................................................................................ ON THE RECORD MICHAEL PORTILLO INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 18.2.96
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Emma Udwin reporting. Mr Portillo, the Maastricht Treaty signed us up, working towards a common defence policy for Europe. Are we now backing away from that? MICHAEL PORTILLO: Working towards are not words used in the Maastricht Treaty actually. HUMPHRYS: But that's the essence of it. PORTILLO: Well, we signed a general declaration about foreign and security policy, and part of that says that it will include defence policy. There was nothing very specific in those words at Maastricht, because I think everybody understood that the day for a proper discussion about all of that would be the next inter-governmental conference, the one that is beginning in 1996. But I wonder if I can just take a step back, so as to make the position clear from our point of view. The European Union plays a vital part in the security of Europe; the development of the bonds between the nations, trade and cultural and economic are vital for security. When it
comes to defence, for the last nearly fifty years NATO has been the really important body, and that includes the Americans and the Canadians. Now we think that Europeans should be able to demonstrate to the world and to America that they're able to do more for themselves. Whatever arrangements we come to they mustn't be in conflict or competition with NATO, the mustn't undermine NATO, and the problem with lodging it too closely with the European Union, I think, is that because the European Union has institutions, the European Court, the European Commission, the European Parliament whose decisions for the future we cannot know, we can't know either then whether the future decisions of the European Union would be compatible with NATO. That in essence is the problem I think. HUMPHRYS: But the Maastricht Treaty was quite clear about talking of the WEU as the defence component of the European Union, to strengthen its role in that direction for the long-term defence, for a long-
term defence policy - common defence policy in Europe. Quite clear about that, the role of the WEU. PORTILLO: But quite clear about something else as well. The WEU has two different functions, that it is the defence arm of the European Union and it is the European side of NATO. Now we thoroughly support the WEU. Its membership, as your map showed, includes countries like Norway and Turkey who are not members of the European Union, but obviously are very important to NATO, and they're on the flanks of you know - the old Soviet Union - that's why they are in NATO. So the WEU which has a treaty going back forty years, seems to us the right body, both for the European side of NATO and for helping the European Union to be able to pass on its feelings about defence and security to a body which actuallly controls military forces. HUMPHRYS: Helping. You use that word. PORTILLO: Yes. HUMPHRYS: What you then do not want quite clearly from what you've said there, is you don't want the WEU to be an integral part of the European Union defence policy. PORTILLO: That's right. You've put your finger entirely upon it. We think there should be a very intimate relationship between the European Union and the body which has this defence capability, the western European Union, that they should meet very close to each other, that their ministers should exchange dialogue, that there should be a possibility of passing feelings from the European Union to the WEU, but we don't think that we should merge the two, because we feel that that would begin to draw into question the future in the commitment to NATO. HUMPHRYS: But the other nine main members - full members do. They want - they use the word absorbtion, they want it absorbed, they want it integrated. PORTILLO: And there is the very matter for discussion at the inter-governmental conference on this issue. HUMPHRYS: How are you going to resolve it? PORTILLO: Well, first of all we have a White Paper coming out quite shortly as you know, which will set out our positions and our arguments, and thereafter the Prime Minister obviously will want to take this discussion forward in the inter-governmental conference, an inter-governmental conference which is obviously going to cover a very very wide range of issues, and that's really for him to decide how to play that hand. HUMPHRYS: But play that hand he will. In other words you, we, Britain will stand out against the other nine in defiance of something that they, all of them, want. PORTILLO: Well, the bit that was missing from your map of course was America, and we're all agreed - including Mr Ruehe and Mr Millon who are on your film - we're all agreed that NATO is the vital component for the future of European security. We can see how effective NATO is today in Bosnia, and how much more effective than everything that went before. So your map really ought to include the United States as well, and the United States will also have its feelings about the development of the European expression of its defence identity, that's the jargon. I'm making sure that that is compatible with NATO, because the last thing we want to do is to make the United States feel as though we're determined to go it on our own and cold-shoulder the United States. HUMPHRYS: We, and everybody else in Europe, there's no dispute about that. Everybody recognises the importance of NATO, but you talk about what the Americans want. Well, what the Americans want is bringing the Western European Union into Europe to strengthen the institution. That's terribly important from their point of view. Mr Holbrooke's made that clear. PORTILLO: I think what Dick Holbrooke has said quite rightly, is that the Europeans must be capable of more activity and more action themselves. HUMPHRYS: And at the moment they're not - they're not fit for the task as he put it. PORTILLO: I entirely agree that we must be able to do more, and that's why in the six months that we hold the presidency of the Western European Union, including, as I say Turkey and Norway, we are putting all our emphasis on building up its capabilities. In other words not worrying so much about institutional change, but concerning ourselves about what European soldiers and sailors and airmen can actually do together, and I think the conclusion we all know is that we can do a bit more, but we would not have been capable of mounting for instance, the Bosnian NATO operation without the assistance of the Americans, and with European countries presently reducing their defence expenditure of course, some of the important capabilities for which we look to the United States are not in the short-term going to be supplied by European countries. HUMPHRYS: That's as may be and you talk about capabilities and so do many other people but they also talk and the Americans - Mr Holbrooke talks - about institutional change specificially. PORTILLO: Well, institutional change is on the agenda at the Inter-Governmental Conference but what I think really matters - and I put this point to Dick Holbrooke directly - is not what bodies people meet in but actually what we're able to do. HUMPHRYS: But he doesn't accept that point. PORTILLO: Well I'm not sure that he doesn't. HUMPHRYS: Well. PORTILLO: I think the thing that really matters to him is indeed what Europeans are able to do. But I would like to put a different perspective - let me just put a different perspective. You like to talk about Britain being isolated and so on. I think the argument has strongly come our way over the last six months or so. I mean, six months ago you would not have had the French saying in the unequivocal manner that they now are that they believe that NATO is essential for the-that it is the essential institution for the defence of Europe. And I very much welcome France's coming nearer to us and of course it's France that since 1960 has not been part of the integrated military structure of NATO and it has been in the isolated position. So our concern that NATO should be reinforced has been confirmed by others and that's very, very good and also in the last six months we have had the most intimate working together with French forces in Bosnia and indeed the Dutch and the Germans and with many others. But that also has helped to build the relationship and I think put the emphasis upon what we can actually do together rather than the fora in which we meet. HUMPHRYS: Well perhaps up to a point .... all of that may be important, it doesn't avoid the fact that the issue that-what Mr Holbrooke has said that the institutions, the institutions of Europe are not fit for the task and that's something you've got to deal with. It's not just the other nine members, the other nine main members, it's America as well. PORTILLO: Well we will receive, in due course, perhaps a considered view from the United States. My impression- HUMPHRYS: Well I think Mr Holbrooke thought he'd- PORTILLO: No. HUMPHRYS: Fairly considered about... PORTILLO: My impression is that the United States would not be relaxed about the European Union becoming the defence organ of NATO in Europe. That is my impression. But anyway it's for the United States... HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but you don't really- PORTILLO: It's for the United States- HUMPHRYS: -crystal ball when you can read the Holbrooke book do you? PORTILLO: But what I want is to make sure that in an organisation that's had a treaty going back forty years, which operates at the level of sovereign nations working together - that is the WEU - that we make that able to do some of the simpler military tasks. And here of course we come to the crux of the matter that within NATO and within the WEU we're talking exclusively about sovereign nation states, co-operating together closely, signing a treaty, giving each other pledges of support, but always remaining sovereign in their decision making. In the European Union, in due course, one couldn't say what role there would be for the Court, for the Parliament, or the Commission, for the super-national bodies, and that is the point of concern. That these, in defence matters, as you heard Volker Ruehe saying, the decision about the foreign troops must always be one that national Parliaments are responsible for. HUMPHRYS: This is the point isn't it? You don't like the European institutions. You said - and I quote you: "We need to get away from this institutional fixation." That is a view that is increasingly rejected in Europe and by the United States. This is where your problem comes in doesn't it? PORTILLO: It is not that the British Government doesn't like institutions. HUMPHRYS: Well you've said so. PORTILLO: No. It is- HUMPHRYS: "Need to get away from the fixation" PORTILLO: From the fixation which is a different matter. We need to get away from the fixation and we don't think that in the Defence field, super-national bodies have a part to play in deciding where troops should be deployed. Now those are the essences of the discussion. HUMPHRYS: The essence really is your worry, your dislike for Federalism, isn't it? Your dislike of Federalism. Your underlying worry is Europe might get its act together in this regard and then we really would be moving towards a common Defence policy, and you don't want that because that might lead to a common Defence. PORTILLO: What I want is the most intimate co-operation between all the nations who are in NATO, all the nations within the European Union, all the nations that may enter NATO in the future, in order to give us security and to give us Defence. But, as Volker Ruehe said on your film, the Minister from Germany: in the end the decision to deploy troops must be one for national government, for national parliaments. HUMPHRYS: Never been disputed. PORTILLO: Well I wouldn't say it's never been disputed, it's not disputed at the moment by Volker Ruehe. Now the reassurance that I think it is very difficult to give to the people of Britain is that if the WEU and the EU were to merge that that possibility of determining for yourself how your troops were deployed would last for all time. HUMPHRYS: So the message of all this is there's going to be an almightly bust up over this at the IGC, the Inter-Governmental Conference. PORTILLO: I don't think so...probable. There is so much that we have in common, and as I say, over the last six months it's been clear that France wants to get closer to NATO; we've had Volker Ruehe making the statement that he's made on your programme that I keep talking about, which I think is so welcome. And, at the practical level, which is what matters so much, we have been doing marvellous work dealing with really superb soldiers from other countries in Europe, working shoulder to shoulder with them and showing that we can do things together. Now, our whole theme is: let's go on at the practical level, seeing how we can work better together and let's not become as you say, fixated with institutional changes. HUMPHRYS: Michael Portillo thank you very much. PORTILLO: Thanks very much.