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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 5, 1985
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher argued long, hard and in
vain for two days that leaders of the community, or Common
Market, should make a series of simple "pragmatic decisions" now
instead of getting into another conference and the problems of
treaty ratification. "This has not been an easy conference,"
Thatcher said at a news briefing late Saturday night. "We from
Britain came here with high hopes. We are a very practical peo
ple. We have negotiated with our partners for years, and we were
prepared to take decisions which would have made progress in the
community on practical steps forward."•••
However, in prevailing on a 7-3 vote, French President Francois
Mitterrand, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Italian Prime
Minister Bettino Craxi maintained a solid front against the Brit
ish. Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg-rI"ned up
with them in the determination to� further in changing "the
constitution" of the community than Britain is prepared to�-
Never before has a vote been taken in a heads of government meet
ing to decide any specific question, let alone an issue of funda
mental importance such as proceeding to treaty revision. Far
from improving the picture of European unity, this summit has re
opened the old split between the original sfxwho creafecf�
Common Market and the newcomers of the last decade, the British
foremost among them.
Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou bluntly told the confer
ence after the vote that his country·will have nothing to do with
any treaty revision and will not take part in the intergovernment
conference.
Although Thatcher was harsh in her condemnation of the meeting's
outcome, she made it clear that Britain will "play its full part"
in the conference, although she added that she is very pessimis
tic about the probable results. She pointed to the difficulties
of reaching the required unanimous agreement on treaty amend
ments•••• However, Craxi, who chaired this summit at the end of
six months of the Italian presidency of the community, called the
outcome "a significant success" and declared, "We have today
taken a decision that is important, necessary and decisive for
the future of a united Europe."
At the heart of the matter is the issue of how community
decision-making� be improved with greater use of majority vot
ing and restrictions on the use of the veto. All governments,
except possibly the Greeks, are agreed that with the entry of
Spain and Portugal into the community in January, 1986, majority
voting must start to become normal practice, if not a fixed rule.
The British sought to achieve this pragmatically, by agreeing
here to new rules under existing treaty provisions.
But the
original six community members--France, West Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg--plus Ireland, want to amend
the treaty and take a new look at other treaty articles, which
they believe to be out of date. The continental bloc also wants
to draw up an additional treaty on political cooperation in the