................................................................................ ON THE RECORD LEO TINDEMANS INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 20.3.94 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: So the view from the Council of Ministers there. But whatever they decide on Tuesday it will not be the end of the matter. Their decision must be ratified by the European Parliament. Not just by the majority of MPs voting but by a majority of ALL members of the Parliament. The Tory Party of course is allied with the European People's Party and its support is essential if the deal is to go through. The President of the EPP in the European Parliament is Leo Tindemans, who's former Prime Minister of Belgium. Would the EPP, Mr Tindemans, be prepared to - as I've just been discussing there - to separate these two processes. That's to say: the enlargement and qualified majority voting? LEO TINDEMANS: Well, it's very difficult to give you a straightforward answer because the question was not discussed in my group, nor was there any vote in the group. But, I attended the meetings of the Group Chairman and I know what is living (sic) into my group. We had already exchanges of views, of course and we consider Twenty-Three as the existing rule if the Community is enlarged, if the union is enlarged. The rule must be adapted to the new number of member states. So, if Britain is against that adaptation - that arithmetic adaptation - it's asking for a modification of the existing rules and that, I fear, will never be accepted by Parliament. HUMPHRYS: Well, you've just heard that some sort of compromise might well be accepted by the Council of Ministers. Does that sound sensible to you? TINDEMANS: Well, I can only tell you that all the serious Group Chairmen agreed upon the following position: if Twenty-Seven is not accepted on a total of ninety points, in a union with sixteen members, that would mean an institutional backwards movement and that is not acceptable. This was said by all these group leaders. So, I fear - as I've just told you - that that will never come through Parliament. That it will never be. And you know we need a serious majority - two hundred and sixty, at least must say Yes. Otherwise, there is no enlargement. This is the new competence of the European Parliament...since Maastricht so I fear that majority will never be obtained if it is not Twenty-Seven. HUMPHRYS: So, you're putting the Council of Ministers (who are going to be meeting on Tuesday) on notice, as it were, and you're saying to them: forget about compromise, forget about the sort of fudge that we've seen historically over the years, you've got to stick to Twenty-Seven and that's that. TINDEMANS: Well, we cannot understand that there is a quarrel about these figures of twenty-three or twenty-seven because it has nothing to do with institutional reforms. We were asking for deepening before widening. You know the expressions. If the Council envisaged a widening of the union, we ask it first to reform the existing institutions. It was accepted at the beginning but after a short time, it was said widening and deepening must take place simultaneously, and now we are going to a widening without adaptation of the institutions. HUMPHRYS: Right. So... TINDEMANS: And Great Britain wants to modify the existing rules. You can see my opinion is in Parliament there will be no majority for such a position. HUMPHRYS: Not even if they come out with the sort of compromise that Mr Helveg Petersen has just been talking about. That's to say some sort of cooling off period? TINDEMANS: Well, I can only give you my impression at this moment. My very profound feeling - what is living (sic) in the European Parliament in the serious political groups, at this moment. My answer to your question is: no, even not with a compromise because, as I told you, it is considered as a very small detail and the complaint is: where are the proposals? Everything is delayed until '96 and that is creating also a very serious frustration into the European Parliament. HUMPHRYS: So you're basically saying to Mr Hurd: there's no point in getting on that 'plane to Brussels? TINDEMANS: Well, you never know, in diplomacy what the result of a discussion and a negotiation can be but I am giving you, at this moment, what I found in the European Parliament last week and the week before. HUMPHRYS: Mr Tindemans, thank you very much for joining us. ...oooOooo...