and inform him and I would like to remind all of us of the fact that yesterday night I had a long telephone conversation with President Clinton although all those things had not yet reached that dramatic peak that they have today.
1. KINKEL:
As the Prime Minister and the Chancellor said, the crucial issue of the talks between the Chancellor and Prime Minister Major and between my British colleague, Douglas Hurd, and myself was certainly the situation in Bosnia, a situation that has reached a new, dramatic peak particularly in the areas in and around Sarajevo and Tusla. You know that the Serbs massively attacked Sarajevo particularly this morning and there was a very large number of casualties and wounded. We don’t as yet have any substantive figures. Another air strike took place in the meantime and the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and we Foreign Ministers were at one that everything has to be done in order to reach a de-escalation of the situation.

I had talks in Washington with Vice-President Gore, the Security Advisor Legge and also the Secretary of State, Mr. Christopher and this dramatic peak which the situation had reached loomed large on our agenda. We are in very close contact with the Secretary-General of NATO; before our talks, we had a number of telephone conversations with him and tried to get information on the most recent state of affairs.

The Prime Minister has already pointed out and the Chancellor also mentioned that a message was sent to President Yeltsin and we finally made telephone contact. This was a message directed to President Yeltsin where we appealed to him to exert his influence on Milosovic to prevent him from supporting the Bosnian Serbs; the message further contained an appeal to Milosovic where we asked him to please do everything to see to it that the border between Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs remains closed. This message called for three very clear-cut objectives: first of all, de-escalation; secondly, the bombarding of the protected areas will have to stop immediately; and thirdly, heavy weapons have to remain in the collection points because there are indications that there too there may be a certain development that would be most unwelcome and most unpleasant and obviously the message said that the taking of hostages will not be in any way successful and that this must be stopped immediately.

As the Chancellor said, we are in contact with Prime Minister Juppe, and with the Americans and tonight we are going to call them once again. Further steps will be the following:

The Contact Group foreign ministers will meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Nortvige [phoentic] in Holland and then we will think once again about possible further steps and obviously we will try to make contact with Foreign Minister Kozyrev.

I do not want to go into details of the military operation. We have been informed by Secretary-General Claus and by General Rupert Smith of the present state of affairs but this obviously is a matter for the military to assess the real situation on the ground and whether further measures will be taken.

It is undoubtedly a very grave and very serious situation that we want to and will have to try to solve by resorting to political means. Any military solution of the Bosnian conflict, of the situation in former Yugoslavia, cannot and must not be the right way.

FOREIGN SECRETARY DOUGLAS HURD:

I do not need to add very much. As Klaus Kinkel has just said, it is clear that the decisions hour by hour on the ground and in the air rest with the NATO and United Nations commanders and as has been said, we have been in very close touch with them hour by hour this morning. Warren Christopher telephoned me first thing this morning in order to express his support for what the UN and NATO had done so far and indicated that it would be necessary, he thought, to do more. That is the view of everybody here and the Prime Minister made clear in Parliament yesterday that we fully support what has been done and that is also the German view so that is support for those who are responsible for these very difficult and dangerous decisions hour by hour on the ground but we have to support them in another way which is to try and bring the maximum pressure on all those concerned to prevent what is happening now which is bad enough – enough people are being killed – from escalating into an even greater war with more suffering, more casualties and the effect on the future of the United Nations effort and that is why the Federal Chancellor and the Prime Minister have sent a message to President Yeltsin, that is why they have talked to him, that is why we are in very close touch with the French and of course with the Americans. The Bosnian Serbs would have been wise to heed the terms of the ultimatum which they received; they would be wise to heed it now.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION:

Chancellor, can you tell us how President Yeltsin reacted to the message that he received from you?

CHANCELLOR KOHL:

He clearly gave us to understand – and obviously in a way I am adding my interpretation of it and using my own words now – that he considered the situation to be extremely dangerous and he promised to act on the basis of our message in any direction desired in that message. We did not talk about details obviously but both of us talked to him on the telephone and we both impressed on him how serious we thought the situation is. It is obviously a fairly unusual way of proceeding the sort of action which we immediately resorted to which we thought however was a very necessary reaction in view of the circumstances.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, you spoke about some difficult decisions to face in the near future. What are those decisions and do they include a decision on whether or not to withdraw?

PRIME MINISTER:

Over the days ahead, the immediate difficult decisions I had in mind were the difficult decisions to be taken by the commanders on the ground in response to whatever action may be taken against Sarajevo, against the ammunition dumps or against any other target so those were the immediate decisions I had in mind. They are decisions that will not be easy for the commanders. Clearly, if the situation deteriorates, one would have to take a strategic look but let me make clear again what I have said in the past. I think there are two points that are relevant:

Firstly, for as long as it is possible, for as long as the United Nations protection forces can credibly carry out their humanitarian mandate and save lives, it would be my wish for the protection forces to stay there providing they can do so at acceptable risk to themselves.

The second point is equally important. If they cannot carry out their mandate at acceptable risk, if the fighting escalates to a level when it is quite impossible, then clearly circumstances could arise when it would not be possible for the United Nations protection forces to remain.

I emphasise that is not my wish. I believe they have done a superb job there, I very much hope they will continue to stay there but I think everyone on the ground needs to be aware that they are there with a particular mandate, with a humanitarian responsibility and they are not equipped to be in the middle of a full-scale war.

QUESTION:

There are reports that President Yeltsin has condemned the latest UN air strike. Can you confirm that, please?

PRIME MINISTER:

I haven’t seen such reports.

QUESTION:

He didn’t express any view to you?

PRIME MINISTER:

We were primarily discussing what can be done to de-escalate the problem there and President Yeltsin undertook, as the Chancellor said a moment ago, to use his best offices.

QUESTION:

Chancellor or Prime Minister, has any idea been put forward to reposition forces or regroup forces and also to deploy Western forces in order to protect the United Nations troops on the ground there?

PRIME MINISTER:

That would be a matter for the commanders on the ground to advise about, indeed it would be a matter for them to take decisions about. In terms of regrouping and moving the forces, the commander has the responsibility and the authority to do that in the interests of his own troops and his own mission. Whether he is doing that at the moment, I don’t yet knew. I don’t believe he has yet done so. If he believes it necessary, then he would have the authority to do so.
May 26, 1995
Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary – 10 December 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kenneth Clarke, and the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, held in Essen on Saturday 10th December 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

I do not think there is very much doubt that this has been an especially productive and rather good humoured Council, it has addressed a number of substantive issues that are of real concern to people right the way across the European Union. I daresay one or two souls might be a little disappointed that we were not able to provide a row on this occasion of any sort, but it has been extremely good humoured and I think we have made a lot of progress on a number of issues. I hope the lack of a row is not too great a disappointment for anyone.

We have just come from a working lunch with the six leaders of the Central and East European countries. We started getting to grips at Essen over this weekend with some of the practicalities of the next enlargement, we have agreed effectively on a route map towards full accession for the East Europeans. From now on the European Council will meet the Eastern associates once a year and so will ten of the other Councils dealing with a whole range of issues, some of those will meet more than once a year, most probably twice.

The enlargement process, a process that we have argued for in the United Kingdom for a very long time has now started, and I think that is very good news, not just for the countries that will be joining the European Union but for people right across Europe. The benefits of extension – peace, stability and prosperity – the benefits of spreading those right across the continent, is a prize very well worth having.

We spent a while discussing Bosnia and so did the Foreign Ministers, and we agreed that our current efforts to secure a negotiated settlement need to be reinforced. We proposed, and our partners agreed with us, that we should beef up the teams monitoring the border between Serbia and Bosnia, we would like to have 200 monitors there and we are now up to round about three-quarters of that total. What we have to be sure of is that the sanctions are biting hard on the Bosnian Serbs.

Secondly on Bosnia, let me say a word about the humanitarian and peace-keeping effort. Ground troops from a number of countries, including many European countries, not just those in the Contact Group, are continuing to risk their lives in Bosnia in order to save the lives of the people who live in Bosnia. That effort should continue for as long as possible, for as long as practical, for as long as they can actually safely undertake the job for which they were sent. And in return we expect the aid convoys to be readily let through to the people who are in need of medicines and food and whatever else may be on those convoys.

Thirdly, we discussed the negotiating process itself. The United Nations is working, has been working for a long time, to try and secure a durable ceasefire and the Contact Group is striving to bring about a political settlement. None of us was under any illusion whatsoever about the difficulties that still lie ahead, but it would not be right to give up hope while there is a credible hope of success. If, of course, the parties make it impossible for the protection forces to do their job, or if the risks to the protection forces become intolerable, then a different circumstance would arise and we must plan together against that possibility whilst hoping it will not occur.

We agreed on full consultation between all the countries contributing ground troops and we agreed that none of those countries would withdraw unilaterally from former Yugoslavia. If withdrawal at some stage should prove unavoidable, and of course it could, we hope not, but it could, the promise from President Clinton of United States troops to cover that withdrawal is very welcome indeed. But I should emphasise again that our view is that UNPROFOR should continue its humanitarian role for as long as it seems safe and secure for it to do so.

Let me say a word about Northern Ireland and the events relating to it that we discussed here at this summit. We are just emerging in Northern Ireland from 25 years of terrorism, we are now entering a crucial period in the peace process, we are seeking to turn an encouraging ceasefire into a lasting peace. One of the things that can help us succeed is the support that we have had from our colleagues in the European Union. The active support has been tangible and I would like particularly to thank the President of the Commission for his personal commitment to the peace process.

From the start, Jacques Delors recognised the significance of the Downing Street Declaration and all that has subsequently flowed from it. I believe that peace will bring a far better life to all the people in Northern Ireland, so I particularly welcome the very substantial programme agreed by our partners to provide a boost to improving living standards in Northern Ireland, 300 million Ecu, 250 million sterling over a three year period, part of it in the south but over 80 percent of it in the North of Ireland is an excellently timed signal ahead of the investment conference that we will hold in Belfast next week.

We devoted quite a lot of time yesterday to Europe’s economy and to a particular aspect of that, and that is job creation. The Council endorsed the plan drawn up by the ECOFIN Ministers for member states. I supported the suggestion for an advisory body in European competitiveness and suggested that for it to be most effective it should include major Europe businessmen with practical experience in running multinational companies across Europe.

What is most striking, was very striking indeed, in the discussion we had yesterday about the economic discussion, is that virtually all of the themes that we discussed, which only three or four years ago were regarded as eccentric British preoccupations – liberalisation, freeing up markets, reforming welfare systems, reducing the cost of jobs – all of those are now in the mainstream of European thinking and were central to the debate that we had. The Community now agrees, I think without any contradiction, that the problem of unemployment is not best tackled simply by protecting those at work, the aim must be to help those out of work by creating new growth and new jobs. We agreed a programme for trans-European networks and a list of projects. These big, frankly rather imaginative, infrastructure projects are natural territory for private sector initiatives and I am very pleased that out of the top 14 priority projects four of them will be in the United Kingdom, including the Channel Tunnel rail link and the West Coast mainline,

I made clear that there were two things, above all, which I believed, which Britain believed, had undermined public support for the European Community over recent years and obscured much of the good work that it has done. Firstly, with those areas where the European Community has unnecessarily intruded into the daily lives of its citizens, that causes frustration not just in the United Kingdom, you can trace that frustration right across Europe if you go and see for yourself what is happening there and speak to the politicians and other people there. We are seeking to deal with that through subsidiarity, it was something much mocked when we first introduced the concept, it is now widely accepted and it has been given another substantive push by the German Presidency.

The new provisions we secured in the Maastricht Treaty and the new rules we got agreed at the Edinburgh European Council, are now being put to good effect. We are at last beginning to see even more tangible results from that, that is certainly evident as far as legislation is concerned. In 1990 the Community passed 185 new laws, there were 75 last year, it is down to only 39 so far this year. Next year the European Council will review the existing Community statute book as well.

And secondly, I raised the question of fraud across the European Union. People, in my view quite rightly, get extremely angry when they see their money, their taxes, being mis-managed, being wasted, or perhaps worst of all, being drained away in criminal fraud. Again, the Maastricht Treaty contains, and again at our insistence, new provisions empowering the Commission, the Council and the auditors to tackle this more vigorously, and also requiring member states to do so. I proposed a series of specific actions at this European Council, got support for them from colleagues, and you will see them reflected in the conclusions that no doubt you all have in front of you.

Let me finally say a word about the atmosphere here at Essen. It was, as one would have expected, a well prepared, well run Council and our informal sessions have been perhaps among the most thoughtful and forward-looking that I could remember in the four years or so that I have been attending them. We were looking ahead last evening to the possible union of 15 years, 20 years from now, when we might have perhaps as many as 27 members of the European Union. We began to consider, not reaching conclusions, but consider in a brainstorming session what our goals for the Union might be over the next 40 years, not the inward looking centralising approach of yore, but an open, peaceful, prosperous, united Europe of nation states. It was a very productive discussion indeed. I believe that is the direction that most people in Europe would wish to go and I think it is the direction in which we are most likely to go. So I found that a very rewarding session last evening and there was a general wish that we should return to that conversation again in the future, and I very much look forward to that.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION (John Palmer, The Guardian):

Prime Minister, you have referred in the Bosnian conclusions to the urgent reinforcement of the ICFY mission, I asked this question of Kinkel earlier on and I am still not clear from what he said or what you have said, what has made the reinforcement so urgent, is President Milosevic not to your satisfaction, yet sealing this frontier, I don’t know whether you or the Foreign Secretary can throw light on the use of this word urgent.

PRIME MINISTER:

The Foreign Secretary spent some time discussing it, so I will ask him to say a word in a moment. What we are anxious to do is to avoid any leakage at all. I do not think it is a question of President Milosevic’s good intentions being in question, but we do wish to ensure that there is no leakage across the border and for that reason we would rather like to see more monitors there. But the Foreign Secretary discussed this at length, not just with Klaus Kinkel but with his other colleagues, so he might wish to add something to that.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

President Milosevic told us on Sunday that the border was in effect closed. There are some people, particularly in the United States, who question that, so there is a matter of fact which has to be established, it is very important to establish it because the present relief of sanctions for President Milosevic, the opening of the airport and the allowing of certain events, is for 100 days and its renewal depends on everybody being satisfied that he is doing his best. So it is a matter of fact which needs to be established. It is best established by having an adequate number of qualified people on the ground. We have got people, we, the Americans, the Nordics, are doing our bit there, there are other countries who have not contributed or only contributed one or two.

What I was pressing, and what is now in the conclusions, is let us get on with this, let us establish as a matter of fact whether or not the border between Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs is adequately controlled and the movement of [indistinct] goods properly enforced.

QUESTION (Peter McMahon, Sunday Mirror):

Chancellor, when you were asked about Europe less than two weeks ago you dismissed talk of a referendum as not an issue. Today in his interview the Prime Minister says he is not ruling one out, so clearly it is an issue, why is there such a difference between the two of you?

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

I think the Prime Minister has made our position perfectly clear, I do not think there is a difference between the two of us. These are important issues and no doubt the question will keep coming up from time to time. But the main thing is to prepare a clear position for the inter-governmental conference in 1996, although we do not yet know whether we will have a serious agenda and to have a serious debate about the merits and demerits of economic and monetary union if that should ever come about, and I think that is where we are and that is what we keep saying.

QUESTION (Robin Oakley, BBC TV):

Could I ask the Prime Minister and perhaps the Foreign Secretary to take just a moment out from questions on the summit to comment on the death of Sir Keith Joseph?

PRIME MINISTER:

Let me perhaps comment first. I was extremely sad to hear the news about Keith Joseph. I think he was probably one of the foremost Conservative thinkers since the Second World War and his contribution to Conservative thought and Conservative philosophy is perhaps unequalled in that period. He was also from my knowledge of him, though I confess I didn’t know him as well as I would have wished to have done, an extremely nice man, a very gentle man in every sense of the word. He was a very senior figure in the party when I first went into the House of Commons and I can only say that on every occasion I spoke to him as a wholly new, untried, unknown Member of Parliament I received nothing from him but courtesy and help and I found that was the way he treated everyone whomsoever they might have been. He is a very great loss.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I would add a word to that. He was, as the Prime Minister said, a very kind man and he was totally without self-importance. He didn’t mind at all what kind of headlines he got. He was passionately anxious to worry away at a subject until he got to the truth of it. He was very interested in first principles, very interested in the thinking behind a decision and you need people like that in politics and he will be badly missed.

PRIME MINISTER:

Can I just say Robin, the Chancellor probably knew Keith better either than Douglas or I so he may wish to comment.

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

I did, Prime Minister, work with him from time to time over the years and got to know him quite well. All I would add to you very justified tributes is firstly that Keith was, as you know, really concerned about political issues. He thought about them a lot, he worried about them in fact, he was anxious to get things right and the driving motive behind his approach to politics was his concern to actually address social issues as well as economic issues which he thought were being neglected, but he personally was quite consumed in politics because of his concern for its effects to a degree unusual even in any dedicated politician.

Secondly, I confirm entirely what the Prime Minister said about his personal behaviour outside politics. Because he was on the right, there was a slight tendency to think he might be something of a hard man; he could not have been further removed from that; he was one of the nicest men in politics of any political complexion that we had.

I can remember many examples where he actually went out of his way to help colleagues who had fallen out of favour in one way or another; I remember one time in particular many years ago when there was a Conservative Member of Parliament who actually got sent to prison and that really put him out of baulk altogether, and the only man who approached that former Member of Parliament to make sure that something was being done for him when he was eventually released was Sir Keith Joseph who hadn’t known him very well, and he was the only Member of the House of Commons who took any interest in that man’s fate and his family. There were many other instances of that kind of personal action that he took so I regarded him as a very intelligent man, a very concerned man and personally a very nice man indeed.

QUESTION (German Handelsblatt Newspaper):

As far as Europol is concerned, the conclusions are setting a new deadline for ratifying the Convention until the next summit in Cannes. Are you willing to raise the latest objections and are you willing to include the combating of terrorism in the agenda of Europol?

PRIME MINISTER:

The principal difficulty in reaching an agreement on Europol hasn’t lain with the United Kingdom of course; there has been a very substantial difference of opinion in what in the jargon has become known as the “architecture” between France and Germany; that was the principal impediment at the recent Home Affairs meetings and indeed at this summit and there was agreement that we would try and reach a conclusion upon that by the time of the Cannes summit.

There are a number of areas below that where we still have some concerns but I have no doubt that we will be able to resolve those over the period of the next few months and it was for that reason that I fully supported the fact that we would agree now that we would reach a conclusion by the Cannes summit and I am sure we will be able to do that. I am sure we will be able to get our way through that.

QUESTION (Christopher Lockwood):

We have heard calls for a serious debate on the substantive issues behind economic and monetary union and I wonder whether we might have a little of that now. Prime Minister, in a situation where the convergence criteria are met and where the pound in particular meets them not according to the Commission’s own forecast and the Treasury’s – that is not something that is completely out of the question by 1997, certainly not by 1999 – do you think that in that situation it would be of benefit for sterling to be part of the EMU?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think you have to look at what the position is going to be right the way across the European Union and I have no intention of making that judgement at this stage now. I can certainly agree with you that in terms of the Maastricht criteria it is possible, perhaps probable, that the United Kingdom will be one of the first countries actually to put themselves in an economic position where if they wish they would be economically able to move to a single currency. I think that is becoming increasingly apparent and the Chancellor may wish to add to that but how widespread that would be across the European Union I think is a matter for conjecture at this stage. We can only see, I think, three nations at the moment who look remotely likely to achieve that. Some of the strongest advocates of a single currency don’t look remotely as though they are going to be in a position economically to enter into one for a very long period indeed, but I don’t wish to judge what the debate will be at a late stage.

I think it is right for us to examine what the implications would be, it would be folly not to be prepared for that. I don’t know at some stage in the future whether a number of nations will decide to go ahead with a single currency. There are those who say rule it out definitely for all time now. I understand their philosophical opposition but nobody at this moment can be certain what the position will be if a number of states decide to go ahead at some stage in the future and what its economic impact might be on the United Kingdom if they did. We have to consider that and study that and that is what we will need to do.

QUESTION (Christopher Lockwood):

[Inaudible].

PRIME MINISTER:

It isn’t remotely likely to be half in 1997, Christopher, there are not likely to be any in 1997. There might conceivably be a few countries ready to go in 1999, it is a moot question whether there will be enough, but certainly I know of no single judge who believes there is remotely likely to be any form of economic and monetary union in 1997 and if there is anyone who thinks that, I promise you I don’t agree with them.

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

Jacques Delors produced for us in our discussions a table showing the likely progress of members towards the Maastricht convergence criteria in 1996. At the moment, Luxembourg is the only one that complies. The only two that the Commission forecast to be within the criteria by 1996 are Germany and the United Kingdom, in fact the United Kingdom rather more so than Germany and that is because we are the two strongest recovering economies in Europe, in fact we are recovering at the moment rather better than the Germans and we are therefore returning to a healthier position very quickly and we are performing in accordance with those convergence criteria because the criteria in themselves, which the Prime Minister of course helped negotiate at Maastricht, comply perfectly with sound Conservative Party economics and they are based on the general direction in which our economic policy is already going in the United Kingdom.

I agree with the Prime Minister; whatever the Maastricht time-table may say, I don’t believe a majority of the member states is likely to be able to get that time-table in the way they have set that. What we have negotiated is a position whereby whenever the others might contemplate, any number of them, economic and monetary union, we the British have a choice, our own choice, a choice for our own Parliament. We will decide yes or no according to our judgement of whether it is in the British interest to be involved in any development of economic and monetary union or not.

The things you have to ask if and when that ever arises are is the way it is being planned and worked out likely to be good enough? Is it going to work? We have the experience of the snake, we have the experience of the ERM. I wouldn’t want us to go into any form of economic and monetary union that was not going to work and was going to come to an unfortunate end again. Then you have to ask would it or would it not improve the operating of the market and the trade between those countries that went into economic and monetary union by removing barriers and obstacles to trade between them? Would it or would it not reduce the risks of competitive devaluation ever breaking out amongst the countries involved? But I don’t think the whole thing is feasible until we have got convergence on the grounds outlined in the Maastricht Treaty and I think it would be folly for any members of the European Union to go in for economic and monetary union until they have converged on low inflation, low public deficits, low debt-to-GDP ratios and a good competitive situation in their industrial markets. As it happens Britain is the one that is best advanced towards getting back to that position and Britain is the one that has most completely reserved its own position to say yes or no to economic and monetary union if anybody raises it.

PRIME MINISTER:

We have 15 members of the European Union now, we are likely to have 20 or so some time after the turn of the century in the early years of the next century. Another decade after that we may have 27 members of the European Union. Plainly it is a fatuous proposition to assume that in any time-scale like that you are going to have a single currency across 27. I think it is improbable to the point of being dismissed that you could have a European Union across 15. The serious point at issue I believe it whether a smaller number of nations would be prepared to move forward and then they would have to consider – if they found they were economically able to do meeting the criteria the Chancellor set out – what the impact on the rest of the European Union would be if they did so and what is apparent is that although there has been a lot of consideration and a lot of discussion about the politics of that over the past five or six years, there hasn’t been in my view remotely enough consideration of the economics of that and that is the first primary issue that needs to be considered.

December 10, 1994
Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Douglas Hurd – 6 December 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, held in Budapest on Tuesday 6th December 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

I would like first to express my thanks to the Hungarian government for the hospitality and organisation of this conference. It is a very large conference by almost any reckoning and I think the organisation has been absolutely excellent and I am most grateful for that.

During the whole of the summit I think it is fair to say that two issues have dominated: Bosnia, of course, as it was always likely to do; and the future enlargement of NATO. On Bosnia I set out in my speech yesterday what was at stake and frankly I have very little to add to that. The British troops in Bosnia are there to help the protection forces discharge an humanitarian mandate, they are there to save lives. In the period that they have been there I believe they have saved many thousands of lives and they are there to keep the peace where there is a peace to be kept. They are emphatically not there to fight a war or to take sides.

But if the events deteriorate to the point where United Nations troops and the British contingent can no longer carry out their mandate without unacceptable risk, then of course they will have to leave, and that is simply to state a matter of fact.

I very much hope that it will not come to this, it certainly does not have to come to this. The Foreign Secretary has spoken to Serb, Bosnian and Croat leaders in the last 48 hours and all of them, without exception, have said they would like the protection forces to stay. Now if that is a view sincerely held, the conclusion to be drawn is self-evident. The warring parties must, without delay, cease fire, allow the free passage of United Nations troops and aid and make it possible to re-start the peace negotiations.

On the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation there has frankly been rather a lot of excitable comment this morning about an East-West rift. I think it is worthwhile looking at precisely what our aim should be. Our aim must be to spread eastwards the prosperity and the stability that members of the European Union and NATO now enjoy, and that is precisely why both organisations are currently developing ties with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in a number of cases with a view to eventual membership of those organisations.

We wish obviously to move gradually and carefully towards enlargement, building on the Partnership for Peace programme. I spent some time discussing this yesterday with President Yeltsin and this followed an earlier conversation on the same subject when he visited Chequers last September. And it is perfectly apparent from that discussion that President Yeltsin’s concern is that NATO would enlarge swiftly to Russia’s Western border, possibly starting as early as next year. I said to him in our conversation that in fact NATO’s proposals were to move cautiously and without deadlines. NATO’s study into future membership is about the how and the why of enlargement, not the who and when of future membership. I made it clear to President Yeltsin that the United Kingdom wanted the outcome of the study to be discussed openly with all Partnership for Peace partners, including Russia, and there should be no surprises and there should be no secret deals about the enlargement of NATO.

I formed the impression that President Yeltsin was entirely satisfied with that approach. He is concerned with the pace and the scale of NATO’s enlargement, he does not want to see a new dividing line drawn across Europe and neither do any of the members of NATO or the would-be members of NATO wish to see such a dividing line. It is therefore very important for NATO to continue to build up its relationship with Russia and that is why I hope that Russia will soon be able to sign its Partnership for Peace agreements with NATO.

The talk we have heard over the past 24 – 48 hours of a relapse into the Cold War ignores I think yesterday’s very substantial achievements – the strengthening of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty through the accession of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the entry into force of START I, and a clearing of the way towards the ratification of START II. And I think what those agreements, signed yesterday, show, is that a great prize is still very much within reach between East and West, a partnership between Russia and the West from which the sharp hostilities of the Cold War will be absent.

I think therefore that much of the talk about difficulties between NATO and Russia has been grotesquely overdone, there are concerns and I think those concerns can readily be met.

During the period we have been here both I and the Foreign Secretary have had the opportunity of a large number of bilateral discussions with other Foreign Ministers and Heads of Government and that also has been a very useful adjunct to the conference as a whole.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION (Paul Reynolds, BBC):

How can you explain how the situation has arisen where you are talking of withdrawing troops when the Security Council resolution clearly gives you the right to use all necessary means to carry out the humanitarian mandate?

PRIME MINISTER:

I explained that rather clearly yesterday, I think, Paul. The troops are there for an humanitarian purpose, for so long as they can safely carry out that humanitarian purpose, they will stay. I am not anxious for the troops to leave, quite the reverse, we were one of the first countries to send troops there in large numbers and we did so because of our humanitarian concern for what is happening there. But those troops are not equipped to fight a war and they are not there to fight a war and we have to have concern for the safety of those troops, as indeed to other troop contributors. And the point that I have been making is that if they cannot safely undertake their task then it is not credible for them to remain. I hope that will not occur but I have to warn that it could.

QUESTION:

Is the British government thinking in terms of time to withdraw their troops from the former Yugoslavia and to get a peace plan approved by the various sides?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, we have not got a particular timescale in mind and as I indicated just now, I very much hope that it will not be necessary to withdraw troops. But if they cannot satisfactorily undertake their task, and it is not safe for them to remain, then we may have no choice. As far as seeking diplomatic conclusion is concerned, the Foreign Secretary has had a range of meetings over the last weekend with Foreign Minister Juppe, he met Mr Milosevic and others, the Contact Group are resuming and we very much hope the peace plan can move forward, the Foreign Secretary may wish to add to it. Certainly we wish to explore more diplomatic moves to see whether a settlement can be reached, that infinitely is the prize that we must all aim for.

QUESTION (Nik Gowing, Channel 4 News):

How much, if a withdrawal has to happen, will be dictated by what is happening on the ground, how much of it in the end will be dictated by your military advice which says Prime Minister if we do not go now, it is going to be increasingly difficult to withdraw. And secondly, is the withdrawal likely to take the 165 days which the UN mentioned at the beginning of last week or can it be done much quicker?

PRIME MINISTER:

The points you raise are interlinked, of course. But the other point that needs to be made, it is not just a question of the British, it is a question of the other troops who are there as well, they are there as United Nations troops, of course we are particularly concerned about the British contingent there, but the United Nations themselves will be concerned about all the troops. We have to look both at what the situation is at present and what it looks as though it is going to become. Withdrawal is not an overnight affair so of course we must have contingency plans for that, but if you will forgive me I will not go into those in depth.

QUESTION:

I would like to ask if from the British point of view can we expect any concrete steps forward from the participants of this summit in connection with the Bosnian problem?

PRIME MINISTER:

I am not sure what concrete will emerge from this particular summit except the frustration that everyone feels, there is a universal desire to end the fighting and reach a negotiated settlement and repeatedly that universal desire is frustrated on the ground by one party or another. So I think undoubtedly there is a huge amount of frustration about that. What in concrete terms may emerge from this summit, I am not sure that this summit is going to produce anything that will definitively move the process forward and I am not sure it was ever likely that it will be able to do so.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I think the sequences of what needs to happen is now increasingly accepted, the order of things, though some of the substance of them is difficult. First, there has to be a ceasefire and a cessation of hostilities, beginning in Bihac. There is an argument about how long it should be for, arguments about how it should be worked out, and that is really for the UN on the ground to negotiate, as Mr Akashi is trying to do. Then there needs to be acceptance of the Contact Group plan. As you know, it is accepted by everybody except the Bosnian Serbs and even some of them yesterday in Belgrade said they should accept it, that is a new development, foreshadowed to Alain Juppe and myself by Mr Milosevic when we saw him the night before last. But that plan is not yet accepted by the Bosnian Serbs. Then there can be talks about territorial adjustments, about land swaps, among the parties to see if such swaps can be agreed. At the same time there can be talks about Constitutional arrangements, as set out in the Contact Group document. And then there needs to be a Bosnian Serb withdrawal to the 49 percent which under the Contact Group plan they would be entitled to occupy within Bosnia Herzegovina, the integrity of whose frontiers is stated by the Contact Group plan.

So that is the sequence of events. As I say, there is argument at several points of it, but everyone I have talked to, all members of the Contact Group, President Milosevic, President Izetbegovic, President Tudjman, accept that that is the sequence, that is the order in which these things ought to happen.

PRIME MINISTER:

As the Foreign Secretary sets out, the route map to peace is perfectly clear. The question at issue is whether the leaders of the opposing groups will actually march down that route, we very much wish to see them do so.

QUESTION:

Mr. Prime Minister, the Baltic States is considered during all the European structures as a security question but at the same time in Western countries sometimes we hear about some neutrality or special status of the Baltic States because of the neighbourhood of Russia. What is your opinion about these things?

PRIME MINISTER:

NATO itself is developing a Partnership for Peace proposal which stretches straight through to Russia and includes Russia. We very much wish Russia to take a full part in the Partnership for Peace. That is a stepping stone. We need to deal with the realities of what needs to be done to avoid awakening old fears across Europe.

Of course NATO is going to enlarge – that is no longer in question – but NATO is going to enlarge cautiously and carefully and I think no-one should be in any doubt about that. There is a great deal to be done. It isn’t just a political point, it is a military point as well. One needs to ensure that the circumstances are satisfactory for a cautious but worthwhile and continuing enlargement of NATO. That will take some time. In the meantime, Partnership for Peace is a very attractive and very worthwhile stepping stone.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

We certainly see the Baltic States as part of the European family, a welcome part, and we British are very active there, for example with the Nordic countries training the Baltic peacekeeping battalion and last Monday we agreed in the Foreign Affairs Council on a mandate to open negotiations for the next agreement between the European Union and the Baltic States. As the Prime Minister has said, they are part of the Partnership for Peace; they have all three agreed to the Partnership for Peace and are working out the actual content of each Partnership agreement for each of the three countries so things are on the move and I think they will make steady progress.

PRIME MINISTER:

I had the opportunity of meeting the Baltic leaders not very long ago in Vilnius and we had the opportunity of discussing all this and how the progress forward might come and I think they are very realistic about what can be achieved and in what time-scale.

QUESTION (John Sergeant , BBC TV):

Prime Minister, can I ask you a question on the burning domestic issue and that is can you confirm that if the Government were to lose on the VAT issue you wouldn’t try to make up the shortfall by increasing borrowing and are you prepared to make a last minute appeal to potential rebels not to carry out their threat because if they do so at the very least the Government would be seriously embarrassed?

PRIME MINISTER:

I hope we are going to win the vote this evening on the Budget resolution, I very much hope we are going to win; I shall no doubt learn more about that when I return to the United Kingdom later on this afternoon but the Chancellor set out the circumstances yesterday and I am going to say no more in Budapest this afternoon.

QUESTION (RAI ITALIAN TV, CHANNEL 3):

Mr. Prime Minister, do you believe an arms sale embargo should be lifted in Bosnia and in your talk with President Yeltsin what has emerged as an obstacle to developing a common document on Bosnia which is not coming out?

PRIME MINISTER:

Let me deal with the first point of lifting the arms embargo. We don’t believe lifting the arms embargo would be a wise development; we don’t believe that would aid peace. We do believe that lifting the arms embargo would make it impossible for the United Nations humanitarian mission to safely continue and if the humanitarian mission were to leave that is going to have very profound effects for a lot of people and I think it highly appropriate for people to think what would be the position on the ground if the arms embargo were lifted and the United Nations troops were to move. The single simple question to ask oneself is does that bring peace nearer or does that bring peace further away and I think the answer to that question is self-evident; it takes peace further away, it puts more people’s lives at risk, many more people would be killed and who knows to what extent the war then would spread.

I don’t believe it is appropriate to have a situation where United Nations troops have had to go, the arms embargo has been lifted and one then sees a much wider war perhaps spreading southwards. Who can tell what precisely would happen? It is conceivable that events will force us down that path but we will not go down it willingly because we think it will add to the bloodshed and not end the bloodshed and it has been our determination to end it from the start of this conflict.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

On the second point, efforts were made to agree a separate document on Bosnia and our delegation tried to reconcile different points of view so there could be a document. My understanding, unless there has been some breakthrough in the last ten minutes, is it has not been possible to agree such a document. Our guidance is therefore the decisions of the Contact Group, the Security Council and indeed under the Security Council of the North Atlantic Council.

PRIME MINISTER:

I can’t speak for the last ten minutes but it certainly wasn’t agreed fifteen minutes ago.

QUESTION (Ian Black, Guardian):

Can I ask you, Prime Minister, whether you are not becoming increasingly concerned about the possible damage to relations between Britain and the United States over the situation in Bosnia? We have had the argument within NATO about bombing and we had Senator Dole in London last week. Is this not going to get worse and worse as long as this situation continues?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think when people look at differences between the United Kingdom and the United States these days they are confusing differences between Congress and the British Government rather than the American Administration and the British Government.

The American Administration I think now very largely shares our view about the dangers of unilateral lift and what in practice would happen as a result of unilateral lift, so there are no strains of the sort that many people were forecasting some time ago between the British and the United States administrations about this. If I may borrow the word I used a few moments ago, we are both frustrated about the lack of progress, we both want to see a negotiated settlement. I think we both now recognise the dangers of unilateral lift.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I had a long talk last night with Warren Christopher before he went off to Damascus and I must say I felt quite strongly at the end of this talk that we and the United States, after a period of disagreement, were now actually moving in outline and in detail in the same direction. Since the Contact Group agreement on Friday night, the United States has had its contacts with some of the parties, we have had our contacts with some of the parties, we have compared notes, we were all saying the same thing so this is now an effort which we and the Administration are pursuing together. There are voices outside the Administration just as there are voices in Britain who take a different line but the two governments are working closely together.

QUESTION (Peter Oborne, Evening Standard):

Mr. Major, at the weekend your Cabinet colleague, Peter Lilley, said that the group of nine should have the whip reinstated at once. Do you share that view?

PRIME MINISTER:

He didn’t say that. What Peter Lilley said was that there was no choice but to withdraw the whip and he hoped colleagues would return in due course. He didn’t put a time-scale that. I hope colleagues will continue to support the Conservative Government. In due course, therefore, they will no doubt wish to return to the Conservative whip but I think you are putting words into Peter’s mouth.

QUESTION (Peter Oborne, Evening Standard):

Secondly, what will you do to those who vote against the Government or abstain tonight?

PRIME MINISTER:

I made it clear that I hope colleagues will support us tonight. I don’t propose to go further than that, you would be surprised if I did. I think that comes into the category of “Very good try, Peter!”

QUESTION (National Review):

Back to Bosnia for a minute, Sir. In your speech yesterday you emphasised that no side in the conflict there can expect to gain a military victory. Isn’t that precisely what is happening at the moment with the Serbs occupying 70% of the land there? If, therefore, the British contingent of the UN peace force is brought home, what danger remains, what justification exists for still not allowing the Bosnian government the right to defend themselves through lifting the arms embargo once that danger has been removed?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think you are drawing two things together that don’t necessarily follow. I think it is very likely that if not the British but the United Nations protection forces were to withdraw, then very probably the arms embargo would be lifted but that is a separate proposition from lifting the arms embargo with United Nations troops in the middle of Bosnia and of course there are different things happening in different parts of Bosnia – there are Bosnian advances in parts of central Bosnia.

One of the things that has bedevilled this whole enterprise from the start is that when one has moved close to what one thought might be a conceivable diplomatic settlement, one side or other has sensed some territorial advantage of the weeks or months that lie immediately ahead and at that stage the diplomatic settlement has slipped away and of course that has happened on a roller coaster basis time and time again.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary, what kind of message do you think it delivers to people living in Europe that this Conference apparently is unable to agree even on words that should be spoken about the greatest crisis on the Continent which is the war in Bosnia?

PRIME MINISTER:

It would have been very agreeable, we may yet get an agreement but we hadn’t as at fifteen minutes ago; it would have been very agreeable to have had one. I think what they would be better advised to look at is the large number of people in Europe who are anxious for a settlement, who have been sufficiently anxious for a settlement not only to put diplomatic effort into achieving a settlement but troops and humanitarian activities on the ground to try and promote a settlement and ease the suffering until there is a settlement but there are people with sharply differing views here and that is why it has not been possible thus far to agree a form of words.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I don’t honestly think that many people are sitting up looking at their watches and saying: “When is the CSCE going to produce its document on Bosnia?” That is not what is preoccupying people really. The CSCE has to adopt everything by unanimity and that does put a limitation on what it can agree but what has happened – and quite dramatically – over the last few weeks is that all kinds of different ideas about how you can achieve peace in Bosnia have been examined and at least for the moment dismissed. There is no mention in the Contact Group document of the arms embargo; no government is now pressing for that to be lifted. There is no mention of a military victory, indeed it is excluded as a possibility and President Clinton was clear about that yesterday so everyone who is seriously engaged in this matter is now talking about a negotiated peace. Then you lead into how you achieve that and of course that is extremely difficult and has frustrated everybody up to now but then you get into the sequence of events which I mentioned before which I won’t repeat so there has been a lot of clearing out of ideas which don’t fit the present situation and that is helpful because if you are going to seek to do the things that are necessary you have to get out of your mind the things that aren’t possible.

PRIME MINISTER:

In the best-organised circumstances unanimity is not always possible.

QUESTION (Judith Dawson, Sky TV):

I was just wondering about the remarks the Russian Foreign Minister has made about the sanctions on Serbia wondering whether there can be agreement amongst the Contact Group at least that those sanctions are lifted so that you might get Mr. Milosevic to put some pressure on Mr. Karadzic to actually get them to the peace table.

PRIME MINISTER:

The Foreign Secretary met Mr. Milosevic the other day and spent an hour and a half with Mr. Kozyrev this morning so he is perhaps better placed than I am to give you an up-to-date answer.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Both Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Kozyrev believe that the international community has not sufficiently recognised President Milosevic’s courage in accepting the Contact Group plan; they believe that it should be further recognised by further relief of sanctions. Alain Juppe and I have explained to both of them that that is not practicable unless there is further progress. There has been some relief as you know, there are now flights into Belgrade airport, certain events which fell under sanctions have been relieved and there is a provision for humanitarian relief but further lifting of sanctions will have to depend in practice on further progress and President Milosevic knows that.

December 6, 1994
Mr Major’s Press Conference in Brussels – 15 July 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Brussels on Friday 15th July 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

We have, as you know, very little time. We are all due back at dinner where we have more discussions in just a few moments but let me say a word or two about our pre-dinner deliberations.

It has taken us a little longer than we originally expected to make a decision on a Commission President but the most important part of that was to make sure that when the decision was made it was the right decision. I believe that that has now been achieved and I warmly congratulate Jacques Santer on his nomination. That now of course goes to the European Parliament and I hope they will speedily and unanimously endorse it.

Let me just say a word, if I may, about the other candidates whose names have been put forward over the last few weeks but who have not been selected to be President.

A number of people have contributed in many ways to this debate, a number of highly respected European figures have permitted their names to go forward. The whole matter has, I believe, been conducted in a dignified and a friendly spirit in these discussions and that certainly was the tone of the discussions we have had this afternoon.

I think Jacques Santer is a wise choice for the next few years. He is well known to all of us, he has served on the European Council for ten years; he brings a wide degree of experience to the job as Prime Minister for some years, experience in finance matters, experience in foreign affairs. He has twice held the Presidency of the Council in 1985 and 1991 but on each of those occasions he made a substantial personal contribution to two of the most significant legislative acts that the Community has produced – the Single European Act in the mid-1980s and of course the Maastricht Treaty with its pillared structure in the early 1990s – and of course the importance of the pillared structure allowing matters to be decided by consensus was of very great importance in ensuring that that treaty came to be, so I think in Mr. Santer we have a President who is well able to reconcile conflicting views around the European table. I think that is very important indeed.

There will be many difficult decisions to be taken in the future. He is committed to free trade, committed to the economics of the free market, a strong supporter of subsidiarity and a very strong supporter also of enlarging the Community and that is going to be a very important theme of the next few years. He comes from a country proud of its national identity and I have always regarded him as a healing force and not a divisive force and I think that will be very welcome with the difficult decisions that will need to be taken over the years that lie ahead. In brief, I think he is the right man in the right place at the right time and I wish him every success in the difficult and demanding job that he will be undertaking.

When we had finished reaching agreement on the Presidency, we had a useful discussion on a number of other subjects and that discussion will continue over dinner this evening. Douglas Hurd gave the Council a detailed account of his visit with the French Foreign Minister to the former Yugoslavia. At the end of that discussion, very strong support was expressed by the Council for the plan set out by the Contact Group. We believe that it is absolutely essential to do everything to secure its acceptance and avert the threat of an intensified war in former Yugoslavia. It may be the Foreign Secretary will wish to add a word or two about that.

The French Prime Minister also raised the question of emergency aid for Rwanda. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to describe the problems there as truly horrifying. The French are playing a leading part to bring about an improvement and they deserve our support. The United Kingdom has made a very substantial contribution to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and in other ways and we will continue to do so, so we supported the proposal from the French Prime Minister for further assistance to Rwanda and that will be discussed in further detail at the Foreign Affairs Council in the next day or so.

That is as far as we have got with our subjects in this European Council thus far, the dinner conversation, as I say, lies ahead us but if you have any questions I will happily take them but first I will ask the Foreign Secretary perhaps to say a word or two more about Yugoslavia.

FOREIGN SECRETARY: [Douglas Hurd]

I don’t think I need add much. I gave the Council an account of Alain Juppe and my travels and our talks to President Tudjman, with Izetbegovic and the Sarajevo Government and with the Bosnian Serbs and President Milosevic in Belgrade.

We rammed home the strong arguments in favour of accepting the Contact Group’s plan but I told the Council that I came away with a rather sombre impression particularly from our discussions with the Bosnian Serbs. There is a very real danger of a drift back into war with all the consequences for the Bosnian people and for everyone indeed who is making an effort there so I left them with that feeling. It does mean, as the Prime Minister said, that anyone who has any influence over the situation has got to bestir themselves between now and the end of the month to maximise and improve to the utmost the chances of this plan being accepted.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, what do you think you have achieved by vetoing Mr. Dehaene in Corfu? Haven’t you wound up today with a candidate very much in Mr. Dehaene’s line of thinking?

PRIME MINISTER:

I have never had anything personally to say against Jean-Luc Dehaene, as you know, but there are quite distinct differences in policy between those that Mr. Santer holds to and those that attract the support of Mr. Dehaene. Mr. Santer is a very strong believer in free trade not protection; he is a very strong decentraliser, he believes in federalism in the sense of decentralisation; he is a strong supporter of subsidiarity which is going to be an important theme of the next few years. He has shown by his record in a number of ways that that is the case. He was, as I indicated a moment ago, the author of the pillared approach that enabled agreement to be reached by consensus and not centrally-determined through the Commission; he was the President of the Council when it reached its final decisions on the Single European Act and crucially in that the Single Market, all of which are vitally important to us. I don’t think there is any doubt that he is a strong believer in nation states and I think there is another point perhaps that many other people have not yet spotted and that is the fact that for his own reasons he has been a longstanding opponent of harmonisation of taxes. All those are very distinct policy points of some importance to us.

The other point I would make is in the nature of the man himself. He is, I think, a reconciler and a healer. We are soon going to have sixteen nation states sitting round the table, not twelve, and very possibly within five years will be moving towards twenty. It is very important that the views of all of those nation states are fully taken into account and reconciled; I believe he will be very good at doing that. It is quite a formidable list of reasons for supporting him and I am very pleased at the outcome we reached this afternoon.

QUESTION:

I wondered whether in view of what you just said, Prime Minister, you are therefore surprised to hear that Mr. Santer just now has denied that there are any political differences between himself and Mr. Dehaene. I quote: “I certainly do not believe the time has come to pause in the process of further European integration and in a deeper political union” and he repeated himself as federalist in that sense. Does that entirely square with what you have just been saying?

PRIME MINISTER:

Would you have expected him to say: “Well I have got a long list of differences with my old friend Jean-Luc!”? You know very well in terms of the European debate that he isn’t going to say that.

I have set out a whole series of practical indications of his record of what he stands for. You will have seen, I am sure, the interview he gave in the Luxembourg press just a couple of days ago and he set out very clearly his views in terms of decentralisation; he made it perfectly clear there that he was a federalist in the sense of being a decentraliser, not a centraliser and I think if you read his interview you can take it from his own words, not mine, that he matches the list of attributes that I have just suggested to those present he has.

QUESTION:

Does that mean that you too now, Prime Minister, are a federaliser in the sense of a decentraliser?

PRIME MINISTER:

I am a decentraliser, that is certainly the case. I don’t think I would attribute any other words of yours to that. I am certainly a decentraliser, I certainly believe that the nation state is an important part of the European Union, so do other nations, and it will remain so.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, if the views of Mr. Dehaene and Mr. Santer are so different and if one must look through his policy record to prove that, why do you think it was that Mr. Santer backed Mr. Dehaene so enthusiastically in the first round debate on the President’s job?

PRIME MINISTER:

Were you present at the Christian Democrat meeting beforehand?

ANSWER:

No.

PRIME MINISTER:

Nor was I. I suggest you ask someone who was present at the private meeting for the answer to that question.

MURRAY RICHIE (GLASGOW HERALD):

If you are such a convinced decentraliser as you say and you agree with subsidiarity, why don’t you practise it in Scotland?

PRIME MINISTER:

Scotland is part of a single United Kingdom, I am not going to join in the sort of decentralisation the Scottish Nationalists want in Scotland which has as its ultimate aim not decentralisation but the eventual removal of Scotland from the United Kingdom.

As far as devolvement of authority is concerned, you will know, working for the “Glasgow Herald”, of the immense devolvement of authority that has now gone to Scotland and to the Scottish Secretary of State and the changes that are currently being agreed to extend that even further in the United Kingdom.

JUDITH DAWSON (SKY TV):

You said that Leon Brittan is the right man for the job and you did repeat that quite a number of times before and during the Corfu summit so would you agree that Jacques Santer is a compromise, has to be a compromise for you and for the other European leaders and has what happened to Mr. Tim Devlin caused you very much grief?

PRIME MINISTER:

I made perfectly clear that our first choice for President of the Commission was Leon Brittan and I don’t resile from that now. I think Leon Brittan in every way would have made an excellent President of the Commission for the next few years. None of that detracts from the fact that I think Jacques Santer is an excellent candidate who has attracted support right the way across the Heads of Government and I hope will attract the support of the European Parliament in the next few days so I think he will do an excellent job.

As far as Mr. Devlin is concerned, the Chief Whip has dealt with that matter and I believe he has dealt with it properly.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

And, of course, there is one other point to add perhaps: that Jacques Santer was chosen as the result of a period of very intensive consultation of everybody by the Presidency and that was not so before Corfu.

JUDITH DAWSON:

Do you think that should have happened the first time round?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Of course.

PRIME MINISTER:

We not only think that now, we said that at the time loudly and clearly.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, now you have secured a candidate for the Commission who is clearly extremely satisfactory to Britain, do you consider that after the Corfu veto and in the talks that followed, you have put one over on Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, it isn’t a question of putting one over on any other members of the European Council, that is not remotely the way I see it. I thought it was right to take whatever action was necessary to get a President of the Commission whom I believe was right for Europe in the next few years and right for the United Kingdom in the next few years. That was the purpose of exercising the veto at Corfu and the only purpose.

DON McINTYRE:

Can I ask you whether, as David Howell said on the radio this morning, the really desirable thing about Jacques Santer from your point is that he will be very low-profile and that is really why you want him?

May I ask the Foreign Secretary what on Bosnia he has in mind when he says that anybody who has any influence on the Serbs should use it in the desperately short time there is as they seem to be immune to all influence including that of the Russians?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think possibly Jacques Santer will be lower-profile than his predecessor. I don’t think it is the height of the profile that is really the relevant factor but the direction in which the profile is moving and as I indicated to everyone a few moments ago, I think the direction in which he will take the Community will be very amenable to the majority of member states including us.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

On the Bosnian point, you never can tell in life when a particular argument or piece of persuasion or pressure is just going to tip the balance in favour of what you want done so there are all kinds of pressures, the Russians you mentioned. I was actually thinking of President Milosovic. I believe there are ways in which he could exert himself should he so choose which would really be effective in bringing the Bosnian Serbs to their senses. Whether he will do that or not I don’t know. It is in his interests to do, we urged him to do so, I hope he will do so.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, we have heard your comparison of Mr. Santer with Mr. Dehaene. How does he compare in your view to Jacques Delors? Is he better suited in your view to being the next President of the Commission than Delors was, more to your taste?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think I got the underlying message! I think he will be very suitable for the next few years but I don’t think anyone should underestimate the contribution that Jacques Delors has made to the European Union over the last few years. He and I haven’t always agreed, there is no particular secret about that, but my respect for his abilities is very great.

QUESTION (WALL STREET JOURNAL):

Diplomats of some member states in Brussels have expressed fears that Jacques Santer is perhaps someone from a small country that doesn’t have the clout that M. Delors or M. Dehaene perhaps have and will find it hard to lay down the law in certain areas that are quite important to the UK I believe such as the internal market, insurance, where there isn’t much progress in enforcing laws. Are you worried that a weak Commission in this sense would undermine the UK’s interests?

PRIME MINISTER:

No. I don’t accept the premise, if I may say so, at the outset. I think there has been some black propaganda of that sort about from Heaven knows where. I think from what I have seen of Jacques Santer is that he will press his case and his beliefs quite hard where that is necessary, certainly that is my judgement of the man.

As far as the laws are concerned in the Community, the laws are there to be obeyed in the Community and I have no doubt the Commission collectively will ensure that they are. That was something we pressed for very strongly in the Maastricht Treaty. It was a matter of concern to us prior to Maastricht that we did have a number of laws across the Community and we were not satisfied that every member state was fully implementing them. There are now mechanisms to make sure that they do and I am sure they will be enforced.

SHIRLEY DODD:

Prime Minister, do you think you will be able to live easily with the fact that M. Santer is a strong supporter of the Social Dimension of the Union and of a single currency?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think there are two things that often get run together: one is the Social Dimension of the Community and the other is the specific Social Chapter.

As far as the Social Dimension of the Community is concerned, we have no difficulty with that. Indeed, if you were to ask the Commission which country has implemented more Social Dimension measures than any other, you would find it was the United Kingdom.

As far as the Social Chapter is concerned, it is not a matter of relevance to us whether any President of the Commission supports it or not because we are not a party to the Social protocol, it doesn’t affect us, so whether they support it or not is not relevant to the United Kingdom but on the Social Dimension which is a separate matter, we support the Social Dimension, we have implemented the Social Dimension and I would anticipate will continue to do so.

July 15, 1994
Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with Douglas Hurd – 9 July 1994

Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with the Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, held in Naples on Saturday 9th July 1994.

QUESTION:

How serious is it that Mr. Murayama won’t be able to take part in the economic discussions today?

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t yet know that that is the case. I have heard rumours to that effect but no doubt I will find out in the next few moments I very much hope he can take part.

QUESTION:

How worried are you about the political instability of the Korean peninsula now?

PRIME MINISTER:

We will have the opportunity of discussing that on Sunday morning and I very much look forward to it. I think the important thing is to make sure that the talks process proceeds with the minimum amount of delay. I think that is what everyone would wish.

QUESTION:

Will you be changing the agenda at all today to get on to that subject?

PRIME MINISTER:

I doubt that we will change the agenda formally. It may well be discussed a little in the margins and I think probably will and perhaps by Foreign Ministers as well but I would suspect we will discuss it substantially tomorrow by which time it all may be a little clearer.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I have just talked to the South Korean Foreign Minister; he telephoned me to give me the news but the news is that everything is very calm in Seoul and the first indications are that the talks in Geneva will go ahead but it is too soon to be sure whether there will be any shift of policy but he talked very calmly and there is no particular concern in the Republic of Korea today.

QUESTION:

On the longer-term worries, Prime Minister, many G7s recently have discussed what can be done with crumbling nuclear reactors in the former Soviet Union yet nothing very much seems to happen. Do you think you will be able to achieve something this time round?

PRIME MINISTER:

I hope so. It is certainly one of the main issues for discussion over the next couple of days so I hope we will be able to make some moves forward, yes.

QUESTION:

Do you think what happened to the Japanese Prime Minister should offer any lessons in the way these summits are organised? I know you want changes. Is the pressure too much?

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t think it is a question of the pressure being too much, I don’t think that is the point. I think what is the point is that I would like a much more informal flow of discussion at these summits, much less pre-discussion, much less pre-preparation and the opportunity for heads of government to range much more freely over the matters that are immediately on their minds. I think that would be a great bonus if we could move in that direction, I would certainly like to move further towards it. There are some improvements this time but I would like it to go further.

QUESTION:

What progress were you able to make at dinner last night?

PRIME MINISTER:

On what subject?

QUESTION:

On any subject.

PRIME MINISTER:

We certainly made some progress towards informality. We certainly made some progress; we had a preliminary look at the employment and jobs matters and we discussed a range of other things but think we will have more to say about that later.

July 9, 1994
Mr Major’s Press Conference in Copenhagen – 22 June 1993

Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Copenhagen, given on Tuesday 22nd June 1993.

PRIME MINISTER:

In some ways this was a refreshingly different sort of summit. I say that because it did face up, in a way previous summits I do not believe have done, to the problem of 18 million people in Europe without jobs and the negative growth that confronts 4 or 5 of our partners this year. And I think that the discussion we had on economic matters was the most thorough and the most frank that I can remember in the period I have been coming to these summits.

We reached broad agreement on competitiveness and the importance of that for the future. We did not waste a great deal of time on Euro-theology, that was despatched to the sidelines where personally I believe it belongs. It was a time in this discussion to get down to some brass tacks, for us to consider what might actually be done to help get Europe back to work.

At the end of our discussions the Council has come out with a clear message, and I think the clear message is this – tackling unemployment and restoring competitiveness will be the top priority.

In his presentation to the European Council, the President of the Commission elaborated two facts known to many of us but brought out in discussion in this summit in a very stark way. The first of those was that Community unemployment has been on a steadily rising trend throughout the last 20 years. It has risen and dipped with growth and lack of growth but the underlying trend has been a rising trend of unemployment since the early 1970s. The second stark fact is another unpalatable fact for those of us in Western Europe and that is the reality that the Community’s share of the world market has been falling throughout the last 10 years.

I agree with the diagnosis that the President of the Commission set out, even though I do not agree with all the remedies that he proposed in his paper. But I do think he was absolutely right to put the Community’s need to compete at centre stage of our consideration. The simple reality is that if we do not compete and compete successfully, we will contract, and that means less jobs and it is as simple as that.

We agreed in the summit on a number of measures designed to improve Europe’s economic prospects. First, we agreed it was vital to keep inflation low for sustainable growth and cost competitiveness. Second, as we agreed at Edinburgh last December, we agreed again to give priority to growth and investment in our public expenditure programmes. Third, we agreed to expand the European Investment Bank infrastructure lending facility from 5 billion ECU to 8 billion, I personally would have been prepared to go a little higher than that, but 8 billion was the figure that we settled upon. And fourthly, it was agreed that we had to get fiscal deficits down right the way round the Community, without which much of Europe will be in no position to get its interest rates down and of course for many European colleagues that is still an acutely important matter.

We touched on some other sensitive issues in our discussion. We are all facing the problem of the rising cost of social provisions. All of us, without exception, want to protect the elderly and the vulnerable and the cost therefore of overall provision has to be kept under control so we can pick the right priorities and deal satisfactorily and comprehensively with those priorities.

I have argued strenuously, and I have to say with a great deal of support, that the Community has to keep down the cost of jobs so as to help those people without jobs, those people who need new jobs. And it was for that reason that I have argued against what I think is quite muddle-headed meddling which has led to directives like the working time directive. I would like nothing better, across the whole Community, to have the Community as a whole described as a paradise for foreign investment. Alas that is not yet the position across the whole Community.

But getting Europe to take competitiveness seriously, I think we have done that at this summit and I think that is a start. And there are two very important elements to follow. Over the next 6 months we are going to work on structural reforms to combat unemployment, to scrutinise non-wage costs, to boost flexibility in labour markets, to improve training and education. Those are aims for all of us and I hope that will lead to a genuinely radical report from the Commission at the December Council. All of us will examine the proposals put forward by the President of the Commission, we will comment on them, agree with them, disagree with them and add other things to them. And I hope the sum total of that will be a radical report in December.

We also, both in the conclusions and in the Council itself, spent some time on subsidiarity on its various aspects. And we have here another very welcome dose of realism. We are pushing ahead, with very strong support from France, from Germany and from a number of other member states. This morning the Commission produced a list of areas where, as a result of subsidiarity considerations arising from previous agreements at summits, they have decided not to legislate, legislation that would have happened, that now will not happen because of the new atmosphere created by subsidiarity.

We are still examining existing legislation that should either be removed entirely, axed, or perhaps in some cases amended, and I expect we will have a significant list of specific measures in December. There are differing traditions in each country, especially on labour market measures, and they must be restricted. I do not think we should seek uniformity for its own sake.

On the external side of our discussions we discussed GATT. If we want growth then we need an agreement to the Uruguay Round, we have waited too long for it. Year after year we have expected an agreement by the end of the year and year after year the deadline has been extended yet again. We need to go a long way in what is now a relatively short time if we are to get a comprehensive Uruguay agreement this year. I remain convinced that we all stand to benefit from a successful end to the Uruguay Round.

Let me highlight three other external points before turning to Bosnia, each of them takes a big step forward towards a long held goal that Britain has been concerned with. The first is very clear cut. We have now set a very clear target for the enlargement negotiations and I hope we will see Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden in the Community by 1 January 1995, earlier than many people expected, and the Community in my view will be stronger for their membership. Secondly, we have agreed in our discussions in the last two days that the 6 countries of central and Eastern Europe will join the Community. To help them down the road to membership we will develop closer political links and open our markets more rapidly to their goods, and that I believe is desperately needed from their point of view. Thirdly, a word about Russia. Russia’s weight and its international standing is important for all of us and that is reflected in the new proposal, a British proposal that I made during our discussions, for six-monthly summits with the President of Russia between the President of Russia and the Community.

Let me now turn to our discussions on Bosnia. I think many of you heard last night, from sources that I cannot possibly guess at, that we had a lively debate on Bosnia last evening. That is certainly true and all of us of course are deeply anxious about the situation there, it has noticeably deteriorated on the ground in recent weeks, the vulnerability of the Muslims and the risks to those who are helping them worry all of us, but especially those of us with first-hand experience and the commitment of large numbers of troops on the ground providing humanitarian relief.

I expressed the view last night, and reiterate it today, that I firmly believe that now is not: the time to abandon negotiations and to adopt the council of despair which lifting the arms embargo would represent. Lifting the embargo would lead, I believe, to an even bloodier war but without at the end of that producing the prospect of a better settlement that can only be obtained by negotiation.

The European Council has not made that fundamental change to our policy. The declaration on Bosnia-Herzegovina rightly does not call for the embargo to be lifted, indeed it reaffirms our confidence in Lord Owen and Mr Stoltenberg whose determination in the cause of peace is remarkable and rightly is widely acknowledged. So we have encouraged them to pursue further a fair and a viable settlement.

I would underline the vital point, and it is a vital point for all of us, that that settlement must be acceptable to all three constituent peoples of Bosnia Herzegovina. We shall not accept a territorial solution dictated by Serbs and Croats at the expense of the Bosnian Muslim if a settlement can be found which meets these criteria, which is based on the principles of the London Conference and the Vance/Owen plan, and which is accepted by the Muslims as offering fair and viable conditions and the prospect of an early end to this terrible war, that must be the best outcome. I for one believe we should continue to pursue that outcome, not move precipitately to lifting an arms embargo which amongst other matters would pour more arms into an area torn by warfare, would increase the bloodshed, would increase the risk of the war spilling out of its present boundaries, would open wider the risk of a third Balkan war, and perhaps very speedily indeed, if not immediately, would also lead to the total end of humanitarian relief in Bosnia. The time for that is not yet. I expressed that view last night, I reiterated that view this morning and I am happy to confirm to you in public that that remains the position we have taken.

Let me just sum up this summit. Rows of course, and there has been the occasional exchange over the last couple of days, rows make catchy headlines, they are quite good fun for those who participate in them and for those no doubt who report them, but shared realism and determination are to me the story of what this Council has really been about. The best Community debates are not about institutions, they are about practicalities, and the debate that we have had in the last day and a half has been a very practical debate, a debate about developing a new economic approach, an approach designed to cut red tape and regulation and help create new jobs, a debate about: significant progress with enlargement, enlargement to the north and enlargement also to Austria, and the prospect also of subsequent later enlargement further east. The debate has also been about a new relationship with Russia and one that I personally believe is merited and welcome.

These are big changes, especially big changes if you compare this Council with those of just a few years ago. What it seems to me has happened is this, under the pressure of serious economic problems across Europe the Community is taking an increasingly pragmatic approach, it is addressing today’s needs and not tomorrow’s dreams. I believe that is the right way to go.

It may be a little late but it is very welcome that the Community are now doing that. And I think to that extent we may look back on this summit in the last couple of days and regard it as a watershed in the way the Community addressed its business and its future.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION (Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph):

You haven’t mentioned this request in the final communique for member states to comply with the UN Secretary-General’s request for more troops, which rather surprises me. Does Britain intend to send more troops to Bosnia? If not, where will those troops come from? Do we expect Germany to pay for the dispatch of more troops, for instance? And do you agree with President Mitterrand that if troops are not sent, then the embargo should be dropped?

PRIME MINISTER:

Those questions, I think Boris, are really for Germany and for others, not for me. We have our troops there, we have made our contribution and I don’t envisage that changing. Others felt across the Community that perhaps they could make a greater contribution but it is not for me to say what they would have to do.

We have made our contribution, it is a very substantial contribution, it is there, it has been there for months, it has been doing an excellent job. If others believe they may be able to make a further contribution, I welcome that if they can. Certainly, we would all like to see the extra troops there that are needed for the safe areas plan; perhaps some of those can come from Community countries, some perhaps from countries beyond the Community but Britain, I think, has made its contribution.

QUESTION (Steve Doughty, Daily Mail):

Prime Minister, should negotiations towards a fair settlement in Bosnia fail, are you prepared ultimately to consider the lifting of the arms embargo?

PRIME MINISTER:

This is a rapidly-moving scene. I don’t like the counsel of despair that it would fail. If, at the end of the day, it fails we will have to look afresh at what the situation is. At the moment it hasn’t failed, there are negotiations that can still continue. I think that is the right way to go ahead. To judge what might happen beyond that would be to play a part in helping the negotiations fail and I for one would not wish to do that.

QUESTION (John Palmer, The Guardian):

Prime Minister, half an hour or so ago, the Danish Presidency and the President of the Commission made it clear that as a result of the discussion at this summit there would be no question of any rolling back of the Community’s social dimension let alone any existing social legislation. The Presidency said that would send a very negative signal to wage-earners in Europe. Are you reconciled now with having lost the argument for the roll-back on the Community’s social aspirations in view of your arguments on competitivity?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, we have not the lost the argument about the roll-back; that is a curious interpretation of the discussion over the last couple of days. You have been attending these summits for a long time, John, you have been attending these press conferences for a long time; when before in all the long years in which you have endured these great occasions have you seen the European Council actually address the difficulties across Europe of rising social costs leading to lack of competitiveness? The answer is you may have heard it from the British, you may occasionally have heard it from one or two other nations but that is about all. On this occasion, it went right the way round the table and the fact of the matter is if you look around the Community, Italy, France, Holland, a whole range of other countries are actually taking action on social costs for precisely the reasons we have set out and that everybody acknowledged in the debate.

Nobody is suggesting that there is no social dimension to the Community. Nobody is suggesting, except those at the extremes of argument who wish to squash sensible debate, that we would wish to end the social provision that exists in the Community. I am not saying that and nobody else is saying that. I wish people would address the matter sensibly.

What we are saying is that if we go on piling cost upon cost upon cost in the European Community, there can only be one effect and that effect is that we will become less competitive in Europe and what we will export most will not be our goods but our jobs and one of the striking aspects of the Delors presentation was firstly that rising line of unemployment over the last twenty years in the Community, secondly the declining line of competitiveness and thirdly, the fact that across the Community there is a strikingly high number of people with modest skills who are unemployed for very long periods indeed.

The point that I am making is this so that it is not misunderstood by anyone: we have to look at the social requirements of people who are not in work. Our first priority must be to get as many as we can of the 17 million European citizens without work back into jobs. That should be our first priority – I don’t want that rising to 20 million or beyond as people have forecast and if we simply look at ever-increasing social provision for those in work, we will do so at the expense of being able to help those people out of work. I don’t want to be misrepresented or misunderstood by anybody. That is the British position and I hope it is entirely clear.

QUESTION (Raymond Lloyd, The New Internationalist):

The British Government has justified its low acceptance rate of Bosnian refugees in part on the grounds that it was desirable that they stay as close as possible to their homeland. Now that these homelands are disappearing by the day, will Britain now accept as many Bosnian refugees as, say, the 10,000 Hungarian refugees given asylum in 1956 and 1957?

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t think, if you take the British record over a lot of years, not only in Bosnia but in other areas, that anybody can legitimately criticise Britain for not taking its share of people who found themselves in difficulty around the world or playing its part in helping them on the ground so I have no further change of policy to announce today.

QUESTION (Graham Leach, BBC):

Chancellor Kohl a short time ago was referring to the great moral issue at the centre of this Bosnian crisis, the fact that the Bosnian Muslims are in the weakest position of the various parties there to defend themselves and he is clearly hosting the view of deep unhappiness about, this new proposed settlement which he believes is being dictated largely by the Serbs and the Croats.

How much moral disquiet do you have that the focus of the negotiations now is merely or appears merely to be salvaging what you can for the Muslim population?

PRIME MINISTER:

My moral disquiet was actually evidenced last August when we were the first to put troops in to deal with the humanitarian effort. My moral disquiet has been there throughout the whole of this episode.

One has to understand the reality of what has happened and what the options are. With the collapse of the old Yugoslavia and indeed the collapse of the discipline exerted by the old Soviet Union, the genie of old hatreds came out of the bottle in Bosnia-Herzegovina. There was brutally a choice. We – by “We” mean not just the European Community but the rest of the world – perhaps through the United Nations could have decided to put in several hundred thousand troops – for that is what it would have meant – to hold the combatants apart, Heaven knows for how long, six months, a year, five years, ten years. We have been in Cyprus for 28 years. Nobody was prepared to do that; it would not have been a practicable military proposition without huge loss of life and there was no enthusiasm for doing it. Many great states still don’t have any troops on the ground there.

Once that was pushed to one side, there was only one effective route to take; that was to seek humanitarian aid to minimise the suffering and minimise the loss of life and I would argue that that humanitarian assistance led by the British and the French – the French have been remarkable and the Spanish have done very good work there as well – has saved an unknown number but a huge number of lives over the winter. Allied with that, we needed to seek a political settlement. It is very easy to stand back and say: “Why not do something else?” but there was no other way to deal with it other than to seek a political settlement and that is what repeatedly we have been doing.

I set out my reasons a few moments ago why I am reluctant to see the arms embargo lifted and I think they are compelling reasons – I won’ t reiterate them again today. I still believe the first prize both for Bosnia as a whole and for the rest of the world is to maintain the humanitarian aid, not destroy it with a single gesture, and to see even now whether we can achieve a satisfactory political settlement that will bring the fighting to an end.

There is a moral issue. The first moral issue is to stop the killing. We must all make our own judgement about how that is best done and I have set out my judgement quite clearly.

FOREIGN SECRETARY: [Douglas Hurd]

There has been a danger from the very beginning of this of exaggerated expectations of what people outside the former Yugoslavia could do and therefore exaggerated criticism when they don’t do it and the British Government, whether in the Security Council, in NATO or here in the Community, consistently said from the very beginning that it is not possible for outsiders to impose a just and durable peace. It has to be negotiated. The only possible way of imposing a peace would be, as the Prime Minister said, in effect to declare Bosnia and perhaps indeed Croatia as some kind of UN protectorate or colony and keep troops there for year after year. No-one is proposing that.

There have always been limitations on what we can do from outside and much of the criticism and disappointment has been from people who did not at the beginning understand those limitations. What we have done is, as the Prime Minister said, provided a political framework, provided pressures, sanctions, to encourage those concerned – and particularly the Serbs with their special responsibility – to negotiate, provide humanitarian help and keep people alive. Those are the things we have been doing and within their limits we have been doing them successfully.

Now it has moved on a stage in the sense that Lord Owen reported two nights ago to the foreign ministers that it looked as if the Serbs and Croats were considering a plan, beginning to put forward a plan. It is not for us in this Community to endorse that plan; we have not done so, it is not our plan. It is not for us to tell the Muslims that they should accept that plan; we have not done so; we made that clear to President Izetbegovic yesterday. But it is for them to consider – this is what I asked him – whether they should in fact find out, discuss and explore the possibilities. Whether they will do that or not I don’t know but it is reasonable that they should.

One could imagine a situation, as the Prime Minister said, where it all collapsed, it was too dangerous to keep British troops there, the UN effort could not continue, negotiations collapsed. That is a different situation which is why in the Washington statement we did not exclude harsher measures but to end the arms embargo now, to involve the withdrawal of the UN effort, stop the effective effort of keeping people alive, in fact arm Croats as well as Muslims and Serbs, those are the consequences of the lifting of the arms embargo now and because those consequences are fairly clear a very substantial view here was that we should not change our policy.

QUESTION (Japanese Newspaper):

What sort of message or guidelines is the European Council to take to Japan for the economic summit and G7 in a few weeks time although Japanese politics are in turmoil?

PRIME MINISTER:

There is a difficult thing! The European Council did not discuss a collective view for the G7 summit though a number of European members, France, Germany, Britain and the Commission itself of course will be there but we didn’t over the last couple of days agree a concerted line for what we might discuss in Japan.

There is a good deal of preparatory work still going on as I am sure you will know and I think it will be a few days yet before positions are taken. It was not discussed in the last day and a half.

QUESTION (Peter Snow, BBC TV):

Are you going to fully participate in the creation of the European Monetary Institute with a view perhaps to participating in the ECB at the end of it?

PRIME MINISTER:

It is agreed in the Maastricht Treaty that everyone, whether they are operating within the Exchange Rate Mechanism or not, remains within the European Monetary System so of course we contribute to the decision-making.

As to when we will return to the Exchange Rate Mechanism, we have made it clear that it isn’t imminent; it will probably be some years before we are able to do that. I have made that clear, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made that clear and that hasn’t changed at all as a result of our discussions in the last day and a half.

QUESTION (Peter Snow, BBC TV):

[Inaudible]

PRIME MINISTER:

Oh yes. If by “in that” you mean will we have a say in where it goes, what it does and in the governing of it, the answer is Yes.

QUESTION (Adam Boulton, Sky TV):

Prime Minister, I was wondering if you are now in a position to deny categorically the allegation made in the “Guardian” that the Tory Party received £7 million from the Saudi royal family before the last election. I was also wondering if Mr. Mates is still a member of your Government and is going to stay there.

PRIME MINISTER:

The answer to the first point is that the story is total fantasy from beginning to end. The Conservative Party doesn’t accept money from foreign governments or from royal families and it hasn’t done so. I don’t know what the sources of those stories were. If there is any firm evidence, I hope someone will bring it to me to see. I don’t myself deal with these matters but I am assured that the story is utterly and completely unfounded.

As far as Mr. Mates is concerned, I made the position clear this morning. Nothing has changed since then.

QUESTION (John Sergeant, BBC TV):

Do you accept, Prime Minister, that it is part of your responsibility as Conservative party leader to make sure that the party is funded from proper sources and wouldn’t that task be made much easier if it was made a condition of giving large donations to a political party that the donor’s name should be made public by the party?

PRIME MINISTER:

The Conservative Party is funded by individuals, by companies and by its own party activists. Overwhelmingly most of it comes from its own party activists. There are people who donate money to the party who require anonymity. That is the position, has always been the position and I don’t see any logical reason for changing that position.

What we have seen in the last couple of days goes back really to the last question. It is very easy for the most extraordinary stories to run around rather like the one that appeared this morning which I am assured, though I don’t have a direct responsibility for these matters, is totally untrue. I appreciate that it is always possible for quite absurd stories to be put up, run around and given a good deal of publicity but the fundamental choice is this; political parties could of course be funded by the state. That is really what the Labour Party would like because their only funding at the moment comes from trade unions many of whose members are not supporters of the Labour Party though nonetheless their money no doubt goes to the Labour Party; they have no organisation in the constituencies to speak of, they have no means of raising money in the constituencies and businesses are so hostile to their policies no-one would give them twopence halfpenny so clearly they are very much in the business of making sure there is state funding. They are very keen on state funding; they have always liked more. I don’t like the principle of having our political parties principally funded by the taxpayer compulsorily – I don’t like it – and I have to tell you that I don’t think the taxpayer would like it either.

That being so, I think a free and open democratic party should be funded in the way we have traditionally been funded. We have made it clear we don’t accept money from foreign governments, we don’t accept money from foreign royal families. In the event that any money handed to us turns out to be tainted, we will return that money but people who contribute to political parties do have a right to anonymity just as they have a right to anonymity if they contribute to charities or other things. That has been the position and I see no logical reason for changing it.

QUESTION (BBC Hungarian Service):

Could I just go back to one aspect of Stage 1 which hasn’t been touched yet, that of enlargement? As the UK is one of the supporters of enlargement, can I ask you Prime Minister whether you envisage that some of the six former socialist countries or indeed some of the Visegrad Four can be granted full membership earlier than others and if so, have you got a preferable candidate?

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t think any of them are remotely ready to come into the Community now. I wish they were because Britain is a foremost supporter of having them join the Community but the fact of the matter is they aren’t economically ready to join and it will be some time before they are. It was for that reason that we wanted to ensure that they had Association Agreements, it was for that reason that we wanted to open some of the trade barriers so they can export more easily to us and help make themselves ready to join the Community.

As to whether they could join individually or whether they have to join collectively, I think it is inevitable that they will join individually. Whatever the past thought may have been that they will all come in at the same date, the fact of the matter is that one or two of them will be ready for membership of the Community in advance of the others and I for one would not then wish to close the Community door on them. If one is ready and the others are not, I think we should let that one in and then the others as and when they are ready to join the Community but I have to say to you I think it is some years ahead.

QUESTION (Michael White, The Guardian):

I know approximately where the allegations are sourced in this morning’s “Guardian” report, Prime Minister and accept that they should be taken seriously. Therefore can I, in the light of your remarks this morning, press you a little further?

You said that yours was a democratically-funded, largely domestically-funded party but the difficulty with your position is that so much of your funding admitted and reported in the annual accounts isn’t readily accountable for so therefore can I press you a little further?

You said this morning no donations from the Saudi Government, you said this afternoon no donations from the Saudi royal family. I wonder if your knowledge of the situation goes far enough to enable you to say no donations came from either private individuals or corporations in Saudi Arabia which though it is an ally of ours is scarcely a democratic ally of ours, and if you consider that to be fanciful, I wonder if I could extend the question a moment and say what is in the public domain is that your colleague, Mr. Heseltine, was taken ill in Venice at the weekend. The DTI thought he was going to be in Germany and he was meeting with Lord McAlpine whom I think we all know is not a kissing cousin politically speaking of Mr. Heseltine. Do we know what he was doing with Lord McAlpine?

PRIME MINISTER:

I have absolutely no idea. I don’t know what sort of “Guardian” you now represent but the concept that Michael Heseltine shouldn’t spend a weekend in Venice with his wife and meet someone he has known for twenty years seems to me rather an extraordinary proposition.

If you have evidence of the sort that you printed this morning in the “Guardian” bring it to me and show it to me. I am assured that your story this morning was total and utter fantasy. If you think it wasn’t, until you are sure bring the evidence to me and see. I make that offer to you. You bring the evidence to me, I will examine it. Just let us have a little less innuendo and a little more fact. Bring the evidence to me, Michael, or don’t print it!

June 22, 1993
Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Douglas Hurd in Helsinki – 10 July 1992

Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, in Helsinki on Friday 10th July 1992.

PRIME MINISTER:

A year and a half ago at the Paris summit, all the countries present celebrated the end of communism and the re-emergence of many European democracies. We knew at that time, when that meeting took place, that a lot of ancient disputes, frozen by communism, suppression of national identity, would be likely to re-emerge. And events have shown that to be an entirely accurate judgment. Yugoslavia of course is the most vivid example but there are many others, including in the former Soviet Union. I have no doubt that other bushfires from time to time will break out as well.

The CSCE played a central role in setting human rights standards which the communist world could not ignore. It would be very good to think in the post-communist world that with the re-emergence of democracy those standards would automatically apply. But we know that is not the case so the old role of the CSCE as a human rights monitor, particularly in respect of ethnic minorities, continues and becomes more important. But it has to take on a new role as well, a role as fire-fighter.

At this meeting we have agreed a number of new roles for the CSCE, they cover the early warning of potential conflicts, a particularly important role I think; mechanisms to improve the peaceful settlement of disputes; the establishment of a High Commissioner for national minorities and of course a CSCE role in peace-keeping as well.

I would not wish to make exaggerated claims for any of those developments and I think other people would be unwise to do so as well. The CSCE is a bit like the United Nations, but it does lack the sharp edge which the Security Council gives to the UN. It can only act by consensus, its effectiveness, therefore depends upon peer pressure, upon the pressure which a majority of nations in Europe can bring upon a minority, and ultimately upon the willingness of its members to use the mechanisms that are available to it. Again, Yugoslavia provides the most vivid example.

One of the sub-plots in Yugoslavia has been whether the naval monitoring of sanctions in the Adriatic should be done by the Western European Union or jointly by NATO and the Western European Union. Agreement has been reached that it should be a joint operation. It is right for Europe to play a more prominent role in defence, but it would be dangerous and it would be foolish for any of us in Europe to try and exclude the United States and NATO from European defence operations.

As at Lisbon, as at Munich, Yugoslavia has been high on the agenda and NATO and Western European Union Foreign and Defence Ministers have been meeting in the margins to discuss what more we can do. As of today HMS Avenger is to take part in the sanctions monitoring force. Our humanitarian airlift into Sarajevo continues. We are collectively looking at the feasibility of a land corridor to Sarajevo so that food can be supplied under United Nations auspices. If, if such an operation were feasible, Britain would be prepared to consider providing air cover for it but we would not be supplying ground troops.

At the same time we must continue to support fully Lord Carrington’s efforts to bring the parties in Bosnia Herzegovina, and indeed in the other republics, closer to a political settlement in their own areas and of their own differences.

The crucial responsibility here, and I emphasise that, the crucial responsibility here is with Lord Carrington, a fact which was underlined and endorsed by the Western European Union Foreign Ministers in their discussion earlier today.

In my capacity as President of the European Community, I have had separate meetings here with Prime Minister Schluter of Denmark, the President and the Prime Minister of Finland and Prime Minister Bilt of Sweden. There will be further contacts with the Danish government over the coming weeks.

With the Prime Ministers of Finland and Sweden I set out our plans for handling the preparations for enlargement of the Community. Although the official negotiations cannot start before Maastricht ratification is complete, there is a general willingness in the Community to complete as much of the business as possible behind the scenes before the ratification.

I also have taken the opportunity of this visit here to have a meeting with Eduarde Shevardnadze of Georgia and with President Kravchuk of the Ukraine. It was my first meeting with President Kravchuk but not, of course, with Mr Shevardnadze for we were both Foreign Ministers at the same time, we were in touch during the coup in Moscow and have been so on many occasions in the past.

So both in terms of the documentation that has been signed here and the bilateral contacts that I have been able to make during my visit here, it has been a worthwhile occasion and the Foreign Secretary and I will endeavour to field any questions you may have about any of those matters.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION (Graham Leech, BBC):

If the feasibility of a land corridor is established, if the appropriate UN resolution were obtained, why would Britain not be among those countries willing to deploy ground troops to secure that corridor?

PRIME MINISTER:

Every country must make its own contribution towards the overall UN contribution. We are making a contribution in flying in humanitarian forces, we are making a contribution at sea, we are making a contribution by air. Other people have their expertise in different areas and have indicated that they would be prepared to undertake different responsibilities.

QUESTION (George Jones, Daily Telegraph):

We gather that there has been disagreement over wording of a resolution here on Yugoslavia and that it will not be agreed, does that not rather overshadow the efforts of this organisation to try and turn itself from a talking shop into a real organisation which can play a part in resolving these ethnic disputes.

PRIME MINISTER:

I have the pleasure of having one of the negotiators with me.

FOREIGN SECRETARY: (DOUGLAS HURD)

The difficulty as I understand it, this was handled by officials, was that there were some who wanted a declaration on Yugoslavia, we would have been very glad to have one, others wanted a declaration on Nogorno Karabakh, there was difficulty in agreeing the second and therefore difficulty in agreeing the first because some people linked the two. I do not think anyone expects the CSCE to be operative on Yugoslavia. The people who are operating on Yugoslavia are the Community, Lord Carrington’s peace conference as the Prime Minister just said, the UN with the UN force in Croatia, UN sanctions, and the humanitarian effort which is going ahead. So I do not think the absence of a CSCE declaration on Yugoslavia is at all harmful.

QUESTION (Charles Reiss, Evening Standard):

If we were to provide cover for a land corridor, and I realise you say it is conditional, can you at this stage say what form and what strength that might take and if not who will be doing the work and how fast do you expect it to be completed?

PRIME MINISTER:

It is too early to give a precise answer to that, we do not know whether other people would offer to provide air cover as well or whether a substantial part of the responsibility would fall to the United Kingdom. What we have done thus far is indicate our willingness in principle, providing the feasibility of the operation is established, to provide suitable air cover. Other people may offer to do so as well, As with the naval operations, other people will offer to assist the British ships that will take part. So it is difficult to say yet, Charles, precisely how much we will need to do but the agreement that we will take part is clear.

QUESTION (Newsweek):

In the debate about whether WEU or NATO or both would be involved in, this Yugoslavia operation, of course the two greatest proponents of NATO having a role are Great Britain and the United States, if those are the two major powers unwilling to commit ground forces, if that should become necessary, does that not undercut a little bit the ability and the power of the argument that NATO should be heavily involved or should take the lead?

PRIME MINISTER:

I do not think it does and for several reasons. If we actually look at the security of Europe over the past 40 years, it has been a NATO secured security, a security secured by the Alliance and essentially, it has to be said, by the sheer strength and importance of the American presence in Europe and the capacity of the Americans beyond Europe to cone to Europe had it been necessary. That remains the situation in terms of Europe in the future. It also has to be said that the time has come for the Europeans themselves proportionately to take a greater share of the defence of Europe and of activities within Europe. And I think it is therefore entirely right for the Europeans themselves to take a greater role, although under NATO auspices, in operations that take place within Europe. And that of course is precisely what is happening. Different countries in the NATO Alliance have different interests in Yugoslavia, different history, different contacts with Yugoslavia, a number of nations, some very close to Serbia, some very close to Croatia, some geographically very close, and it is really a question of horses for courses, we must determine who can do what best and share out the responsibilities equally and adequately. But the overall position and the overall NATO umbrella I think is quite clear.

What would be immensely difficult and dangerous for the whole of Europe would be if the Europeans’ responsibility to take a greater proportionate responsibility for defence led them to set up parallel proposals to NATO and to have two quite separate establishments dealing with the overall defence of Europe. That would be damaging, that would be dangerous, we have repeatedly said that. But the fact that within NATO different European nations should take on different responsibilities as a part of NATO seems to us to be the way ahead. The Foreign Secretary would like to add something to that.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

The point was illustrated by what actually happened here today. We had a meeting of WEU Ministers this morning and we approved the declaration which you have and you will see scattered through that at several points the emphasis on consultation and coordination with NATO. And then we had a meeting with NATO Ministers which I was very keen should happen but which only lasted quarter of an hour because there was no disagreement on the statement put out by NATO about the NATO part of it, and in that there is clear reference to cooperation with the naval force established by the WEU.

So that outline, that work together which was sketched in principle, in theory, in many discussions last year, some of them very difficult discussions, has had its first test in action and the way in which decisions were reached this morning is I think reasonably encouraging although of course a lot depends on the follow through.

QUESTION (Adam Boulton, Sky News):

Prime Minister, does Britain now want to see a more strongly-worded UN Resolution and were that to come to pass, would you join President Bush in not ruling out the possibility that British airplanes could be involved in a strike against Yugoslavian insurgents?

PRIME MINISTER:

We have never ruled out the possibility of further action. We have set out the difficulties of it; we have set out the concerns of it; we have indicated the areas where we would take part in maintaining sanctions at sea with British vessels; in providing air cover for any land corridor that might be opened; in flying humanitarian supplies into Sarajevo – a number of RAF planes have been in and out of Sarajevo and that will continue.

Those are the areas where we must continue and it may be that at some stage we will need a further United Nations Resolution. We will face that as and when it comes.

QUESTION (Marini Vijo, Athens Radio):

Another side of the Yugoslav problem is the issue of the previous federal Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. During the British Presidency, do you believe that a solution to this problem can be found and what kind of solution do you expect that this will be?

PRIME MINISTER:

One of the difficulties of setting out what you think the solution would be is that sometimes you might make it more difficult to actually achieve the solution. That it will be a priority for us to continue to look at the problems of Yugoslavia – and it will fall particularly to the Foreign Secretary’s remit and he will wish to add something in a moment – I think there is no doubt. We will give it very high priority but I am not sure we are able to anticipate in advance of discussions and meetings that will take place what the outcome will be but the Foreign Secretary may wish to add something to that.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I agree with that. The Lisbon Summit reached a conclusion on that and I will carry that conclusion when I go to Skopje next week and I will discuss that with President Gigarov of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and I will then report back to the Foreign Affairs Council on July 20.

QUESTION:

The WEU operation seems to lack a clear command structure. We are talking about coordinating half a dozen ships, rules of engagement, operational activities but nobody actually in charge of it. Isn’t that rather a dangerous position to be in?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

The command structure will of course be worked out between the WEU and NATO and from what I gather from the experts, including Archie Hamilton our Minister of State who was helping us this morning, they do not foresee any great difficulty about that. Of course, you are perfectly right that there will have to be a command structure.

PRIME MINISTER:

It is a problem that inevitably there is when one has collaborative ventures of this sort and if one has to develop these collaborative ventures on the hoof as occasionally proves necessary, there are bound to be technical discussions about matters like that but they can be resolved and they will be.

QUESTION (Nick Comfort, Daily Record):

In your speech this morning, Prime Minister, you said when trouble threatens new means must be found to encourage or compel recourse to peaceful settlement. Doesn’t this look like a bit of a pipe-dream, given what is happening in Yugoslavia?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, I don’t think so. The CSCE has been quiescent one might say for a long time. It is now developing a new lease of life. We have a new Europe; we have a Europe with members who previously were wholly within the communist area. There is a great deal, I think, that can be done with peer pressure.

PRIME MINISTER:

As year succeeds year, we all become more economically independent. Economic pressures will undoubtedly grow as between the majority of European nations and one transgressor within Europe. That is not invariably going to solve the problems but I think the prospects of them being able to bring much greater pressure on people to solve problems increase as time goes on. That is especially true of disputes between nations rather than disputes within a nation such as the problem we have in Yugoslavia which makes it so particularly intractable at the moment.

QUESTION:

I would like to come back to the feasibility of a land corridor to Bosnia-Hercegovina. What is your position at the moment? Is it feasible or is it not?

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t know the answer to that, as to whether it is feasible or not; that is why the feasibility study is being carried out, to find out whether it is going to be feasible.

If you actually look at the terrain, it is a very difficult proposition indeed to actually establish these corridors and to man them and provide security for the Red Cross and the United Nations troops in blue helmets that will be there so it is acutely difficult and nobody can be certain precisely how that feasibility study will turn out. I hope that it will prove to be possible.

Clearly, bringing humanitarian supplies into Sarajevo airport is important but the humanitarian supplies also have to be distributed. Quite how quickly that feasibility study can be brought to a successful conclusion, I don’t know. I can only say I hope it will prove to be possible and we will help provide the air cover if it then seems that it a) is possible and b) requires air cover.

QUESTION (Hella Pick, The Guardian):

I wanted to ask you why nothing has been done about enforcing the trade embargo against Serbia by land and along the Danube. Is that something which is envisaged? Do you think that is feasible and will Britain be involved in that?

PRIME MINISTER:

It is one of the areas of embargo that we will have to examine and it is only in the last day or so that we have actually got ships to sea to look at the trade embargo from the sea. They, of course, at the moment can only log the vessels going in and out and would need a new United Nations Resolution to stop them. Whether the existing United Nations Resolution would provide land action I am not immediately sure but the Foreign Secretary may know the answer to that.

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I don’t think so. What the existing Resolution does is set up a Sanctions Committee which monitors the results of breaches of sanctions and there has been some discussion going on as to whether there has been some arrival of embargoed goods by land in Serbia. If that were clearly evidenced to the Security Council Sanctions Committee, then the Security Council would have to consider what action to take to prevent member states from breaching the embargo but that has not been proved yet.

QUESTION (Alistair Campbell):

Prime Minister, can you sum up for us why Britain is apparently so much more cautious than some of your partners?

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t know that we are more cautious than all our partners. A number of our partners are very cautious about what actually happens and what can be achieved immediately around Sarajevo.

One only has to look at the immediate land situation around Sarajevo to see the problems that immediately exist. There you have the airport stuck in the middle of hills; you have a whole series of different groups under the control of different warlords fighting and shooting one against the other; there is no proper command control. There are a vast number of people one needs to negotiate with and if you look at the terrain, it resembles nothing so much geographically as Dien Bien Phu and one remembers the difficulties that actually occurred there.

So the advice of the military – not just in the United Kingdom but a number of other countries as well – is that it an extremely difficult military operation. It isn’t simply a question of going into the area, conducting a brief exercise and then coming out of the area. It would firstly be difficult to get in; it would secondly be difficult to be effective when they were in; and thirdly, it would be acutely difficult perhaps to get out. Those are matters that the military commanders and those who study the feasibility of these operations will have to take very much into account.

We saw those problems at an early stage and that is why we expressed ourselves as being cautious about them but we are in no sense alone about that and I think it is also worth nothing the remarks that have been made by some of the United Nations personnel, General Mackenzie amongst them, on the ground that we need to be very cautious about what happens with other land troops not to put at risk the UN humanitarian operation itself. In those circumstances, if other troops are there and people start firing at troops, it is extremely doubtful that they would draw a distinction between the other troops and the United Nations troops in blue helmets who are there for humanitarian reasons and that is a point that has to weigh very heavily with Mr. Boutros Ghali, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, very heavily with General Mackenzie, the Canadian commander of the troops there and very heavily with the rest of us.

Gestures are no adequate response to putting at risk the humanitarian operation that is there and we have to face the reality of what can be done and what the price of doing it might be and it is for those reasons amongst others, why we have set out some of the problems and to borrow the phrase of the Foreign Secretary, find ourselves in land operations at the cautious end of the spectrum.

QUESTION (Edwina Morton, The Economist):

Prime Minister, there has been a lot of talk of conflict-prevention at this Summit. Some of the bitterest remarks in the Plenary Session have been directed at the problem of the continued presence of Russian troops in the Baltic States and Moldova. Is there any plan to assist in the speedier relocation of those troops? Does Britain intend to take any role in that whatsoever?

PRIME MINISTER:

Can I just add one thing I should have said perhaps to Alistair Campbell in the last question? There is one further point:

I should have made the point – because I had in my mind the fighting troops that some people are keen to put in – that we do of course have a number of British ambulance men actually on the ground as part of UNPROFOR, I think from memory round about 300 though it may be slightly more, so we do have British personnel on the ground in and around Sarajevo contributing to ambulance operations and they will stay there.

To revert to the question that has just been asked, I think events have moved on with the peer pressure that has been created and the Russians have said they will now remove their troops from the Baltic States. What we don’t yet have is a clear indication of the time-scale with which they would do it.

I have raised that matter with colleagues in some of my discussions here today and I know the Foreign Secretary has done the same I think the right way to proceed is to continue to put pressure on Russia both to remove them and to examine whether assistance is needed to enable then to remove them – for they have their own difficulties in doing so that we must acknowledge – but I think a good step forward has been made in the acknowledgement by the Russians that these troops will be removed in full from the Baltic territories. Now that has been agreed we must act to make sure that it happens and happens within a measurably short period of time.

July 10, 1992