Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [345]
Perhaps I derived most satisfaction from the inclusion in the official record of the conference of a ‘general statement’ recording that:
Nothing in these provisions shall affect the right of member states to take such measures as they consider necessary for the purpose of controlling immigration from third countries, and to combat terrorism, crime, the traffic in drugs and illicit trading in works of art and antiques.
I had insisted on the insertion of this statement. I said that otherwise terrorists, drug dealers and criminals would exploit the provisions of the act to their own advantage and to the danger of the public. Without it I would not have agreed the Single European Act. In fact, neither the Commission, nor the Council nor the European Court would in the long run be prepared to uphold what had been agreed in this statement any more than they would honour the limits on majority voting set out in the treaty itself. But this is to anticipate.
The first fruits of what would be called the Single European Act were good for Britain. At last, I felt, we were going to get the Community back on course, concentrating on its role as a huge market, with all the opportunities that would bring to our industries. Advantages will indeed flow from that achievement well into the future, even though harmonization and standardization regularly threaten to become ends in themselves. The trouble was — and I must give full credit to those Tories who warned of this at the time — that the new powers the Commission received only seemed to whet its appetite.
Even at the time different people had very different ideas of the significance of what had been agreed at Luxemburg. M. Delors described it as a ‘compromise of progress’, regretted that his proposal for extra power for the European Assembly did not find favour, but welcomed what had been said about monetary matters since he regarded the ecu as ‘part of the European dream’. The Dutch, natural federalists, were also disappointed. But some of them lived in hope. A comment in one of the Dutch papers said that ‘the ideal of European unity would have to wait until there was a new incumbent in No. 10.’ The Germans, rightly, saw that the momentum towards their objective of European Union had been resumed. Welcoming the outcome, Chancellor Kohl told the Bundestag that the Council had ‘taken the political and institutional development of the Community a decisive step forward’.
At the time I had a different view. Answering questions in the House of Commons on the outcome of Luxemburg I said at one point:
I am constantly saying that I wish that they would talk less about European and political union. The terms are not understood in this country. In so far as they are understood over there, they mean a good deal less than some people over here think they mean.
Looking back, I was wrong to think that. But I still believe it was right to sign the Single European Act, because we wanted a Single European Market.
European affairs took second place for me during the rest of this Parliament, with just a few exceptions. The main decisions had been made and even the Commission’s search for new ‘initiatives’ had been slowed for the moment by the need to work out and implement the Single Market programme. The Community was overspending its resources, but had not yet reached the new limits of VAT revenue which had been set. Enlargement had to be carried out. There was plenty to be getting on with.
THE LONDON EUROPEAN COUNCIL
Britain took up the presidency and the European Council met in London on Friday 5 and Saturday 6 December 1986. We were