Interview on Despatch Box

Transcript of the Interview on BBC2

06 July 2001

The big story of the week was a signal European success story, with former president Milosevic of Yugoslavia being brought to trial in the Hague for war crimes thanks, in part, to sustained pressure from the EU. One of the men exerting that pressure was Chris Patten, the British commissioner in charge of the EU's aid budget. I asked him if the EU had issued Serbia with an ultimatum: hold on to Milosevic and there will be no more money.

What we said to the Serbs, what we've said to everyone in the Balkans, is we want them to join the European family, and if they sign up to the same sort of values that we have, then we're prepared to give them substantial assistance, so it wasn't as… as it were, contractual as you’re saying, but we've certainly made no secret of the fact that we will assist them, but we'll assist them to become more like the rest of the rule of law, democratic, open Europe that we live in.

The message of joining the European family's part of what enlargement is all about too - the former Communist dictatorships and others coming into it; is the European Union ready for enlargement?

I don’t think that anybody has fully appreciated the consequences of what we're doing. In every sense: the institutional, the economic, the political, the moral, if you like, but any idea that we can go on operating as we have been in the last few years is for the birds. You can't operate with 25, 26, 27, 28 countries as you've operated - with some difficulty - with 15.

How can you enlarge and bring in all these countries from the east, economically undeveloped, many years to go before they catch up with western Europe, and talk about deepening the European Union at the same time?

Well, I think there are two fundamental arguments in Europe at the moment, and if Britain wasn't so semi-detached, wasn't still going through this nervous breakdown about our position in Europe… 

[Interrupting] Even under the pro-European Blair government?

Well, yeah. I think they've got to get out there and lead a bit more on Europe, because I think there are two issues which are really, really important, and they’re both absolutely slap bang in our agenda. The first is yes, there may have to be more deepening but only more deepening where you have to do things on the European level. People I think have misunderstood what people like Chancellor Schroeder have been saying. He doesn’t want more done at the European level. He wants an absolutely clear distinction between what is done at the European level and what is done at the national level and I think there is a growing perception that, because of the creation of the single market for example, because of other things which are legitimately Europe-wide, we’ve hoovered up things into Brussels which should still be done by the member states.

Should we have a European constitution?

I don’t care what you call it but there should be either a final treaty or a constitutional structure. I would like us to have a specific definition of what we’re trying to construct in Europe because I think the notion that we can simply tell people that they’re on an exciting journey, this is an unidentified flying object… 

With no endgame.

… where we don’t know where it’s going, I don’t think that’s acceptable anymore.

You see, part of the problem that Britain faces - if I can come on to that as we end this now - is that on almost any of the agendas in Europe for further integration, whether it’s the French agenda or the German agenda, which is different, or the Belgian one, which is probably the most federalist, or even the European Commission’s one, even the most pro-European of Brits has to be dragged along to that integrationist agenda. They don’t feel that they can go that far.

But you see, I don’t think the agenda is necessarily integrationist in the way you are arguing. I think that there is a debate which we should be taking part in. We will only be able to lead that debate if people think we’re actually committed to the overall enterprise and the problem we still have is that we look, as I think Sir Bernard Ingham once said of Francis Pym, semi-detached.

You mention the Conservative Party. How can the Conservative Party choose someone with Ken Clarke’s views on Europe?

I think that the most important question is whether - whether it’s Michael Portillo or Ken Clarke who will win, it’s no surprise to know that, while I respect Michael Portillo and think he’s a very good minister, I would throw my hat in the air if Ken Clarke won. But whoever wins, is the Conservative Party yet leadable? Is the Conservative Party prepared to if not bury views… different views on Europe, at least to bury hatchets on Europe under the ground rather than in people’s shoulder blades?

But should it bury its opposition to European… to membership of the single currency?

I think it’s possible to have a positive… a generally positive approach on European… on the European Union while taking a different view on the euro. What I don’t think the Conservative Party can do is to continue to construct this sort of nightmare vision of Europe which doesn’t correspond with reality and find a way back into the middle ground. I think that it has to sound more like the real world on Europe, and whether it’s Ken Clarke or Michael Portillo, I think the Europhobes in the party have to recognise that. They destroyed John Major’s government. They made it very difficult for William Hague to put things together again. I think that getting back to the middle ground involves getting back to sanity on Europe.

Chris Patten, thanks very much.

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