My mixed emotions about this were compensated by the happiness I felt in Denis’s baronetcy. With the Conservative victory in the April 1992 general election, a result achieved in equal measure as a result of my record, John Major’s admirable grit and the Labour Party’s egregious errors, I felt newly liberated to continue the argument about Europe’s future.
ANOTHER EUROPE
The Bill to implement the Maastricht Treaty was announced in the first Queen’s Speech of the new Parliament. Ten days later, on Friday 15 May, I was due to speak in The Hague. My speech-writing team and I wrestled to include within one framework all the main elements of the alternative to a Maastricht-style Europe. I deliberately intended it as Bruges Mark II. Of course, I could not expect that it would have the same impact; after all, I was no longer a head of government. But for that very reason I hoped that the ideas could be developed more provocatively and would help to alert the more open-minded members of Europe’s political élite to new possibilities.[71]
I began by likening the architecture of the Berlaymont building in Brussels — the home of the European Commission which was due to be demolished — to the political architecture of the European Community, ‘infused with the spirit of yesterday’s future’. Circumstances had so changed since the foundation of the Community that major rethinking was required. Looking back at its origins and development, I distinguished between two different economic traditions — those of liberalism and socialism. The time had now come when Europe had to choose between these two approaches. Maastricht’s federalism was essentially the child of socialist thinking. It involved a degree of centralized control which the wider Europe created by the fall of communism made outdated. In fact, what was involved, I argued, was:
…a central intellectual mistake. [It was] assumed that the model for future government was that of a centralized bureaucracy that would collect information upwards, make decisions at the top, and then issue orders downwards. And what seemed the wisdom of the ages in 1945 was in fact a primitive fallacy. Hierarchical bureaucracy may be a suitable method of organizing a small business that is exposed to fierce external competition — but it is a recipe for stagnation and inefficiency in almost every other context.
…The larger Europe grows, the more diverse must be the forms of cooperation it requires. Instead of a centralized bureaucracy, the model should be a market — not only a market of individuals and companies, but also a market in which the players are governments. Thus governments would compete with each other for foreign investments, top management and high earners through lower taxes and less regulation. Such a market would impose a fiscal discipline on governments because they would not want to drive away expertise and business. It would also help to establish which fiscal and regulatory policies produced the best overall economic results. No wonder socialists don’t like it. To make such a market work, of course, national governments must retain most of their existing powers in social and economic affairs. Since these governments are closer and accountable to their voters, it is doubly desirable that we should keep power at the national level.
On the basis of this analysis, I argued for two specific changes. The first conclusion I drew was that there was no reason why every new European initiative should require the participation of all Community members. If Europe did move into new areas, it must do so under separate treaties which clearly defined the powers which had been surrendered:
We should aim at a multi-track Europe in which ad hoc groups of different states — such as the Schengen Group[72] — forge varying levels of cooperation and integration on a case-by-case basis. Such a structure would lack graph-paper neatness. But it would accommodate the diversity of post-communist Europe.
Second, far from giving the European Commission more power, it should have less. In fact, it was not needed in its present form and it should cease to be legislative in any sense; rather it should become an administrative body, not initiating policy but carrying it out.
Still more outrageously, I mentioned the issue which was on everyone’s mind and no one’s agenda in Europe, ‘the German Question’. I expressed admiration for the German achievement and, indeed, agreement with several distinctive German policies, for example on monetary matters and on recognizing Slovenia and Croatia. But I argued that we had to face up to the fact that the power of a reunited Germany was a problem. The Germans themselves realized this; it explained, for instance, why Chancellor Kohl and the German political establishment were so anxious for their country to be ‘anchored’ in Europe and restrained by institutions of federal decision-making. Tying the German Gulliver down within a federal European Community was no answer, however, because Germany’s preponderance within it was so great that federalism itself augmented German power rather than contained it. In place of this vision, we had to return to the politics of the balance of power which would ensure that individual nation states, like Britain and France, would be able to act as a counterweight to Germany if it pursued policies which were against our interests. Meanwhile — and this was perhaps the most important element in any modern balance of power politics — the American military presence in Europe was a guarantee against any European power being tempted to assert its interests beyond a certain point.
This frank analysis was condemned in some quarters as antiGerman. In fact, it was nothing of the sort. It was my firm conviction that it would be in Germany’s interests as much as those of her neighbours for the realities of power politics to be reflected in diplomatic relations, rather than concealed behind a veil of federalist political correctness. Germany is a rich and powerful country in which there is much to admire. But because of its size, geographical location and history, it presents a problem. The Germans discuss this problem quite freely and responsibly (even if I happen to disagree with the particular solution they have found for it). There is no reason why we should not do the same.
As I had in Opposition all those years earlier, I found it easier to express even these controversial points about international relations abroad than at home. My every word in Britain was scrutinized for possibilities of misrepresentation. I was always conscious of the feeling, with which I could sympathize, that John Major should be left free to lead the Party and the country in his own way.
I made my maiden speech in the House of Lords in a debate on the UK Presidency of the European Community in July 1992. It was a slightly strange experience and I realized that it would take some time before I became used to the style of the Upper House, where formal courtesy and diplomatic consensus are so much more evident than anything that could be called lively debate. On this occasion, I was able to point to what I described as ‘the very sharp change in attitudes’ brought about by the Maastricht Treaty in Europe. The Danes had just voted in a referendum to reject the Treaty. Opinion in Germany had hardened against a single currency. The French were to hold their own referendum. Backbench Tory MPs had started to articulate the anti-Maastricht sentiments which were becoming more evident in their own constituencies.
72
The Schengen Treaty has been signed and implemented by nine members of the European Union, providing for the removal of border controls between participating states.