Political prophet, but not in his own country (Part 2)

VB: In your Reith lecture on BBC Radio 4 last year you argued that accountable democratic governments were the best form of governance. If that is so, the European Union form of government cannot be great governance for it isn't much accountable.

CP: Well, I think that in Europe we face what is a problem for a lot of international or supernational organisations. People do recognise that the best way of pursuing the national interest is for countries to do some things together. You set up organisations which can manage that pooled sovereignty - the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank. In a different way, but not entirely dissimilar, are the European Union institutions. But how do you ensure that those institutions command the same loyalty, the same legitimacy as national institutions and how do you make them accountable?

In the European Union we've tried to do that partly by the creation of the European Parliament, partly by the argument that the Council of Ministers is accountable to national parliaments. The trouble is national parliaments are too much detached, too much divorced from the whole question of European policy-making and I think we have to address what's called a cliche of European argument, the democratic deficit, by associating national parliaments much more closely with what is happening in Europe. I also think that it would be extremely helpful if the Council of Ministers was more open and transparent, if more council meetings, for instance, took place in public.

VB: But meetings of the Council of Ministers, the most powerful institution in the European Union, do not take place in public and therefore it cannot be held accountable. Given that, it is hard to see how the national parliaments could hold ministers accountable.

CP: Well, I think that there is a strong argument for the Council of Ministers to hold their meetings in public. I think that part of the process of accountability has to be more open but I think that national parliaments could be more involved.

VB: Is it a liability in politics being an intellectual?

CP: I think that sometimes in Britain, intellectual is regarded as a term of abuse. It certainly wouldn't be regarded in that way I think in France or Italy or Germany. I guess it depends on what you mean by an intellectual. If you mean having an overall structure of thoughts about the nature of society, if you mean, that you've read a few books, I think those are all plus points, or should be regarded as plus points when it comes to a career in public policy making. So, I think that while it's very important to be practical and pragmatic, I think it's essential to have at least an infrastructure of beliefs into which to fit your pragmatism.

VB: The only two other intellectuals that were members of the Tory party that I can think of were Enoch Powell and Keith Joseph (a major influence on Margaret Thatcher), neither of whom were very successful politically in terms of attainment of high office?

CP: Well, Keith Joseph was in senior cabinet jobs for many years. Enoch Powell was influential even though he was, I think, very briefly in the cabinet and only very briefly a minister outside the cabinet. He had an extraordinary influence on British public life. I don't happen to think that it was an entirely beneficial influence. I think it's also fair to say that his views, strongly held views on some subjects, have been shown over the years to be wrong. I think his views on immigration have been shown to be wrong. I think his views on Northern Ireland were shown to be wrong. I think his views on Europe, the notion that somehow Britain would lose its national identity in the European identity, I think that has been demonstrably shown to be wrong as well. He did influence opinion and he influenced opinion because he was, whatever you thought of his ideas, a formidable intellectual debater.

VB: I read somewhere that when you went to work with Keith Joseph as a junior minister in a department that he ran, the first thing he asked you was to make out a list of books that influenced you and that he would do likewise.

CP: That's absolutely right. He was quite surprised to discover, because I was very much identified with the left of the Conservative Party, he was very interested to discover, that one or two of the books on my list were similar to the ones on his. It was a charming, touching, albeit slightly naive way of approaching a relationship.

VB: What were those books?

CP: I remember that Karl Popper's, The Open Society and its Enemies was on both our lists. I think the other was Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Friedrich Hayek (the Austrian philosopher who wrote The Constitution of Liberty and other seminal works) was, of course, high on his list plus a couple of books by Sam Britten, the economic correspondent of the Financial Times. I think now my list would be rather different and it would include, for example, not just Adam Smith's book but a wonderful book by the American historian and geographer, David Landis, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations which is, I think, an incomparable guide to why some countries succeed and some others don't.

VB: When you were a minister at the Northern Ireland Office you read extensively on Ireland. What books impressed you on that?

CP: I read pretty well all the modern histories. I think Roy Foster's book is a very fine book. I also started reading poetry again curiously when I was a junior minister in Northern Ireland. I was introduced to the Blackstaff Press by two very fine civil servants who worked for me, Norman Dugdale, who was a very good poet himself and a translator of C.P. Cavafy (a Greek poet of the last century) and Maurice Hayes, who of course worked with me on the Policing Commission. They were both polymaths, wonderfully well read, and started me reading a lot of Irish poetry, modern Irish poetry at that.

VB: What particular poets did you like?

CP: I thought that John Hewitt was a marvellous guide to the unionist tradition, to the unionist culture, which I hadn't understood as well before. Norman Dugdale is an exceptionally good and interesting poet. In some senses, rather like his hero Constantine Cavafy, a poet of public affairs.

VB: What's your job at present? It seems to be unclear given that you were in Washington earlier this week meeting Colin Powell (US Secretary of State). You were there with the Swedish foreign minister, who now represents the EU on foreign policy. There was Javier Solana, who is the High Representative on Foreign Policy of the European Union and you are External Relations Commissioner of the European Union. What do you all do?

CP: Well, to put it, perhaps over-simply, I'm responsible for the back office of the Common Foreign and Security Policy which is quite a big operation. I'm responsible for pulling together, for co-ordinating our political co-operation, our assistance programmes which are vast around the world and which I'm trying to reform at the moment. The council of 15 foreign ministers, has to agree where we can cooperate, where we can make more of an impact around the world by doing things together. I have to make sure that the instruments that the Commission has in its hand are deployed to support those foreign policy initiatives.