................................................................................ ON THE RECORD TRISTAN GAREL-JONES INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE 20.6.93
................................................................................ JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Mr. Garel-Jones in rural England for the weekend, until very recently you were the Foreign Minister at the heart of the Maastricht negotiations; you therefore know how much political capital was invested by the Prime Minister in the opt out from the Social Chapter. Can I suggest to you that the evidence seems to be suggesting that it's not going to be worth the paper it's written on? TRISTAN GAREL-JONES MP: Well you can suggest that but you'd be entirely wrong. I mean, I see in the film you've just put out the word seems to be that European employers are sort of queuing up to sign up to these social directives both in Europe and in Britain, it's simply not the case. The other
day Carlos Farrer (phon) who is the head of the European CBI turned up at a social affairs council and begged the ministers, begged them to stop introducing all these social measures that are destroying jobs, so I think the
whole basis on which your question is propounded is wrong. DIMBLEBY: Well, do you discount what Jacques Delors says, what the Danish Prime Minister says about pressing ahead with the Social Chapter, pressing ahead with the social dimension, not because unemployment is going down but because unemployment is rising, which is supposed to be the basis on which we think they are going to give up on that dimension? GAREL-JONES: Well I don't think that, I think let's wait and see what Jacques Delors says at the European Council tomorrow and the day after. I think you will find that this European Council will focus very much on the sort of economic and political issues that we in Britain have been trying to get into the top of the agenda for the last five or six years. I think you will find that Jacques Delors will have some pretty tough words to say about European competitivity because what we are finding now is that at a time when we've got seventeen million unemployed in Europe that we are uncompetitive, not just in relation to Malaysia and the Far East but in relation to Hong Kong and Japan too and that is extremely serious and I think there is a growing realisation - not just from Jacques Delors and the Commission but from the European CBI and hopefully, from some European trade unions too...that we simply can't go on piling and piling social costs on top of our existing..the ones that we have already. DIMBLEBY: Now that's clearly the view of the British government, but let me suggest further why you may be - why John Major may be whistling in the dark on this. If the other eleven are determined to press on they are clearly quite able to say well, if we can't get it through on the social chapter we'll find some other means. We can always find some other heading under which to do it, like health and safety and you can't stop them. GAREL-JONES: Well, we couldn't have stopped them, or we weren't able to stop them under the Treaty of Rome as amended by the single European Act. I think the interesting thing about a lot of the complaints, quite justified complaints often, that we've had over the last four or five years, is that all of these things have taken place under the Treaty of Rome as amended by the single European Act. Virtually every complaint is based on the existing position, not on the post-Maastricht position. The advantage of the Maastricht Treaty is not only that we have a specific opt-out in terms, we have subsidiarity through Article 3B, we have the ability of the European Court of Justice to non-compliance. DIMBLEBY: Well, let's stick with that, let's stick ..... GAREL-JONES: Well let me just finish. All of those three will weigh down very heavily in the consideration of our partners when they seek to go forward in some of .... DIMBLEBY: But you wouldn't want to bet on winning in the European courts, the forty-eight hour week argument? GAREL-JONES: Well let me just say on the forty-eight hour week, first of all, thanks to a quite brilliant negotiation by Gillian Shepherd, the original proposals have now become almost sensible I would say. For example, the forty-eight hour week is not now compulsory, it's voluntary. No worker in Britain is going to lose..... DIMBLEBY: Almost sensible, why don't you just say okay, no ..... GAREL-JONES: I said almost sensible. No worker in Britain is going to lose the right that he now has to work more than forty-eight hours and do the overtime that he wishes to do. The real problem about the directive now is of course, that we believe that it was introduced under a false treaty base, it was introduced under Article 118 I think it is, which is related to health and safety. We believe that is a false treaty base and I think the British government's made it clear that it does intend to take that matter to the European Court of Justice. DIMBLEBY: The point is precisely what you don't like is what they're perfectly able and clearly ready to do, and call your bluff on this. GAREL-JONES: I don't think so at all. I think you will find that one of the reasons why Commissioner Flynn and others are talking in the way they are, is that they do realise that post-Maastricht the social protocol exists, Britain is not part of the agreement of eleven, and if they want to - I mean let me say also, because I think there's a danger that viewers might think that Britain is in some way a laggard in building a social dimension in Europe - we're not. Certainly a few months ago, the position may have changed, we were the only country in Europe that had implemented every single one of the social directives that have come through the European
Community, so Britain is in no way a laggard where a social dimension is concerned. The point is that we're interested in job creation and we agree with the European CBI that the sort of measures that are now being talked about destroy jobs and don't create them. DIMBLEBY: Now you say you agree with the European CBI, you say the European CBI is begging the other eleven to back off. No sign yet that the eleven will back off. If they don't back off, if they persist with the social dimension in the form that they apparently seek to do, then the European companies are not only going to have to introduce it in Europenbut they'll be bound to introduce for instance, works councils and the rest in Britain as well. GAREL-JONES: Well, I think one of the things that's happening and the agenda at the European Council in Copenhagen tomorrow bears that out, is that increasingly economic and political reality is coming to bear in the councils of Europe rather than the kind of rather woolly Euro- enthusiastic rhetoric that we've had for the last decade and you say to me "What would happen if .." Well, you know, if my grandmother had had wheels and not legs, she might have been a bicycle, I mean I ...." DIMBLEBY: Absolutely right, but it isn't that scale of if is it. You've got Jacques Delors, you've got the Danish Prime Minister, you've got the Commissioner for Social Affairs all saying "We're pressing on down this route", and the if is, whether in fact the sceptics here aren't absolutely right, and they've had the wool pulled over their eyes inadvertently by the Prime Minister and Euro, and Euro - I don't know what you are - enthusiasts like you. GAREL-JONES: Euro-realist I think I would describe myself as, and indeed the British government does, and I think it's the sort of realism that Britain has stood for. If you look for example at your Economic and Monetary Union, the Prime Minister negotiated an opt-out for Britain for many reasons, not least at which is that we were sceptical that the convergence criteria and the date set in the Maastricht Treaty were achievable. I doubt if you'd find anybody in Europe now who thinks we were wrong and I think you really don't want to be misled by the rhetoric of commissioners and people like that. What matters in the end is what they actually choose to do and I think you will find that what Jacques Delors has to say to the European Council tomorrow and the day after is pretty tough stuff about the lack of competitivity in Europe and the need to create jobs. DIMBLEBY: Mr Garel ... GAREL-JONES: That is the sort of thing that we have been saying for the last two years and I think there is an increasing sense of reality about that. DIMBLEBY: Mr Garel-Jones, I just have to ask you to draw to an end with this thought. They can have the Social Chapter, we'll have the jobs. You wouldn't actually want to bet your last penny on that would you? GAREL-JONES: Well, I think when you're negotiating with twelve member states it's wrong to talk in terms of total victories and total defeats. The European Community like the United Nations, like every other international organisation quite often ends up with compromises between different people's positions. What I would say is that the Maastricht Treaty for the first time begins to shift the direction of the European Union as we will now have to call it, in the kind of direction that Britain has wanted to see, the British government has wanted to see for a very long time indeed. DIMBLEBY: Mr Garel-Jones, we shall see, we shall see. Thank you very much for joining us from your weekend. Thank you.