How landmark Bruges speech on Europe accidentally caused offence in Brussels

THE famous Bruges speech delivered by Margaret Thatcher on the future of Europe was actually toned down and would have been much more critical, her private papers have shown.

The 1988 speech, credited as a turning point towards Euroscepticism, had never been intended as the attack it was received as, and personal references to Jacques Delors, then president of the European Commission, and “Euro waffle” were removed, drafts show. It has emerged that it was largely written by Hugh Thomas, a Europhile, who was “disappointed” with the reaction as it was seen as an attack by Mrs Thatcher on the European project.

The prime minister was in a fact a supporter of the single market and the speech was “not anti-europe, it is antifederal”, Chris Collins, a historian of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, said.

Delivered in September 1988 to the College of Europe, it was received as an attack on the EEC threat that Britain would not cede any power to its institutions. “It was the beginning of that trend in Conservative thinking, it is a new turn in the road,” Mr Collins said. Mrs Thatcher’s personal papers, re- leased by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust under the 30-year rule, show how the speech developed.

After the speech she drove to Brussels, and had a brief audience with the Belgian king, followed by dinner with the country’s prime minister and cabinet members. There was a row with the foreign minister who made a federalist comment, letters show.

Mr Collins said: “Margaret Thatcher was always punctilious about thank you letters. Careful study of her files suggests she did not send one to the Belgian prime minister after the dinner he gave her in Brussels.”