Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [333]
Now I see the period somewhat differently. For the underlying forces of federalism and bureaucracy were gaining in strength as a coalition of Socialist and Christian Democrat governments in France, Spain, Italy and Germany forced the pace of integration and a commission, equipped with extra powers, began to manipulate them to advance its own agenda. It was only in my last days in office and under my successor that the true scale of the challenge has become clear.
At this time I genuinely believed that once our budget contribution had been sorted out and we had set in place a framework of financial order, Britain would be able to play a strong positive role in the Community. I considered myself a European idealist, even if my ideals differed somewhat from those expressed with varying degrees of sincerity by other European heads of government. I told a dinner of Conservative MEPs on Thursday 8 March 1984:
I don’t want to paper over the cracks. I want to get rid of the cracks. I want to rebuild the foundations.
… I want to solve [the current problems] so that we can set about building the Community of the future. A Community striving for freer trade, breaking down the barriers in Europe and the world to the free flow of goods, capital and services; working together to make Europe the home of the industries of tomorrow; seizing the initiative on world problems, not reacting wearily to them; forging political links across the European divide and so creating a more hopeful relationship between East and West; using its influence as a vital area of stability and democracy to strengthen democracy across the world.
That is my vision.
It v/as also, incidentally, the vision on which we were to fight the European Assembly elections later that year and do remarkably well, winning 45 out of the 81 United Kingdom seats.
REFORMING COMMUNITY FINANCES:
BRITAIN’S BUDGET CONTRIBUTION
Before there was any hope of moving far towards those wider objectives I had to get more understanding and support from other Community heads of government for our position. The French presidency of the first half of 1984 seemed to offer an opportunity which must be grasped. The events in Athens the previous December — where the only thing to record was disagreement — were widely considered to have reduced Community negotiations to the level of farce.* President Mitterrand was, I knew, someone who relished a diplomatic success and would probably be prepared to sacrifice French national interests — at least marginally — in order to secure one. In January (in Paris) and in early March (at Chequers) I had talks with him. In January Geoffrey Howe and I also discussed the Community budget and other matters with the Italian Government in Rome. The following month Chancellor Kohl and I held talks at No. 10. These meetings were pleasant enough, but no clear undertakings were given. The Foreign Affairs Councils — that is the meetings of Community Foreign ministers — in February and March advanced matters no further. But I was reasonably optimistic that the European Council in Brussels, which I was to attend on Monday 19 and Tuesday 20 March, might give us the lasting, satisfactory solution on the British budget contribution which I wanted.
By the time I reached Brussels three possible ‘solutions’ to the budget question had been advanced — one by the Commission President, Gaston Thorn, one by the Germans, and one by the French presidency. None was satisfactory to us, but all of them acknowledged the principle behind our ‘threshold’ proposal at