Bruges speech

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Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1987

The Bruges speech was given by British prime minister

federal Europe that would take powers away from its members. She considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for federalisation and clashed with him publicly. Earlier in 1988, Delors had reaffirmed his commitment for the EEC to take a greater role in establishing European economic, fiscal and social legislation, which Thatcher considered provocative. On 8 September, Delors spoke to Britain's Trades Union Congress
, calling for their support.

Thatcher had been invited to speak to the College of Europe in Bruges and decided to make her text a response to Delors' speech of 8 September. Thatcher's speech recounted Britain's history within and close connection to Europe and called for the EEC to resist a move towards

European superstate
getting ready to exercise a new dominance from Brussels".

Despite its commitment that Britain would work within the EEC to reform it, the speech was perceived as

British Eurosceptic think tank, was named after the speech. Some have described it as "setting the UK on the path to Brexit
".

Background

European Commission president Jacques Delors (pictured in 1988)

The

common market and customs union for Western European states, was formed by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The United Kingdom joined the organisation in 1973; by 1986, it included most non-Communist European states. The 1987 Single European Act gave the Community's governing bodies (the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of Ministers) greater roles in managing policies on the environment, health, education and other areas.[1]

federal Europe. Thatcher and Delors became involved in several public clashes, which dismayed Thatcher's foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe, who was more sympathetic to Delors' policies.[2]

On 6 July 1988, Delors spoke to the European Parliament and predicted that "10 years hence, 80 per cent of our economic legislation, and perhaps even our fiscal and social legislation, will be of Community origin". Thatcher perceived this as a provocation, a deliberate

Bruges, Belgium, to respond to Delors' speech to the TUC. The year marked a dramatic change in Thatcher's position on Europe from pragmatic acceptance to distinct opposition to further integration, which she would reflect in the speech.[3]

Much of Thatcher's speech was drafted by her foreign-policy adviser

United States of Europe. He did not object to it, although the final version of the speech contained some significant changes. Howe did praise one passage in the draft that remained unchanged in the final version: "let me say bluntly on behalf of Britain: we have not embarked on the business of throwing back the frontiers of state at home only to see a European superstate getting ready to exercise a new dominance from Brussels". This passage would become one of the most controversial of the speech.[2]

Speech

External videos
Speech to the College of Europe[5]
Market square and Belfry of Bruges, Belgium
Belfry of Bruges (pictured in 2008)
video icon [Film] (Speech) – via the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

The speech was to be in a hall at the historic Belfry of Bruges on 20 September 1988.[2][5] Thatcher had planned to use an autocue but because of the venue's layout, with most of the audience sat to her sides, she chose to speak from her paper notes. She deviated slightly from the text but not in any politically meaningful manner.[5] A copy was sent in advance to Delors and, having read it, he refused to attend the event.[4] The Belgian prime minister, Wilfried Martens, was in the audience.[5]

Thatcher began her speech by noting that her last appearance before the College had been shortly after the

Zeebrugge ferry disaster, in which Belgians had saved many British lives. Thatcher also praised the College's rector, Professor Jerzy Łukaszewski, and the institution's role in the EEC. She went on to reference Bruges' long history and the city's association with English literary figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Caxton.[5] She thanked the College for having the courage to invite her to speak on the topic of Europe and noted that some federalists would regard it as "rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence".[2]

Thatcher stated that she believed that the

Second World War.[5] Thatcher stated that Britain's commitment to Europe remained, as seen in the 70,000 British Armed Forces service members deployed on the continent.[5] She urged the audience not to forget those parts of Europe under communist rule, stating, "we shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities".[5][2] Thatcher said that European values had led the United States of America to become a "valiant defender of freedom".[5]

Thatcher then stated that "the European Community belongs to all its members. It must reflect the traditions and aspirations of all its members" and that Britain did not desire "some cosy,

centralisation of power at the same time that the Soviet Union was moving away from it (perestroika).[5]

Thatcher hailed the success of the February 1988

international aid to developing countries. Thatcher stressed the importance of NATO and the US to the defence of Europe and argued that the Western European Union should not be seen as an alternative to NATO.[5]

Thatcher concluded by arguing that Europe did not require any more treaties beyond the

Brussels Treaty and the Treaty of Rome. Her closing remarks were: "Let Europe be a family of nations, understanding each other better, appreciating each other more, doing more together but relishing our national identity no less than our common European endeavour. Let us have a Europe which plays its full part in the wider world, which looks outward not inward, and which preserves that Atlantic community—that Europe on both sides of the Atlantic—which is our noblest inheritance and our greatest strength".[5]

The text of the speech was released to the media at 17:30 GMT by the Downing Street press office.[5] After finishing her speech, Thatcher left the event with her husband, Denis, and travelled to Brussels for an audience with King Baudouin. Afterwards, she had dinner with Prime Minister Martens and his cabinet members, during which a row erupted after Belgian foreign minister Leo Tindemans made a federalist comment.[4]

Impact

A silver-haired man in a black suit and tie
Thatcher's foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe

The speech was perceived as an attack on the "European project". However, Thatcher supported the

European cooperation under a voluntary association of independent states.[6]

Though, in essence, a

British accession to the European Communities, broke the precedent against criticising a sitting Government while the Prime Minister is engaged in foreign negotiations by travelling to Brussels while Thatcher was there to attend the 1988 NATO summit to deliver a rebuttal personally.[9] The Bruges speech greatly affected Howe, who considered Thatcher's position to be at odds with his own, and on 4 May 1989 he met with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, who had been planning for the country to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), an EEC economic stability measure, against Thatcher's wishes. Howe and Lawson continued to lobby Thatcher on the matter; however, Lawson resigned when Thatcher refused to sack her chief economic adviser Sir Alan Walters, who opposed British membership of the ERM. Britain eventually joined the ERM on 5 October, under Lawson's replacement as chancellor John Major.[2] The political decision ultimately led to Thatcher's resignation and replacement by Major, who came to prominence for his role in the ERM decision.[6][2][8] Thatcher became increasingly sceptical of the EEC after her resignation.[2]

After the Bruges speech, there was an increasing trend towards

Lord Willetts),[3] though some writers such as David Allen Green have stated that this was not the case and was instead "a call to battle" to reform the EEC.[7]

The Eurosceptic Bruges Group think tank was founded in 1990 and named after the speech.[7] The original drafts of the Bruges speech were released by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust in 2018 under the thirty-year rule. The drafts showed that the final speech had been considerably toned down. Direct references to Delors were removed, and those to the European Commission were replaced with "European community". The use of the term "Euro waffle" was also removed.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ European Community at the Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Moore, Charles (28 September 2019). "Margaret Thatcher biography: How the Bruges speech was deemed a declaration of war that caused 'absolute horror' in Brussels". The Telegraph. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Willetts, David (31 August 2018). "How Thatcher's Bruges speech put Britain on the road to Brexit". Financial Times. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Dixon, Hayley (21 July 2018). "Margaret Thatcher's famous Bruges speech was to have been much more critical before it was toned down". The Telegraph. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Speech to the College of Europe ('The Bruges Speech')". Margaret Thatcher Foundation. 20 September 1988. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7425-1054-8
    .
  7. ^ a b c Green, David Allen (25 September 2018). "Why Thatcher's Bruges speech was not a first step towards Brexit". Financial Times. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  8. ^
    S2CID 142792443
    .
  9. OCLC 489636152
    .

External links
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