Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [497]
Chancellor Kohl had managed to convey the worst possible impression by his unwillingness to have a proper treaty to settle Germany’s border with Poland. Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, whom I had first met in very different circumstances in Gdansk in November 1988, discussed his fears with me when he came to London in February 1990. I pressed the matter — though I received no real response — when I met Chancellor Kohl at the start of an Anglo-German summit in London at the end of March. I also ensured that the Poles received special status at the talks of the ‘two-plus-four’ (or as I preferred to call it the ‘four-plus-two’ — that is the Berlin Four Powers and the Two Germanies). Finally, and after much pressure, Chancellor Kohl did agree to settle Germany’s border with Poland by a special treaty signed in November 1990.
THE CSCE AND THE ‘ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY’
One minor benefit which did come out of the saga of German reunification was an enhanced role for the CSCE (Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe). I had begun by being very sceptical of the whole Helsinki process. But whatever its shortcomings at the height of the Cold War, it now provided a useful framework within which at least some of the problems arising in the new democratic Europe might be tackled. It could never take the place of NATO which must remain the basis of our defence, whatever changes in its strategy and priorities were required; though it did provide the framework for the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) arms negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact which would lead to the CFE agreement, signed at what turned out to be my final summit in Paris in November 1990. The CSCE could not give the new democracies the assurance of security which they wanted: they continued to hanker after some sort of association agreement with NATO.
But the CSCE did have three important advantages. First, it involved both the Americans and the Soviet Union in Europe’s future. Europe could never be stable without an American presence and commitment. Second, the CSCE was well suited to be the forum for any discussions of border disputes, although it would not be able to go beyond conciliation to enforcement. (Enforcement should be a matter for NATO, the UN or if necessary one or more countries under the inevitable lead of the United States.) Third, I envisaged that, building on the human rights content of the Helsinki principles, we should add the complementary principles of private property and free markets. We should use the CSCE summit in November to create the basis of a ‘great alliance for democracy [stretching] from the Atlantic to the Urals and beyond’ — as I described it in my speech to the Anglo-German Königswinter Conference in Cambridge in March.
I returned to the theme in my speech at Aspen, Colorado on Sunday 5 August. At Aspen I set out what I described as the ‘fundamental tenets of true democracy’. These were not just related to suffrage: I pointed out that Britain was free long before a majority of the population had the vote. Democracy, I contended, required the limitation of the powers of government, a market economy, private property — and the sense of personal responsibility without which no such system could be sustained. I called for the CSCE summit to agree on what I called a ‘European Magna Carta’ which would enshrine all these basic rights, including the right to maintain one’s nationhood. I urged closer association between east and west Europe. I also called for the Soviet Union to be brought into the western economic system. (These ideas were the basis of the Charter of Paris which I signed the morning after I learned that I had failed to secure the size of majority I needed in the first round of the Conservative Party leadership election.)
THE SOVIET UNION — 1989–90
Throughout my last year in office doubts were increasingly raised about the wisdom of supporting Mr Gorbachev in his reforms. But I continued to do so and have no regrets. First, I am not by instinct someone who throws