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Maria S. Topalova

Andrea Leadsom is a Conservative Member of the British Parliament. In her biography, she has 25 years of experience in financial markets. She graduated from the University of Warwick. She was Financial Institutions Director at the biggest bank of Britain - Barclays Bank, then she was Managing Director of her own hedge fund in London. Andrea Leadsom is a firm supporter of British Prime Minister David Cameron; she is a Member of the Treasury Select Committee. She is a representative of the group of conservative lawmakers united under the name Fresh Start Project.

What lies behind the name?

The name is because over the years the Conservative Party has had many problems internally over the subject with the European Union and particularly in the 1990s the party really split over Europe. Someone has had to leave, someone has had to renegotiate, someone has had to stay in and integrate further in joining the Euro. So, there is a bad history with the Euro. So, the reason for calling it Fresh Start Project is because we want to look at this completely differently and we are going forward. And particularly what we want to do is to analyze exactly what each policy area does for Britain. The harm it does, the benefits it gives us, to assess the way that we could improve that relationship and then also to look at the precise way in which we could repatriate powers if we wanted to do so. 

What is the overview so far? You said you should take into account the benefits and the harms.

We have only so far started one piece of work and that is to look at European Union social policy, including employment legislation, health and safety and social policy. And what we have found is that there are some big disadvantages to Britain particularly with the working time directive. And maybe when we finish up the project we will conclude that Britain should renegotiate that part of European Union social policy. On the other side, we have also considered that some of the health and safety legislation is very good for Britain, because we already have very high standards of health and safety.  So, regarding the legislation that has been introduced, we already meet the standard and so it is good if the rest of Europe comes up to that standard. So, by looking at the detail, we can see where the real benefits are and where the real costs are. So, instead of just a general conversation about repatriating powers, we can be very specific about what is good for Britain and what isn’t so good.

What kind of powers do you want to see returned to London?

Well, we will not really know that until we complete the project next summer. So, what we have are meetings roughly every three weeks, looking at a different area of European Union policy. On Monday next week we will be looking at financial services, European Union financial services legislation and then, three weeks later, we will be looking at structural funds, and then in the new year, we will be looking at the agricultural policy, the fisheries policy, the human rights and justice policies and so on. So, every few weeks, we look at a different area. So, as we go along, we draw some conclusions about particular policies but it won’t be until we get to next summer that we really conclude so, this is where we should focus our efforts or that’s where we should focus our efforts. We cannot really decide until we finish everything. 

How strong are anti-European forces in Britain and what are their social balances?

Well, there is a large minority of voters in Britain who would like us to leave the European Union, mainly because they believe that there is no possibility of renegotiating for a trade-related organization that can simply create a free trade area within Europe. They feel it has gone too far and that it is impossible to try to restructure the European Union to make it more responsive to the trade needs. And so, those people argue that we should just leave. And there is a group called “better off out” which has quite a lot of support from voters.

In Parliament, however, we have a huge number of people who are interested in this project, because they do see it as the possibility of us creating the environment for a restructuring of the European Union and particularly with the Eurozone crisis. We think that will be the potential for looking again at the European Union problems and trying to make it more fit for the 21^st century.  And I think what is very important is that we have a legislation that has been in place in Britain since 1975 and yet nothing has ever changed. You know, it has always been more and more legislation.

We have never, as individual member states, been able to say actually what worked for us 35 years ago is no longer good for Britain. We want to now remove that piece of legislation. In every government, in Bulgaria, in Britain, in every European Union member when we change our government, the government looks again at what works for that country, what is in the interest of the people. And they are able to change things, to reform things but not so with the European Union and it is just stupid. The European Union cannot survive unless it is willing to change with the times. We cannot have a situation like we have now, where potentially in another 50 years time we are still having legislation that we implemented in 1965. It is just ridiculous. We must be able to reform.

The British Prime Minister said very clearly that the European Union is an organization in peril representing a continent in trouble. How serious is this peril and how dangerous is this trouble?