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for this: as an island — and one quite unused to the more authoritarian continental systems of identity cards and policing — it was natural that we should apply the necessary controls at our ports and airports rather than internally. Again, this was an essential matter of national sovereignty, for which a government must answer to its own Parliament and people. I was prepared to go along with some modest increase in the powers of the European Assembly, which would shortly and somewhat inaccurately be described as a Parliament: but the Council of Ministers, representing governments answerable to national Parliaments, must always have the final say. Finally, I was going to resist any attempt to make treaty changes which would allow the Commission — and by majority vote the Council — to pile extra burdens on British businesses.

Right up to the beginning of the Luxemburg Council I thought that we could rely on the Germans to support us in opposing any mention of the EMS and economic and monetary union in the revisions of the treaty. Then, as now, however, there was an inherent tension between, on the one hand, the German desire to retain control over their own monetary policy to keep down inflation and, on the other, to demonstrate their European credentials by pressing further towards economic and monetary union.

I had discussed this with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and he and I were at one. A few days before the Council began Nigel Lawson set out his views with admirable clarity in a note urging me to stand firm. He recalled that Chancellor Kohl had told me the previous day that the Germans, like us, were totally opposed to any amendment to the monetary provisions of the Treaty of Rome. But he added that if the position deteriorated I would have to have some possible form of words up my sleeve. Nigel stressed that it would be essential that the language used should contain no obligation on us to join the ERM, make it clear that exchange rate policy is the responsibility of national authorities, minimize any extension of Community competence and avoid any treaty reference to EMU. He concluded that having reviewed the options he was bound to say that the better course by far looked to be not to get caught up in this whole exercise. I agreed.

THE LUXEMBURG EUROPEAN COUNCIL

I arrived in Luxemburg at 10 o’clock on Monday morning, 2 December 1985. The first session of the Council began soon afterwards. The heads of government went through the draft treaty — what would become the Single European Act — which the presidency and the Commission had drawn up. At first the discussion dragged on, with several hours being spent on a single clause. The ability of those present to argue at great length and with much repetition about matters of little interest was, as ever, astonishing. It would have been far better to have agreed on the principles and then let others deal with the details, referring back to us. But of course it would have been better if, as I had wanted originally, there had been no IGC, no new treaty and just some limited practical agreements.

I was also dismayed that the Germans shifted their ground and said that they were now prepared to include monetary matters in the treaty. I was, however, able in a side discussion with Chancellor Kohl to reduce the formula to what I considered insignificant proportions which merely described the status quo, rather than set out new goals. This added to the phrase ‘Economic and Monetary Union’ the important gloss ‘co-operation in economic and monetary policy’. The former had been the official objective, unfortunately, since October 1972: the latter, I hoped, would signal the limits the act placed on it. But this formulation delayed M. Delors’s drive to monetary union only briefly.

Perhaps even those heads of government with the most insatiable thirst for Euro-jargon had become a little bored after the first day. Certainly, Tuesday’s discussions, though long and intense, were far more productive. It was midnight when I gave my press conference on the conclusions of the Council.