54. Guy Verhofstadt: Is there a case for a European army?

0:28Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. Sign up to The Rest is Politics. way. You're free to discover your way. And that's what running is all about. Run your way at newbalance.com slash running.

0:45Well, I was down on my last dollar, then I started saving because the bank said fiscal restraint is what you're craving. So I put my earnings in a high yield account. Let the savings compound and the interest mount. I'm optimizing cash flow, putting debt in check now time is my friend and not a pain in the neck and we've got a little cash to rebuild the old deck boring money moves make kind of lame songs but they sound pretty sweet to your wallet pnc bank brilliantly boring since 1865 welcome to the rest is politics leading with me alistair campbell and me rory stuart and our guest today i suspect to most british listeners, they know him as that Belgian MEP who kept popping up on our TV screens during the Brexit debate.

1:34And fair to say, not a fan of Brexit, and very much not a fan of the politics and the politicians who brought Brexit into being. But there's a lot more to him than that, because this is a man who was president of his own political party in his late 20s, who was finance minister and deputy prime minister of his own country in his early 30s, prime minister in his mid-40s, and a job that he did in a pretty difficult country to govern, Belgium, for almost a decade, almost virtually coincident with the time that New Labour was in power. And it's very, very, very kind of him to do this interview with me in particular, because I think it's fair to say that it was partly and largely thanks to my old boss, Tony Blair, that this gentleman did not become president of the European Commission.

2:24So I'm very grateful. Exactly, exactly. That he's here. And I want to ask you first of all, Guy, are there any hard feelings over that decision way back when? Oh, a lot, a lot, a lot. I'm still thinking about it. I'm waking it up and I say, Blair, Blair, Blair, Blair. He blocks me. He blocks me. No, no. But in the meanwhile, I discovered something that is at least so passionate than be president of the European Commission. That's the European Parliament and European democracy. Because without European democracy and European Parliament, there is no future for this continent. So no hard feelings, Alistair.

3:07No hard feelings. Thank you. I'm glad to hear it. Guy, we're going to bring you back to talk about your time in Europe. But if we can begin with your time in Belgium, and can you begin by just giving listeners, because we have listeners all over the world, a little bit of an introduction to Belgium and Belgian politics, and in particular, some of the divisions between the Flemish, French and German communities and the way that the politics works in Belgium. How many hours you have to do. An introduction in Belgian politics in five minutes. Well, let's say the following thing. So we have been created, as you know, after the Napoleon Wars and after the Congress of Vienna as one of the first countries who went against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna.

3:58There are two countries. Greece was created at that moment in the 20s and we in 1830 with, in fact, different language communities. So we have the ability, I think, in Belgium to find compromises and to keep together what in other parts of the world would already have been separated for decades or for centuries. Does it make it harder to govern Belgium, the fact that you have these languages? It's not easy. It's like an intergovernmental conference on a daily basis, Alistair. An intergovernmental conference on a daily basis where you have to make agreements, compromises, not only between political parties or inside the political party, but also between communities.

4:44And it's a federal country that became federal after it was, first of all, a central country. So that's the opposite way of history. Normally, you have different countries coming together and making a federation. That's the way it normally were. We did the opposite from an a central bureaucratic country governed by Brussels, we went to a federal country. And in fact, yeah, with all the difficulties, it works because we have no war, we have no casualties, we have no violence between the communities. So can I just come in, just to take people back to the basics and my understanding of it. So my understanding is there are broadly speaking three main communities.

5:28There's a Flemish community, which speaks a language closely related to Dutch. It's the same as Dutch. It's the same as Dutch. No, you have to know there is one language community between the Dutch and the Flemish. So it's an international language community. We have a common vocabulary and a common grammar. Very good. So it's a Dutch speaking community, a French speaking community and a German speaking community. Yeah, the German-speaking community is teeny, teeny, teeny, and came after the Second World War. Very good. And traditionally, people perceived that there was a big domination of the Walloon French-speaking community economically and politically, and the Flemish-Dutch-speaking community felt more marginalized back in time.

6:10And Belgian politics partly reflected these divisions. So when you began as a politician, you were associated more with the Flemish community, Is that correct? I live in Ghent, so I'm a Flemish. So my native language, my mother tongue, as you say, is Dutch. But automatically you need to, for example, when you are prime minister and there is a member of the French speaking community putting a question to you, you have to respond in French. Right. And if it is a German representative, you have to respond in German. So that's the way it works. And it's true that in the beginning, there was a French speaking domination.

6:47not only in the southern part of the country, also the elites, for example, in cities like my city in Ghent and Antwerp spoke French. And that changed completely between the two world wars and after the Second World War, because there is a majority of Flemish-speaking people in Belgium. So it's 60%. And traditionally, am I right, going back in time, traditionally, this is a generalization, But most Flemish-speak people voted for Flemish parties and most of the Walloon, French-speaking community voted for Walloon parties traditionally. Is that right? Because there are no federal parties in Belgium.

7:26So there is a Flemish liberal party where I belong to, like you have a French-speaking liberal party. There are two separate parties. They are the same family. They are working together. They will be normally always together in government, but they are separate parties. And so that is one of the difficulties of policymaking in Belgium, that is, that is a federal country without federal political parties. That's quite unique. Can we just wind right back to the beginning, just to give us a sense of your childhood, who your parents were, what your influences were, and when you first decided or realized that you were probably going to be a politician who's now been 50 years in active politics.

8:09When I was young, 12 years or 30 years old, I was already talking about politics, discussing with my father about politics, about the Vietnam War, because that was then the main topic. Who is responsible for it? The communists or the Americans? The death of Kennedy? Who is behind it? And so when I was 50, 60 years old, I said, I want to become prime minister of my country because I want to change things. When you were 15? Yeah, already then. It's crazy. It's crazy. But when I was really, before I went to university, I was already involved and so on in the local section of the Flemish Liberal Party and so on and so on.

8:55So when people ask me, well, what you do for profession? I'm saying, yeah, I'm a professional politician. I know nothing else than to do politics. But let's be clear, politics is quite important. There are people now saying, well, politics, politics, dirty business and so on. We don't want it. But the reality is exactly the opposite. There is no normal governance possible of a society without politics because you have to make choice. Otherwise, it will be the jungle. So, politics is quite an interesting thing to do, I think. What is the advantage and what is the disadvantage of having only been a professional politician?

9:35The advantage is that you can have really a focus on what needs to change in society. I did politics to gain power and power, gaining power in politics is a positive thing. It's not a negative thing. So people are saying, ah, you are certainly in politics because you want power. And I'm saying, yes, I'm in politics because I want power, because power is the only way to change things in society. If you are in politics and you say, I'm in politics, but I'm not there for power. Where are you there then? For the money? For the protocol? If a politician tells you, I want to go in politics, I am in politics, but not for the power.

10:20Then, oh, put him aside because that's not what politics is about. Politics is about gaining power and trying to use that power. I'm going to interrupt for a second. And keep developing for us. Tell us what you think your strengths and weaknesses are as a politician. Which part of politics are you really good at? And which parts of politics are you less good at? I am stubborn. So I start with the negative sign. That's positive. That's positive. Percivilian. Percivilian, Guy. Yeah, yeah. True. But you can be too much, you know, so that you make more enemies than you gain ground in politics. So that's certainly one of my weakest points.

11:02And then the other way, I think I'm passionate about politics. And I think that politics needs to work a supply side politics. So we all know supply side economics. It was popular at a certain moment decades ago. Well, I believe in supply side politics, that it is the politician who has to propose something to the public opinion and not to follow the public opinion. I don't like those who are saying, oh, you have to listen to the public opinion. And that's a good politician. No, that's the opposite. A good politician has a vision, a direction about the future, creates hope for the public opinion and can describe it, can show it.

11:42And people will follow you if they like you, if they believe in you. Politics doesn't work like most people are saying today. That's the reason why we have a crisis of politics. It doesn't work that people are waking up in the morning at seven o 'clock and are saying, oh, I have a bright political idea about Europe, for example. It doesn't work like that. What you need are politicians who have passion and vision. That are the two key elements, in my opinion, to be a successful politician. And a successful politician is somebody who can change things in society, who can bring change and reform.

12:18So, Guy, you sort of, at one point, you've had quite, for a Belgian politician, you get quite a lot of coverage in the UK media, and it's gone through various phases. At one point, when you were a pretty tax-cutting, market-orientated finance minister, age 32, I think at one point… I was a libertarian at that time, yeah. Yeah, and you were called, in Britain, they called you Baby Thatcher sometimes. Baby Thatcher, yeah. Belgium too and now you're this kind of I guess we describe it as a sort of ethical progressive globalist yeah so just talk me through that what happened yeah that journey yeah I mean you've ended up in a better place than you started let me say that but how did you get there that depends I don't know if if Mr.

13:01Stewart is in agreement with you but but that happened something indeed what happened was my involvement in the Rwanda genocide so I was appointed by the belgium senate to inquire in what happened in one of the most awful uh human tragedies that happened in africa in our country we hear a lot about rwanda in relation to this nonsense about stop the boat so what was tell us about the rwandan genocide yeah 800 000 people mainly tutsis but also moderate hutus that have been massacred killed in the most brutal way by Hutu extremists. So 800 ,000 people were killed in two months. In two months, in the most brutal way.

13:45Every day, these Hutu extremists went, Interhamwe was their name, went into concentration camps, killing people with the machetes. First their arms, then their feet. The most incredible thing. I went there as a representative of the Belgian parliament because we believe that there were mistakes made by the Belgium government, by the international community, by Kofi Annan, not to name him, in managing that. They know in advance that a genocide was in preparation. That was the key point. And they did nothing to avoid it. And how did that change you as a politician? I went there. I was there just a few years after the genocide.

14:29And I went into a church and churches and with bodies, with bones, totally alone. And I came to a conclusion. And my conclusion was, yeah, there is more in politics than the deficit, you know, than the figures. Then, okay, I need to reduce the deficit, the current deficit of Belgium. And that's a huge task, I can tell you, to reduce it to a certain amount and to lower it. There is more than that. And what is more? There are values, there are principles, There is human dignity. There is the existence of humanity. That's important. And that's far more important than all ideological battles that you can have and battles between political parties that you can have.

15:14So that changed me completely. So I came back from Rwanda. I went a few times there. And then I did politics in another way. And I became prime minister, what never happened before. And I started with the government, with socialists and greens. And the first thing what I did was to return to Rwanda, to Kihali, to say sorry, and to say, yeah, we are responsible for the suffering that you have seen, for the most incredible suffering that you can see in human history. 800 ,000 people, Ernesto, in two months, in the most brutal way. It's a genocide at the moment where everybody was saying, oh, well, it may never happen again.

15:56It will not never happen again. But it happens again and again and again. One challenge that every country in the West faces is coming to terms with its history. In Britain, the British Empire. In America, the legacy of slavery. In Belgium, of course, the Congo. And I'd be interested, how do you talk today to a modern generation, to young people, about what Belgium did in the Congo? What kind of responsibility you have? How do you teach it in schools? How do you deal with this issue? Yeah, that started already now a few, after Rwanda and after the fact that we apologize for Rwanda, we started also to look into our role in Congo.

16:40That's something very new, in fact, in Belgian politics. We have an inquiry committee that had made conclusions that have also made apologies to Congolese people and to what happened in history. the role of Leopold II. I don't know if you were speaking to, I don't know whether you have a grandson or something, but they asked you what did Belgium do in the Congo? What would you say today? How would you explain the situation? I think colonialism everywhere in the 19th century is the most awful atrocities that you can imagine. I don't think that we can imagine today in the beginning of the 21st century what really happened at the end of the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century in every colonial power, being the Dutch there, being the Belgians there, being the Brits there, being the French there, incredible.

17:30Maybe the only exception I would make is the Portuguese because they had a little bit another way of looking to the territories that they discovered. And they mixed themselves with the local population. But we, I think, yeah, our grand-grand-grandparents were responsible for a colonial period that is maybe the most awful time in history that you can imagine. Guy, we don't need to spend too long on this because we will talk about British politics more in the context of Brexit, but I'm sure you've followed the situation regarding Rwanda in the current debate in the UK about immigration and this stop the boats obsession which the government has and this desire to send what they call illegal immigrants to Rwanda.

18:16What have you been making of that? I find it an awful idea that you're going to put your problem with asylum, seizures and migration towards an African country. I find that the most awful idea that you can have. On top of that, I think that a lot of the problems in the British recent history on migration have something to do with Brexit. Sorry, I see the figures. I can look to the figures as you can look to the figures and everybody can see them. That is that there is an enormous increase in illegal migration since Brexit. Not because of Brexit, since Brexit. And what's your understanding? I mean, why are people leaving France, which is a safe country, in boats to go to Britain?

19:01Why are 40 ,000 people a year doing this? Yeah, because for historical reasons, for the fact that they have already family living there, most of these people are saying, I want to go to Britain. why you have a cousin already living there or have a link with that country. And the only way to tackle that problem is, in my opinion, is on a continental scale, in my opinion, on a European scale, because the problem is not a British problem alone or a French problem alone or a German problem alone. But if you put yourself outside the system, then it's far more difficult to manage it. So it's very ironic that Brexit came because the Brexiteers used migration and illegal migration and saying we have to cut it.

19:48And then the result of it is exactly the opposite. So that's the reality. But Guy, I guess the issue that I'm trying to get at is the question of, I mean, I quite like the proposals that the Labour Party has made, that Keir Starmer's made. his proposal is to say we should not be accepting people from france instead we should take genuine asylum seekers people who are you know female judges from afghanistan people who are at genuine risk to their lives we should agree a quota with europe and we should take however many 25 30 000 people to britain who are genuinely at threat but we do not have an obligation to take people who are coming from a safe country this is not what the asylum system exists for that's true but the asylum system everywhere, not only in Britain, but then also in the rest of Europe is abused naturally, because there is no legal migration route.

20:40So if there are no legal migration routes available, what people try to do is to abuse the existing asylum route. That is what is happening. And so the first way to tackle this illegal migration is to create and have the possibility of legal migration. That's the first thing to do. And the second thing to do is to organize yourself at the outside borders of Europe and the European Union. I'm always asking myself why it is necessary that you have to come into Europe to ask for asylum. Why somebody was really persecuted in his country cannot ask for asylum in a consulate of a European country. Why it's necessary that you jump into the arms of the smugglers to come into Europe, maybe to lose your life before you can ask for asylum.

21:30That's completely crazy. So we have a system of non-existing legal migration that push people into asylum schemes. And it's asylum. You can only ask for it if first of all, a smuggler to arrive in Europe. So we have to really completely revolutionize this. And that has to be done i think by by all european countries and together britain and and and europe together just before we leave this one you've been a politician for literally for half a century and you've witnessed many many many many political leaders i'd just like your assessment of what you think has happened to our politics that we had johnson then truss and now sunak who unlike you who has only been a politician for a few years.

22:18I'd just like your assessment of that. Before we get onto Brexit, what's your assessment of them as leaders? You have, in general, naturally a crisis of politics. It's not a unique British problem, but your electoral system makes it more visible. The crisis of politics that you see is everywhere in Europe, but you see a very sharp image of it or representation of it in Britain, I think because of the electoral system, because it's an electoral system who is in fact give to a minority the possibility to govern for a majority. That's what is happening. And I have seen that in Brexit nearly every day, every week, every month, because we from the continent, we from the European Union, we tried to have a compromise where there was an exit, a Brexit, but not a hard version of it in saying, yeah, maybe it's good to to stay in the single market, because the single market has been invented by whom?

23:17By Margaret Thatcher. So maybe it's not a bad idea to stay in the single market and not to cut you off from your main market, as happened with Brexit. That was our idea, because we know very well that there was a majority during this referendum. So we need to be serious about that. And we pushed both sides, the moderate conservative, the conservative party led by Theresa May and and Lidington and all these people. And we pushed also Starmer, who was responsible of Labour for the Brexit. We pushed them to make an agreement, to have a common understanding of the Brexit they want and was possible.

23:57We pushed them. And every time we saw that it was impossible, putting Starmer and Lidington together, what they did a few times, never materialized in a compromise, never. Because the British politics doesn't work like that. That was also the stupidity from the Remainers during this whole period when they pushed for an election, a parliamentary election at the request of Boris Johnson, thinking that it would be a referendum about Brexit. That's nonsense, naturally, because the electoral system of Britain is absolutely not a referendum. It's first past the post. You know it better than I do. So what I saw was that besides the general crisis in politics that we see, and we can talk about it because I think our social media play an important role in that crisis for the moment.

24:48What we saw is a country that we are classically with first past the post works, opposition majority, and they will never, could never work together. While the interest of Britain at that time was that Labour and moderate conservatives work it out, a compromise with us. That was, in fact, the interest of the UK at that moment. And they could not do it because of the electoral and political system. So, Guy, I mean, I'm very sympathetic towards moving to more of a proportional representation system, but sometimes on the podcast, we discuss the other side of that. You know, we worry that, in fact, the proportional representation system gives space to the AFD in Germany, to the Swedish Democrats, to what's happening in Finland.

25:33Not in Britain, you're first past the post. In a few times now, in a few months now, maybe Farage will be on the list of the Conservative party. The Conservative Party have become, I will not say completely the AFD in Germany, but is in extreme water. No? I'd say they're closer to the AFD than they are to the old Conservative Party that Roy Stewart's party. Exactly. If you see what they are saying about migration, well, there are many populist right-wing parties who are more moderate than the Conservatives for the moment in Britain. I would say they're very, very different to the AFD. I think that's a very peculiar characterization.

26:08Maybe not the AFD, but I say it in general. Marches of hate, Rory. Homeless people, lifestyle choice. There's a wonderful conspiracy going on here. They're not the AFD, and I think that trivializes the horror of the AFD. No, he said they were closer. He said they were closer to the AFD than to the old Tory party. No, I think we have to be careful. Rishi Sunak, James Cleverley, David Cameron would not be welcome in the AFD. This is a very, very, very dangerous comparison. But they're welcoming Farage back to the Tory party. That's the point he's making. That was my point. That was my point. So this is this.

26:42You don't. I think actually it's very dangerous because, in fact, you normalize parties like the AFD by suggesting they're just a version of Rishi Sunak and David Cameron. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, Roy, listen to what I'm saying. I said, and I think this is what Gheer is saying, that we pride ourselves on not having these right wing populist parties. That's the point. We have a right-wing populist party in government pursuing policies. This is what this Braverman thing is all about, in part to be part of. She's not in government. No, but she's running the government from outside it right now.

27:14Otherwise, why was he doing a press conference at 11 o 'clock to respond to her? Look, there is no one European country for the moment making a deal with Rwanda for whatever African country. That's the point. let's just go to this is because you've been a prime minister you've studied prime ministers johnson in a word trust in a word sunak in a word what a question this well uh i in fact i never met uh truce or johnson as uh as uh as prime minister so i met truce later on when she was not longer prime minister in one or other meeting in Japan on our relationship with China. And I had a lot of admiration, I have to tell you, for Theresa May, because with her, I got a few meetings.

28:05And she's understood very well. And then her attempts were very, I think, serious. And unfortunately, it didn't materialize her attempts to have an agreement and the majority in the British Parliament. And then David Cameron, yeah, I think he did the stupidity to do a referendum about the EU. And the stupidity is also that in principle, based on the British Constitution, it's an advisory referendum. But yeah, advisory referendum doesn't exist naturally. If you organize a referendum, you have to follow it. So most when I was a Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament, my relations were with the people surrounding Theresa May and Theresa May herself.

28:45And that was, I have to tell you, very positive. I have also a very positive feeling about Starmer, who was then the representative of Labour for the Brexit negotiations. The only point, and I said it already during our interview, is this incapacity in British politics for both sides to make an agreement or a compromise on a question so existential for a country as are we in or are we out the EU? And if we are out EU, what is our relationship with EU? Even in Belgium, I have to tell you, even in Belgium, with all our differences and with all the tensions we have, we would make a compromise between the different political parties.