The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Spain

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with the Spanish Prime Minister – 27 November 1996

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with the Spanish Prime Minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, in London on Wednesday 27th November 1996.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I would like first to say what a pleasure it is to welcome the Prime Minister here to Downing Street today. He is in no sense a stranger either to me or Downing Street, we have met on a number of occasions when he was Leader of the Opposition and I have been delighted to welcome him here today as Prime Minister.

    Over the last two and a half hours we have had the opportunity of covering a very wide range of subjects. We have had a complete run through the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference. On many areas we have a firm agreement, on some areas we are close to agreement, on some areas we still have a difference of view. I was particularly able to welcome the Prime Minister’s decision on full participation in NATO. We also spent some time discussing a range of international matters. Spain has played a distinguished role, for example, in Bosnia and we were able to discuss the prospects there. We discussed of course NATO, we look forward to the OSCE Conference and a range of other matters.

    We also discussed a range of matters of bilateral interest. Spain has developed remarkably in recent years and is becoming a growing industrial power within Europe. Our bilateral, industrial, commercial and trading relationship is excellent and is improving. We discussed all this and ways to improve it further.

    We also discussed the on-going discussions that have been carrying on for some time over Gibraltar in the Brussels Process. These will be carried forward with an Officials Meeting within the next few days and the next meeting between our Foreign Ministers in late January. We also discussed other matters of mutual bilateral interest – fishing and related matters.

    All in all it was an extremely friendly discussion, a very worthwhile discussion and I am delighted the Prime Minister was able to join me. We have agreed on greater bilateral coordination of our position in European matters and will both be keen to take that forward.

    So I am delighted both with the nature of the meeting, the conduct of the meeting and the extent of agreement within the meeting and I look forward to seeing the Prime Minister again shortly.

    SPANISH PRIME MINISTER:

    Thank you. I am delighted to be here and I can simply say that I agree with the statement of the Prime Minister. This meeting has been held in a spirit of confidence and trust and both of us have agreed that what we want for our countries is to increase the trust-based relationship between the two countries and further it and we have worked very hard towards that goal today to establish this enhanced framework of cooperation and friendship between our two countries which has been very useful to discuss many issues.

    There is wide agreement on many of those issues and it is also a useful framework in order to discuss those issues where some [indistinct] to come about.

    QUESTION:

    [Not interpreted].

    SPANISH PRIME MINISTER:

    There are lots of people in the world who speak English, many people speak English. I am sure Spanish fishermen too can learn to speak English. But that is all [indistinct].

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, are you close to agreement on quota-hopping?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No we are not. We were not discussing the details of that, that is a matter for the Intergovernmental Conference and we have set out the protocol and that will be discussed at the IGC.

    QUESTION:

    [Not interpreted].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    On the position between the European Union and Spain and Cuba, we wholeheartedly support the Spanish position. I don’t think the way the Cubans treated the Spanish Ambassador was a tolerable way to behave. We agree with the common position that the Spanish are seeking and we will give them our support.

    SPANISH PRIME MINISTER:

    [Inaudible].

    QUESTION:

    From the Spanish perspective, it is difficult to understand why quota hopping is not part of the Common Market. I noticed that the Spanish government said the other day in London that there were politics behind the attitude of Britain towards fishing, will you elaborate upon that?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    It is a dreadful proposition that politics should be behind governments attitudes, I agree that is disgraceful. I cannot imagine what will happen to international affairs if politics intervene, they will have to start from the beginning again and I just don’t know what we will do. We are concerned about the impact upon the fishing villages of the catch that traditionally went into those fishing villages. For every fish at sea, for every boat at sea, there are a large number of people on shore whose livelihoods depend upon the catch being landed on shore. And of course if the catch is taken and then landed elsewhere there is a great deal of difficulty in that respect, so that is one of the problems that has arisen and these are problems that we will address in the Intergovernmental Conference.

    QUESTION:

    On the same issue of quota hopping, do you think it would be helpful of having a measure which ensured that quota hopping vessels had English speaking crews to enhance understanding?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think there is rather more, that is an element, but there is a series of things I think that Tony Baldry said and we set out our position in a protocol that we have tabled for the IOC.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible].

    SPANISH PRIME MINISTER:

    [Inaudible].

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible].

    SPANISH PRIME MINISTER:

    [Inaudible].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t really have much to add to that. We have a mature relationship with Spain. When we meet we don’t only discuss the things upon which we are in agreement, we discuss the things upon which we are not yet in agreement, and it was in that spirit that we discussed Gibraltar and quota hopping.

    QUESTION:

    [Indistinct] full agreement for the IGC unless you can get agreement on the issue of quota hopping?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    You are assuming we are not going to get an agreement on quota hopping. We have made it clear that we will negotiate very toughly at the IGC on the issues we have set forward. We have certainly made it clear we expect to have agreement on some issues before there is general agreement. Don’t invite me to stir the pot even more. We will fight very hard for our agreement and I expect that we will be able to reach a conclusion.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible].

    SPANISH PRIME MINISTER:

    [Inaudible].

  • Mr Major’s Joint Press Conference with Sr Felipe Gonzalez – 1 December 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint press conference with the Spanish Prime Minister, Sr Felipe Gonzalez, held in Madrid on Tuesday 1st December 1992.

    SR GONZALEZ:

    We welcome Prime Minister, Mr John Major, as President of the European Community and as you might imagine we have spent the past couple of hours working very hard preparing for the Edinburgh summit. I am sure that you will be very interested in listening to the Prime Minister, I would like to welcome him to Spain very warmly and give him the floor.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Felipe, thank you very much indeed, it is very nice to be back in Spain again and to have had the opportunity of discussing with you this morning the agenda that we have in front of us at Edinburgh and other matters as well.

    Let me say just a brief word or two about Edinburgh. We have in front of us a very important but a very complex European summit, there are perhaps more issues of importance to be decided at Edinburgh than we have had at any summit for a very long time in the Community. They include, of course, a solution to the particular problems faced in Denmark so that the Maastricht treaty can be ratified right the way across Europe, we have the difficult problem to be solved on future financing where there are very sharp differences across the Community and where we are seeking to find a compromise that is fair and acceptable to everyone, we have problems to discuss on the questions of enlargement, subsidiarity. There will be a number of important foreign policy issues – Yugoslavia of course, the former Soviet Union very probably and other issues as well.

    I think this morning in my conversations with the Prime Minister we have managed to identify many areas of difficulty, we have managed to look at the details of many of the things that will come forward in Edinburgh and I think it has been a very useful and a very constructive meeting.

    I am just coming up to half way in my tour of European Heads of Government to discuss Edinburgh and I will have a clearer idea of where agreements can be reached and compromises arranged at the end of this tour. Thus far I can simply say that many of the areas of agreement are becoming clearer, the areas of difficulty are beginning also to become sharper and I think to that extent we have had an extremely useful discussion again this morning and am most grateful to the Prime Minister for his hospitality.

    QUESTION:

    There has been a lot of criticism of the British Presidency, most recently over your compromise on the budget, has Mr Gonzalez been able to say that it will be inevitable to increase that budget, particularly on the cohesion fund, if you are to have an agreement at Edinburgh?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    The compromise we put forward, we have been criticised by some on the financial compromise for it being not generous enough and we have been criticised by others for it being too generous. What we have had to do in the proposals we have put forward is try and identify the areas of importance – the cohesion fund, the structural fund, external spending where there is a will in the Community to help in Eastern Europe and elsewhere – and identify the areas of priority and that is what we have sought to do.

    And I think when people actually examine the detailed figures they get a rather different impression from that than they may have received earlier. As for the criticism you referred to, some of that preceded the tabling of the financial compromise and in some instances apologies, very generous apologies, have subsequently been offered and accepted by us.

    QUESTION:

    Could you tell us what your response has been to the request to reduce the cohesion fund included in the Delors II package?

    SR GONZALEZ:

    There has been a proposal by the Presidency which we consider insufficient from the budgetary point of view on the whole. We consider that the proposal made by the Commission is insufficient itself from some points of view, for example the point of view of the own resources, so it is an open discussion, we will see whether we can reach a compromise which is what we want for Edinburgh, but a compromise which will solve the Community’s problems.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    If I may add to what the Prime Minister said, there is of course no cohesion fund at the moment, we agreed in the Maastricht negotiations that there would be a cohesion fund and we have put forward proposals as to how that cohesion fund might build up in resources between now and 1999. And again there are some proposals that are more generous than the compromise, there are others from other member states of the Community that are sharply less generous than the Presidency compromise. So it is to reach agreements upon that that I am having my discussions today with the Prime Minister and with other Heads of Government.

    QUESTION:

    What can we expect from Edinburgh with regard to the stability of the European Monetary System and when will the pound return to the system?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    We have asked officials in the Community to prepare an examination of the European Monetary System and that work is continuing. It is very complex, it is very detailed and it will go on for some time after the Edinburgh summit so I do not expect conclusions on that matter at Edinburgh and neither do I think sterling will return to the system in the immediate future.

    QUESTION:

    Two questions, the first for Mr Major. What are the economic consequences for the economies of the Twelve and for the markets of a possible failure of the Edinburgh summit; and Mr Gonzalez, with regard to the cohesion fund and structural funds, do you think that considering the small economic growth which Europe will undergo this year, next year and possibly in 1994 you will be willing to accept a small reduction in the Delors package?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I do not anticipate us failing to agree at Edinburgh, I very much hope that we will agree at Edinburgh and I have found no contrary feeling amongst any of the Heads of Government I have met. All of us recognise the importance at Edinburgh of reaching agreement on a whole series of complex matters and I have not a shred of doubt in my mind that every Head of Government will go there determined, if it is at all possible, to reach an agreement. And the reason for that of course was implicit in your question, I think it would be damaging for the Community itself as a whole and for the economies of the Community if we were unable to reach agreement. For that reason I am optimistic that we will be able to do so.

    SR GONZALEZ:

    I certainly will make great efforts to reach an agreement but you have asked me about a specific matter. The Commission’s proposal from the point of view of the expenses seems to me very low and from the point of view of the resources or of the contributions to the resources I think it is clearly insufficient, that is the position after a technical analysis of what would be a fair solution for our country. On that basis we will of course make every effort so that Edinburgh will be a summit which will provide results, we obviously need good results, we need to clear certain political uncertainties in the Community because those uncertainties are affecting our economic situation and the Prime Minister was telling me that this will also be a subject of discussion at the Edinburgh summit.

    QUESTION:

    I would like you to explain the situation of the two Spanish entrepreneurs who were given a pardon yesterday in Guinea?

    SR GONZALEZ:

    All I can say is that I feel it is a reasonable response, I do not think they are legally responsible for the crimes with which they have been charged. I think we must be very careful in dealing with investment efforts in a country of this nature, I do not think they have committed any errors, let alone any crimes, and so I am satisfied that they have been pardoned.

  • Mr Major’s Joint Doorstep Interview with the Spanish Prime Minister – 7 May 1991

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s joint doorstep interview with the Spanish Prime Minister, Mr Felipe Gonzales, held in London on Tuesday 7th May 1991.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Thank you for being here this evening. We have had so far around an hour and a half’s discussion, very friendly, very constructive, there are many matters that we have in common that we wish particularly to deal with. We have spent the time thus far discussing mainstream European matters, the inter-governmental conference on economic and monetary union and political union have dominated the discussions we have had thus far.

    Later on this evening we will be continuing discussions when we will have a wide variety of other matters outside mainstream European matters. No doubt at that stage we will be discussing the problems of Gibraltar and also of course the Soviet Union, Iraq and many other matters as well. But this far we have concentrated on the principal matters of concern within the European Community.
    I will say no more for the moment but invite the Prime Minister to say whatever he would wish to say.

    MR GONZALES:

    [Not interpreted].

    QUESTION:

    [Not interpreted].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Could I just add to that? We did discuss cohesion in its widest aspects, that is both cohesion in the sense of the structural funds and cohesion also in the series of both inputs and outtakes from the general Community budget, so we looked at it in a very wide sense indeed.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, can you tell us anything more about Mr Gorbachev’s possible attendance at the G7 summit?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    That has not been a subject of discussion with the Prime Minister this afternoon, that is a matter that we will have to discuss with our G7 partners, but I am in no position to make any statement about that yet.

    QUESTION:

    Has Mr Gonzales given you any further support for your hard Ecu plan?

    PRIME MINISTER:
    We have discussed economic and monetary union at some length and there are very considerable similarities between the British position and the Spanish position on how to move ahead from where we are now. The British have proposed the Hard Ecu as you know and the Spanish have put forward their own proposal which is similar and which would involve hardening the basket Ecu. So we have neither of us given specific support to the other’s proposal but we are very close together on the principles of how we must go ahead on economic and monetary union.

    QUESTION:

    [Not interpreted].

    MR GONZALES:

    [Not interpreted].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I agree.

    QUESTION:

    What reassurances can you give Gibraltarians that nothing will be done against their wishes on sovereignty or on the airport?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think I could only echo what the Prime Minister said a moment or so ago, I think it would not be prudent for either of us to make comments on Gibraltar, either comments we have traditionally made or comments that may follow our discussions until we have had those discussions. That was the position the Prime Minister took a moment ago. I believe it was the correct one and I must answer in the same way.