Blair to clinch deal on constitution before quitting

Tony Blair wants to bid farewell to the European Union with a deal on a slimmed down constitution. In an interview, Blair says that the legacy of his premiership is that Britain is less isolated in the EU. Read the full interview

Prime minister, you said recently that a British prime minister faces a difficult dilemma between isolation in Brussels, or treason at home. Do you think you struck the right balance?

Yes I do, because I think that when I came to office in 1997 we still had the beef war, if you remember, Britain was completely isolated in Europe, the greatest diplomacy was the opt-out from the social chapter. Since then we have been really a major player in all the debates, we have launched the European defence policy, the Lisbon Agenda, the agenda at Hampton Court on energy policy was very much part of the British initiative, we played an important part in President Barroso becoming the president of the Commission, we settled the budget deal which was very, very difficult, and I was certainly accused of all sorts of betrayal of British interests, although I believe in fact it was absolutely the right thing for Britain as well as for Europe. And I think that although some people would have liked us to have been part of the single currency, I think in the end people understood the reasons certainly for my belief that we shouldn’t were economic rather than political. And of course then you have got enlargement, which was a huge British priority, where we have now got a Europe of 27. So I have throughout my time as prime minister been accused of selling out my country, I believe that it is however completely the opposite, I think it is in the British national interest for Britain to be a key player in Europe and we have two great alliances - Europe and America - and we should keep both strong.

The media and public perception of Europe seems to be as hostile or as it was when you came to office. Is that a failure, a political failure on your part to transform the media and political landscape?

The sceptic opinion here is still there, but we have behaved as a government completely differently, and therefore as a country. And my sense of this, because after all the Conservative Party has fought two elections effectively with a very strong Eurosceptic platform and lost both, and my belief about this is that if you ask or opinion poll the public about Europe, they will give you a sceptic answer, but if you go beneath that and really ask whether people want to be separated out from Europe, they don’t. And that is why yes it is true if you look at the published opinion polls the state of British opinion would seem to be the same as it was in 1997, I actually think it is not, it isn’t the same, that people do understand the importance of Britain being in Europe to a greater degree today. But in one sense I can’t affect, I mean public opinion is public opinion and it is influenced usually by the media, as you know, but for Britain as a country, and this government as a government, those days of isolation are over. I mean when was the last time we went into a European summit with everyone saying Britain is on its own?

QUESTION

Is this because Britain moved closer to the centre of the EU or because the EU changed and acquired new members which started to have interests closer to the UK than to the former EU core?

Both. I think the truthful answer is both, I think in other words there is a changing mood in Europe which is partly about enlarged members, but it is also partly that I think Europe itself wants to focus on you know practical policy, the economy, energy, the environment, crime, immigration. I think there is a more practical sense in Europe actually which isn’t just about the new members, but also because Britain, look, how much support do we get from any section of the media for European defence, or for the budget deal, or for you know the Nice Treaty, or for the Amsterdam Treaty? You know we have had to fight this all the way through, so I think the truthful answer is Europe has changed, but so has Britain changed its position on Europe.

You said ‘public opinion is public opinion and I can’t do anything about it’, but it is part of the job of prime minister to try to change the public mood on a very important subject about which you have said you are passionate. You seem to be a bit disillusioned on that point…

No I am not disillusioned at all. I think that British opinion as I say, underneath, I mean the surface polls are the surface polls and you can go and read them, but I think underneath I have always thought that British people expect their government to play a sensible role in Europe. And it is interesting that the Conservative Party, you know every time they have fought on Europe, if you read the polls you should think they would do well, but they haven’t. So what I would say to you is I think underneath the surface in fact people in Britain do understand that is sensible. But all I am saying is in the end for me I am responsible, you know in the end the best thing I can do is to put Britain in the right place in Europe, and that is basically what we have done. I also think that the new Commission and President Barroso makes a big difference. You know he will come and get interviewed in this country today and it is kind of a normal thing, whereas again you will remember when the president of the European Commission used to speak on British politics everyone would be chewing their finger nails. So he I think has given a sense of momentum and credibility to the Commission that is important. And I also think the other thing is that as I say European opinion, I don’t think European opinion is sceptical about Europe, but I think it does want practical results out of Europe, you know it is far more interested in practical policies that deal with the issues they care about - insecurity, globalisation, the environment. These are the things I think today that people want Europe to concentrate on.

You mentioned the main challenges that Europe has to face - energy, crime, immigration, security - those are precisely the fields where there is unanimity voting. The constitution would give the possibility to overcome the unanimity rule. But you are opposing it now… There is a contradiction between challenges and the lack of tools to achieve practical results…

But actually of course we support qualified majority voting in many of the economic and social issues. And you don’t need you know necessarily to change the rules in order to get action on these other issues. In fact on immigration for example I think Europe and energy policy and on the environment Europe is taking action without necessarily altering the legal base. But you know where there is a practical benefit we do support qualified majority voting. And actually our worry about the constitutional treaty was more to do with other issues. Now we have a particular position obviously as an island nation in relation to borders and so on, but there are plenty of things that we are doing, like the European Arrest Warrant for example where again I fought a battle against opinion here to agree it.

Which extension of majority voting do you accept?

Well I mean at the moment, as I said, we had a press conference, myself and Prime Minister Balkenende the other day, and I said then you know I don’t want to negotiate in public what a simplified treaty, an amending treaty would look like. But essentially I think we have to take a step back and not have a constitutional treaty as such, but have a treaty that improves the rules of Europe. Now where exactly that debate goes, that is a matter for discussing with other colleagues, but the question is, is it something that changes the basic constitutional relationship between Europe and the member states?

Your Polish colleague has suggested that he would count on support from your side for a change in the voting system and for the reduction in the field of qualified majority voting. Would Great Britain support Poland to change the voting system?

Well look all of these issues we have to discuss, although we went through a very complicated process to get to the voting system. That is different from the QMV issue. But rather than as I say negotiate in public, I think the basic principle for me is we have got to accept you won’t get agreement, I don’t think, to a new constitutional treaty, what you can do is get agreement to a conventional amending treaty, a simplified treaty, that gives you the rules that make Europe more effective. Now exactly how that leaves you on voting and all the rest of it, that is a matter to discuss.

Before you said that the constitutional treaty was good for the United Kingdom...

Yes, well I mean I signed up to the constitutional treaty, so obviously I believe we could have lived with it, but we have to also live with the new reality.

What is that new reality?

France and Holland voted No, which is a pretty big reality. And the fact is then, they having voted No, other countries like ours who would have then had to have a referendum, it creates a different situation. I mean you know I signed up to the constitutional treaty, so I personally have never had a problem with it, but I think the reality is today that if you went back and tried to get the constitutional treaty, or indeed a constitutional treaty through, I think you will just find the same problems. Now I think the most important thing is that we work out what it is we need to make Europe work more effectively so that it can concentrate on the issues that our people want us to concentrate on. Because I said you know in my speech to the European Parliament, I think after the referendums in France and Holland, you know remember we had two years of debating this in this constitutional convention on the basis it would bring Europe closer to the citizens, and it didn’t, so we should learn from that really and we have got to listen to people. Now obviously in Spain for example it is not a problem, and you had a referendum and you got it through, but I think you would be quite brave to predict, following the French and Dutch No, that the rest of us would all get a Yes.

If you got the kind of amending simplifying treaty you are talking about, would that require a referendum in the UK?

No. If it is not a constitutional treaty so that it alters the basic relationship between Europe and the member states, then there isn’t the same case for a referendum, that is clear. We didn’t have one on Amsterdam for example. And I think most other countries are in the same position, unless they are obliged by their own constitutions to have a referendum on even an amending treaty. The difference is a conventional treaty, and we haven’t had referendums on those in the UK, and the reason in the end I agreed to a referendum was because I could see the case that if it was truly a constitutional treaty altering the relationship in a fundamental way between the UK and member states and the European Union, then there was a case for it.

… alter the relations between other member states and the Community. You have said in your White Paper back in September that the treaty makes it plain that the European Union is not and will not be a federal superstate, rather it establishes clearly where the EU can and cannot act…

I agree totally.

…where is the difference between the constitutional treaty and an amending treaty?

I think once you decide that you are going to as it were have one consolidating treaty and then a whole series of things, albeit things that in some ways you can say have their traditions in existing European treaty or in European traditions of one sort or another, I think you are into a different, you know you are arguing about something different for people. I mean I made exactly these arguments myself two or three years ago, but in the end I am afraid you have got to accept people believed that what they were getting was something fundamentally different from a normal conventional treaty, and you know one of the things in politics is you have got to listen to public opinion and I think here, but also elsewhere in Europe, people said well if it is something that you are describing as a constitution for Europe in that sense for the first time, in that way, that is something significantly different for us.

Are you not afraid that the Conservatives will lobby for a referendum and give you and your probable successor, Gordon Brown, who is not known for his strong passion for Europe, a hard time?

Well the truth is the Conservative Party will probably argue for a referendum if you move a comma in an existing treaty, but that is because they want a referendum because they don’t want Europe to make progress and they want to block that progress, and that is why I think they asked for a referendum on Amsterdam, and certainly on Nice, although of course they didn’t give one when they were in government on Maastricht, which has got far greater implications. And so you know yes, and there will be elements of the media that will be in the same position. But the alternative is that we end up in a situation where we don’t resolve this issue and then move on. Look I have got exactly the same, when I did the budget deal, and you may not recall this because I know the budget deal was a very difficult thing for all the member states, and people told me I couldn’t do it. And I got hammered here for selling out Britain, when actually it was a good deal for Britain and it was a good deal for Europe, but you just expect that. But the point is, imagine if we hadn’t done that budget deal in December 2005, we would still be arguing today about the European financial perspective. And so at some point we have got to be prepared, as we have done several times, European defence, no-one argues about European defence today, at the time it was going to be the abolition of NATO - it is not what has happened. So you have got to make the argument and it is important we do it, and particularly when we will have a new French president, you have got a new German chancellor, for Britain it is very important, this is a big moment to move Europe on, to get Europe acting in these areas that I describe in an effective way.

Prime minister, was it the right decision to call a referendum on the constitution since to me you don’t seem convinced that this constitution really alters the nature of the relationship between the member states and the Union. It was a constitution more at the symbolic level - the flag, the anthem - than in the substance….the primacy of EU law over national law, for instance, exists since the 1960s, it was not invented by the constitution. You didn’t have to call a referendum, you did it and that put other leaders under pressure to organise a referenda with the results that we know. Do you regret that?

No, because there wasn’t really an alternative. Because you have to deal in politics with what people perceive and if you say we are getting rid of all the previous treaties, we are now having a treaty that is a constitution, people will look at it differently, and they did.

…although it is not that different from other treaties?

Well you know I could argue that, and you could argue that, but if you are in practical politics you have got to pay some attention to where public perception is as well. And you know the point about the primacy of European Union law is a point I made myself many times, but you have got to accept the fact that people, and it wasn’t just Britain that was going to hold a referendum, there were many other countries facing the same pressures and for the same reasons.

Do you think the treaty is a condition for further enlargement?

Well Europe can always be made to work one way or another but I do think it is sensible, given that we are a Europe of 27 and will expand further in years to come, that we make sure our rule-making is more effective, and the way we conduct our business is more effective. So for example I think that you know enlargement has greatly benefited the European Union, but you know you do want Europe to be able to have the decision-making capacity to make progress. And therefore I wouldn’t say it is a precondition, because that would be too heavy a word to use, but I think it is inevitable that Europe at least should reflect on whether its rules could be made more suitable for an enlarged European Union.

The June summit will be your last. People in Brussels will be wondering, Tony Blair is coming along and signing Britain up to a roadmap for saving the constitution. Will his successor be willing to implement the outline of what you have agreed? People in Brussels and the European capitals have a fairly negative view of the chancellor having experienced him coming - or not coming - to Ecofin Councils for the last ten years. Do you think that is an unfair caricature?

I think it is actually. I think he is pro-Europe and pro-reform. He wants changes in Europe and quite rightly. But when we come to the June Council we will come to the June Council with the position of the government and it will be, and I think everybody understands what the issues are. These issues, they are not going to go away, are they, I mean that is just not realistic, so we are going to have to resolve them and my view is it is better to resolve them sooner rather than later, and that allows you then to put that issue to one side. That is why I say it is in some ways, although obviously different in its nature, but it is quite similar to the financial perspective in the sense that it is very difficult, everybody has got different politics on it. For us we are going to get attacked whatever we do, but you should nonetheless do it because Europe needs to do it in order to move on. And you know as I say, imagine if you hadn’t got a budget deal and if you were still arguing about the financial perspective, I mean for countries like yours it would be disastrous, and for the rest of Europe it would be in complete paralysis. So sometimes you have just got to face up to the political reality, and that is why I have outlined what I think you know you can do on this, sort it out and then move on, because there are other issues that are going to be probably as important, if not more important, for the future of Europe’s success.

The Berlin Declaration set out 2009 as the date when the new treaty should be in force. That would mean that the mandate that you will have to adopt in June has to be very precise in order to be able to make substantial progress by the end of the year. Is that your understanding?

Yes, I think that is the most sensible thing is that you agree the key elements in June, and then obviously you have to have a process of working that out in detail, and then you have your process of ratification.

But the margin for negotiations for the new intergovernmental conference would be determined by the mandate that would be given by the June European Council?

I think that is sensible. My own view is that it is sensible that the June Council, especially with the German presidency frankly, because she has done an outstanding job as European president, Germany obviously has got a significant authority within the European Union, it makes sense in my view, because otherwise it is not going to look any different if you leave it for a year, except that everyone’s position will have got probably further apart and more entrenched and you will find it harder to get an agreement. And so I think you are right in the basic timetable you are putting forward, you get the elements agreed in June, you have then got to carry through in the next presidency, the Portuguese presidency…

If I understood you correctly, there are some key elements you would be able to agree on already in June. Is the institutional part of the treaty which is on the table right now, is that part one of the key elements you would agree on, the voting system, the use of qualified majority and so on?

I think what you need to do, I am not saying what conclusion you can reach on any of those things, but I think you need to agree that the basic principles and parameters of other agreements you need to get done and then there is a detailed negotiation and I think you need a formal intergovernmental conference to do that. But the point is this, after you leave in June, after you leave the Council in June people should know right that is basically the outline agreement for a treaty.

On the substance AND on the timetable?

On substance as well as the timing, yes. I mean otherwise do these issues change in another six months or a year? They remain the same, and you will have a new French president, and I think that is an important moment for Europe. You know you will have a new major European leader come on the scene and it is important I am sure for any new French president, they will want to get this sorted and move on.

Would you be interested in a post in the EU institutions, for example president of the European Council?

No, no, absolutely not, thank you.

And why not?

Well…this is not part of my thinking. Thank you anyway, it is nice to have the advice.

Have you changed your views about Europe over these ten years in power?

Strangely I haven’t, I am still very much pro-European, in favour of the European Union, I think it is absolutely central to Britain’s future. And though negotiation in Europe can be a very frustrating business, I believe that Britain gets a lot out of Europe and I think Europe benefits from having Britain in a good relationship with Europe. Because I know a lot of people who do this job - my job - is that they become very frustrated. And people forget that Margaret Thatcher fought her first two elections as a pro-European. The Conservative Party in 1979-83 were the pro-European party, and I am not even sure they weren’t in 1987 actually. But I have never had a difficulty in putting to one side the frustration you sometimes get, because of course you have got independent sovereign countries coming together and negotiating, it is always difficult, but I think that Europe is the strongest political union in the world, the most important commercial market and these are tremendous strengths for a country like Britain. My whole view of British foreign policy is based on the 21st century reality of Britain, which is similar in a sense to other countries in that we are a country of 60 million people, a small geographic state in today’s terms, you are going to have China in economic and political terms with enormous power and importance, India. For us we make our power, weight and influence felt through alliance with others. One such alliance is the transatlantic one, the other is the European one, that is why I have always resisted choosing between them, never sensible for us, not for us.

When will the United Kingdom join the Euro? In five years, 20 years or in two centuries?

I don’t know. When the economics are right, that is what I have always said. If you could make an economic case for the euro then I think the argument would be made, but the trouble is, and this is the point, that over my ten years the economics haven’t been right and it is an economic union in the end, so it depends on the economics, it always has. For me the politics are not the issue, it has always been the economics.

If you had the knowledge you had today about the massive influx of labourers from Poland to Great Britain, would you agree to open the labour market? Because now you put the restrictions for Romanians and Bulgarians, which seems to me you had some second thought?

No I wouldn’t change my mind on that. There have been particular issues to do with Romania and Bulgaria, but no, and incidentally the Polish community here is a good community and a respected community. And overall I think that enlargement has been very good for the European Union. And one of the things we have got to do within Europe, as Europeans today, is to educate our people and inform our people as to the benefits of the enlarged Europe. Because in the end your economy will grow and become stronger, we will do more trade with you, you know the economies of central and eastern Europe that at the moment are behind the original 15 will grow, as Spain and Portugal did. People made these arguments when Spain and Portugal joined. You look at Ireland today - what an amazing country - and its membership of the European Union has been of help. And what we have got to do, and this is what we do do actually here, is we have got to stand up for a positive view of Europe because in the end Europe has benefited, Europe has benefited this country enormously.

Your relationship with Angela Merkel and with Jose Manuel Barroso seems to be very close, they echo quite a few of the ideas that you are promoting in Europe. Do you think they will take on the agenda that you have been promoting yourself, are they pushing in the same direction that you have been pushing for the last few years?

I think that for anybody who looks rationally at Europe today, the issue for Europe today is not the same as the issue for the founding fathers, which was about building peace and reconciliation in the aftermath of war. The issue for the new generation of European leaders is how do you make the European economy competitive so that we increase the prosperity of European citizens, and how do we make Europe and its values count in a world in which you have got America with 300 million people and the largest economy in the world, Russia - a major independent power, China which will have a population double Europe and America put together and will become an enormous political and economic power, and not to say India. So really I think the issue for the new generation of European leadership is not so much traditional left or right, it is what I would call open or closed, it is do you regard Europe as looking out, recognising they have got this new constellation of economic and political forces in the world, and adjusting and reforming and changing Europe to meet that, or do you sort of look inwards and say well can we put barriers around Europe to stop these forces? And I think that battle - open versus closed - is the central battle and I think Europe is moving in a reforming and changing direction and I think President Barroso at the Commission has made a big difference, and I think you can see in this German presidency, you know there was a ground-breaking deal on the environment and climate change that shows we are prepared, not just about the economy, we are prepared to be, it is about values as well and we should be proud of the European values we have. You know this is an important part of it, but these values in the end are best presented to the world by people who are open to the world and don’t try to close it off, and that is what I think is important and I think that general perspective is I would say increasingly, left or right, where European leaders are going.

You make the point that Europe has changed, what kind of institutions do we need to tackle the problems that you mentioned, what is your vision of the EU that we need in order to succeed?

Well you need institutions that are effective, so for example you need a European Commission that is effective, or a European Parliament that is effective, you need a European Council that is effective and that is why these rules are important. But the single most important thing is you need to agree your political vision and direction. You could have whatever European institutions, but if Europe is not clear as to the direction in which it is to go then your institutions don’t become effective instruments for European action. And that is why I think it is important that the actions that we take on the economy, and environment, and energy, and crime and security, immigration and so on, that is the direction. Now those institutions will only ever be as effective as the direction that is given to them and then the direction obviously needs to be backed up with strong European institutions. For the first time in the UK, and this is as I say where I think there has been a subtle change in UK opinion on Europe, strangely enough, is we have been supporting the European Commission in driving through the single market and liberalising services. You do need a strong Commission to do that, you need strong European institutions that are capable of unlocking what can sometimes be the vested interests, or interests holding Europe back, but in the end the most important thing is to agree the direction. And that is why for example you know the powers that President Barroso was acting under are not greatly different, but the direction is very clear and that is what I think makes Europe more effective.

Mr Barroso is making a difference… Does that mean that Mr Prodi was bad as a president?

No…It simply means that Mr Barroso is very effective, so was Mr Prodi.

Look I think it is, first of all I have a great respect for Romano Prodi and also the work that they do at the European Commission, so let me just make that clear, but I also think that Europe is different from what it was a couple of years ago, not least because of the enlargement and so on that has happened, and I think that has made a difference as well. I think that has opened the different perspectives to an extent in European politics. And I think you have got, for example the issue of climate change where Romano Prodi had exactly the same view I would say as President Barroso, I think two or three years ago it would have been far harder to have got that type of radical action just because the circumstances, the politics of Europe were different. Today it is easy enough to get it, well not easy but you can get it. So I don’t mean any disrespect at all by that.

Do you think there is a majority now of European leaders are more looking to the same direction than say five or ten years ago?

Is there any political and geographical limit for Europe?

Well I think Europe will continue to enlarge, I have no doubt about that. I don’t want to depart from our official policy in respect of any one country, but why shouldn’t we carry on enlarging in the end? But I think people should be realistic about this. You know going from 15-27 has been a big change. It is understandable why European public opinion wants to settle a little, and France obviously it would be, you know you have got to take account of political realities in this. But I think if you ask in the very long term, yes I think that Europe will carry on expanding and you know European membership for example in the Balkans is obviously a very great possibility for countries, and they can point to that for their people and so on. The fact that so many people want to be part of the European Union should tell us something positive about the European Union at least.

You have been talking about the European values…are you worried about the increase in inequality in Europe?

Tony Blair wants to bid farewell to the European Union with a deal on a slimmed down constitution. In an interview, Blair says that the legacy of his premiership is that Britain is less isolated in the EU. Read the full interview