Murnaghan Interview with Sir Nigel Sheinwald, former UK Ambassador to the EU

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Let’s get more now on David Cameron’s attempts to reform the European Union as a whole and to the benefit of the UK as well, so how do these negotiations work and what are his chances of success?  Well Sir Nigel Sheinwald is with me now and he was Britain’s permanent representative to the EU under Tony Blair and also served as Britain’s Ambassador to Washington.  Sir Nigel, very good to see you.  Well we’ve been saying David Cameron has already started his so-called charm offensive but is that reciprocated?  Is he getting a good hearing or likely to from other European leaders?

SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD:  Well I think the problem is, as he said on Friday himself, he wasn’t met with a wall of love at his summit at the end of last week but is he getting a hearing?  Yes, he is.  I think his fellow leaders realise he has got a mandate to negotiate, they know because they are politicians themselves what an election victory is and what that means and they know there is a referendum coming and therefore that this negotiation is going to condition at least part of the British electorate’s response.  

DM: So what can he ask for and what can they give him and are they two different things?

SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD:  They probably are two different things but I think that there is some common ground which is evident already and I think we will see in the negotiation there are a number of different things, it’s a bit like a Rubik’s Cube of a negotiation.  Part of it is to do with complex processes in the European Union, it’s about the single market, it’s about whether the European economy is moving in the right direction, it’s about whether we can get better regulation. I think on those things which have been David Cameron’s priorities and frankly our traditional British priorities, there has been quite a lot of movement already.  How to encapsulate that is the …

DM: And how to sell it then to a doubting public and doubting back benchers.   

SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD:  To some degree, yes and then there are a number of specific things which this government feels strongly about which it wants to integrate in the European negotiations so there is a debate about migration, clearly, there are things David Cameron will want to get done there.  There are things to do with this phrase ever closer union, there’s the world of national parliaments so there are a number of things which are part of a very familiar European debate where I think he’ll want to get something quite specific out of his European partners.  And on those it depends whether he manages to keep on the tramlines.  The tramlines for me are number one, don’t argue against the fundamentals of the European Union because I don't think he will get anywhere on that, changing the fundamental rules of freedom of movement and he didn’t do that in his speech at the end of last year but I think he is asking for specific reforms I think he can get.  And number two, is he asking about things which are just about the UK where others can go okay, if you want to separate yourselves a little bit it is not the end of the world for us or is he asking for something which is going to apply to everyone and that’s where the politics kicks in, in the other governments.

DM: I just want to home in on that issue of migration because that is of course in the public’s mind, that’s one of the biggest issues concerning membership of the European Union.  You say don’t argue against the fundamentals of free movement but he has to get something there doesn’t he?  He has to get something, perhaps future longer transitional controls for new members, would that be enough?

SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD:  I think there are some things that he’ll get support for from people like Angela Merkel, the Dutch government, a number of other governments who have moved on the issues of benefits, who have tougher rules on benefits actually than we do in the UK so that’s within I think the negotiating space that the Prime Minister can legitimately …

DM: So just on benefits?  

SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD:  On benefits, I think transition periods is also something which is under debate every time there is a new accession, I don't think there’s any sort of veto or anything wrong in talking about that sort of issue but I think if he says the fundamental equality of EU citizens, their ability to move and reside in other countries, that’s something about the core of most people’s beliefs about the EU and I think he says he is not going to try to challenge that.  I do agree with you that this is an issue on voters’ minds, it was there during the election campaign.  On the other hand it is probably the only really big European issue which came through during the election so I don't think this is a country which wakes up every morning thinking about Europe.  That’s not the evidence of our recent political debates, there is concern about migration but even that I think will abate somewhat as our economy continue to improve and there are sharper, more angular edges of debate which came out of the recession, start to recede at least some more.

DM: And how isolated is he?  Does he have allies there and is a lot of this about how he asks for things and who he asks them to?

SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD:  Well he does have allies, he has political allies and he has I think a huge number of colleagues round that negotiating table who do not want Britain to leave.  I do not think there is a single other member of the EU which wants the UK out, they want us in for all sorts of reasons – economic, political, historical, they all want us to stay and they will be prepared to pay some price, that’s to be decided, some price to keep us in but I do think that when you come back to this debate about should the Prime Minister say if I don’t get exactly what I want I’m going to leave, I think the other European leaders want to feel that he understand the rest of the EU, that he is pitching his demands in a sensible way and that he does want us to stay in and seize the overwhelming advantage for the UK of doing so.  I don't think that weakens his negotiating stance, they know there is a referendum at the end of it and they know from their own lives as politicians – if you look at France or the Netherlands ten years ago they had referendums on Europe and lost, they know that these things can go wrong and they don’t need to be reminded of that every moment.  So I think he is going about this the right way, he is going round, he is talking to his key opposite numbers over the next few weeks and I think at the end of June, at the next big European summit, he will no doubt unveil more detail of what he is asking.  

DM: Have you had a chat with him?  

SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD:  I’ve talked to him about these issues and I believe the Bloomberg speech of two years ago, that I think he wants us to stay, he knows there is a doubt in the British public’s minds and he wants to resolve that and I think as Pat McFadden was saying on your programme earlier, it’s time now for everyone who believes in our membership of the EU, and I certainly do, to get over this issue of a referendum, we’re going to have a referendum and really define with passion and emotion what these issues are going to be like.  

DM: Well Sir Nigel, thank you very much indeed for those insights, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.  Sir Nigel Sheinwald there.