17 June 2006
Eddie Izzard:
Hi. My name is Eddie Izzard and this is a podcast where I am going to go to Brussels for the European Council and to try and find out what sort of goes on there and maybe talk to one or two people. I have been told that I probably won’t be able to get to talk to Heads of Government, or advisors, or whatever because they are all running about doing business and they don’t want to talk to me because I am just an idiot comedian. But anyway this is what we are going to try and do, I am going to try and talk, I should be able to talk to Tony Blair so I hopefully can illuminate, put into my kind of words what goes on with the European Council, what people are doing over there, and so this is the podcast of that.
So I am now sitting in a Ford Extender, it is a people carrier, that is what it is, and you would expect it to be a big glamorous car that was going woh, woh, woh, woh, but it is not really, there is no woh woh in this.
Right, this is the noise, I am now at RAF Northolt and just getting out of the car. There is the sound of a jet plane in the background, it is probably the plane we are getting on. Oh, don’t forget my bag. Thank you very much. So we have come in a very, very flashy Ford and I am going to get on the plane in a minute.
Morning, Afternoon. Oh, it is quiet in here, in an ante-chamber. Now I am going straight out the door, it is like the gap between the last bit and this bit is about two seconds because we were not supposed to have gone in that room. Eventually we will be in Europe and this podcast will make sense.
So I am on the plane, Airforce One, our Airforce One, which is kind of bijou, a little bit bijou, no Jacuzzi, no shower, no big bedroom, kind of nice you know but kind of just a little bit squishy. Anyway so we are just waiting for a certain Prime Minister to turn up.
Very interesting. We are now watching the RAF ground staff and they are instructing the car with the Prime Minister to come to a halt, oh but he has come to a halt somewhere else. Kuh, wouldn’t you know. OK, so now you have got Tony Blair here coming up the stairs, getting into the aeroplane.
Prime Minister:
Eddie, how are you doing?
Eddie Izzard:
Hello, how are you?
Prime Minister:
I am fine. How are you?
Eddie Izzard:
Have you just had lunch?
Prime Minister:
Yes.
Eddie Izzard:
Good to see you. I am doing a podcast.
Prime Minister:
So what happens then?
Eddie Izzard:
I don’t know, I am just saying that we are in a plane and we are going to take off, we have been waiting for you.
Prime Minister:
I am sorry about that.
Eddie Izzard:
No, it proves you are real. So we are going to Brussels. There are four of these a year, yes, these meetings?
Prime Minister:
Yes. There is absolutely necessarily two, but there are usually four now.
Eddie Izzard:
And it is the 25 headed monster?
Prime Minister:
That is right, soon to become 27.
Eddie Izzard:
Yes, I am looking at that, I keep looking on the BBC website. You don’t do websites, I know, but the BBC website, which is designed to be impartial, very good stuff on Europe by the way, and Austria is just coming to the end of their thing and they are going to hand over to someone else.
Prime Minister:
To Finland.
Eddie Izzard:
So a six months rotating thingy, and this is the Council of Europe, not the European Council, yes?
Prime Minister:
No, this is the European Council.
Eddie Izzard:
This is the European Council, not the Council of Europe. And there is a Council of Europe and the European Council and they are different, and it is crazy. I mean why couldn’t they call one Steen (phon) or something, the European Council and the Council of Steen. Don’t you think, isn’t that crazy?
Prime Minister:
The one you need to worry about is the European Council because that is where the leaders turn up.
Eddie Izzard:
The European Council …
Prime Minister:
It is not that the Council of Europe is not immensely important …
Eddie Izzard:
There is not a huge amount of stuff to discuss today, and there is football.
Prime Minister:
The last time I was at, at the last World Cup there was a European Council going on.
Eddie Izzard:
… this one.
Prime Minister:
Well it happens usually in June you see, so you usually do find that it overlaps. But I remember at the time because every so often, you know for some reason though it went on for two or three days, which is longer than normal, and the leaders would go out of the room, you know go and watch, and then they would come back crestfallen or they would come back pleased.
Eddie Izzard:
OK, We are now on the plane, just coming into land in Brussels. Oh there is a little castle there. We are about 50 foot off the ground, and there is the control tower that looks like it has gone stingray, and we are going to touch down in three seconds, two seconds, one second. A very long second, there we go. So we have landed in Bruxelles. So we are just taxiing round now and I have just realised there is a Republic of Poland plane, and there is a Lithuanian Airlines plane, and there is a Romania plane, and these are all the guys, they must be all the Heads of State. What is that on that side? We have got the Spanish plane, we have got the Deutsche plane, the German plane. What is that one next to it - the French plane, Francais, the Hellenic, that is the Greece plane, the Grecian plane, the Portuguese plane, the United States of America, there is an American plane. Are the Americans here? Maybe the Americans got lost.
Right, we are getting off now. Noisy as hell. That is the sound of getting off the aeroplane. So I am travelling with the PM it seems, and we are getting into a gorgeous, gorgeous big long bus with Quality Comfort written on the side.
We are now in a lift, we are in a lift in the European Council. It is an exciting lift. God it jumps the floors, that went 20 - 35, 50, tall buildings.
Participant:
And number 70.
Eddie Izzard:
Oh really? So we are now on Floor 70 which is three floors up. So … but you have to walk fast here. Got out of that car, I’ve been running around the corner. Does everyone have their own room? Deutschland, yes the United Kingdom. This looks very Belgian. I am looking at a fantastic view of bits of concrete.
Official:
So this is a red pass which gets you into what is called the Red Zone, where only very important people, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers can go.
Eddie Izzard:
A VVIP pass.
Official:
You will be surprised how many VVIPs there are.
Eddie Izzard:
We are now in the European Council room, which I don’t think I am supposed to be in.
Official:
Hello.
Eddie Izzard:
Yes, we are doing a podcast at No 10, a No 10 podcast, so I shouldn’t really be doing this but I am just coming in to have a look, just in oral terms, and then we will have to go. Talking to the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett now. And now we are going.
To recap, I was just in the European Council rooms, a great big oval room, it is oh about the size of squash court with less roof, maybe two squash courts, maybe a tennis court, it is about the size of a tennis court with no net, a big oval table and just Heads of Government and Foreign Secretaries go in there, and then there are loads of translators and so I snuck in there and just had a word, I said hello to Margaret Beckett, you didn’t even hear her on the tape because I was holding this tape recorder to my chest and it looked like, you don’t want to think what it looked like. So there were security people looking at me like grab him, hit him with sticks.
So anyway I am out now and a Dutchman I may say has followed me up, he is just following me around, and he has gone in for a chat with Tony Blair, he has just gone into a room to have a chat, and meanwhile football is in the other room and I am missing the game so I am going back to the football now.
… of the England-Trinidad and Tobago game, in Dutch. … the Dutch Prime Minister just popping in to see the United Kingdom Prime Minister, they are just going into a room, it is sort of a small room and they are going to have a chat, and they are having a chat because they want to have a chat about stuff. So that is chat in the background. They speak very good English.
Oh how can I do this … We have just won, we have just won. I would like to feel we have won the World Cup, but not quite yet.
Right, so we are now just waiting, all the Heads of Government are lining up and doing a big photograph which is called in the parlance of politics the family photo. I think it is more like a school photo. Does anyone know this, has any leader ever gone from one end of the back row and just run all the way round to the other end? That is the Dutch Prime Minister. They have finished the family photo.
We are going to talk to the Dutch Prime Minister, OK we are going to talk to the Dutch Prime Minister because he was upstairs talking to Tony at the time when we won our two goals, well not two goals, scored our two goals against Trinidad and Tobago. So now we are … we will talk to the Dutch Prime Minister.
Can I ask you a couple of questions because you were in earlier … I am a comedian but I am just talking about what is going on here because people in Britain, and probably people in the Netherlands as well are wondering what exactly happens. But you were in talking with Prime Minister Blair and the football match was on in the background. Is it easy to do politics and watch football at the same time?
Mr Balkenende:
Of course it is not easy but the interesting thing is that when I entered the room it was nil-nil and I could see the disappointed faces, and then I talked just a minute with Tony Blair and then suddenly there was the first goal for the British team, so the whole atmosphere changed. And that was really great to be there as part of it.
Eddie Izzard:
And so once the atmosphere changed could you get what you wanted to get out of him?
Mr Balkenende:
Well in any case let us say the effect it was of that goal at that moment, that was good for our discussion.
Eddie Izzard:
And did you discuss what is going to happen if you both get to the final? Are you going to allow England to win the World Cup?
Mr Balkenende:
We will have that discussion later I think. At this moment we are both happy with the beautiful goal.
Eddie Izzard:
Absolutely, OK, thanks. And good luck tomorrow
Right, so that was the Dutch Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, and now they are going to go and eat so I am going to go and grab something to eat and then I am going to go back and do sleeping.
OK, it is Friday morning, up early, which is earlier than I wanted it to be because there is an hour’s difference and it kills you. Anyway, so I got up early and I have been working away on this article about this, which is going in the Guardian Saturday, so it is probably online somewhere. So that has taken a bit of time. And everyone is in the Council room doing their stuff, so we can’t actually get to talk to anyone because I crept in last night, I can’t creep in again. So we have just heard that the conclusions have been agreed, everyone has agreed stuff and they are heading out of here and there is going to be a press conference, so we are now going down and Tone, the Prime Minister is going to give a press conference at the doors and then we are just going to run out and jump in cars and run away. I think that is what is going to happen.
Prime Minister:
We have left open what is the right way forward. There is no doubt at all that Europe is going to have to change its rules because we have gone from being a Union of 15 to a Union of 25, and then 27, and then with other countries coming in, perhaps the Balkan states in the future, Europe needs new rules. But what form those rules will take, I think that is an open question and we are right to reflect on that and in the meantime get on with the things like illegal people trafficking, and energy policy, and economic reform and progress that I think probably most citizens of Europe worry about more.
Eddie Izzard:
We are just standing in the doorway here and Tony Blair is doing a final, what do they call it, they call it a doorstep I think, a quick sort of chat to the press to say what went on. You can probably hear him talking in the background, and I am just trying to sum up here. I am just going to walk out the door and then there is just craziness outside the door with motorbikes and cars, and as soon as he stops talking, everything moves very fast, it is a crazy fast moving thing, which is understandable. And there are people around me who are pointing and things, and obviously stuff is happening, and no-one quite knows, I can’t quite be sure, there are people with green passes, and blue passes, and yellow passes, a lot of security. I feel like I should get out of the way of where I am. We are going. OK, we are leaving, this is the noise of leaving. So everyone runs and jumps into cars now, and then we drive with screaming blaring noises all over the place.
… checklist here at the front of the plane. Sit right up in the cockpit here. The engine is going up, power going on, and now they whack it on full power. We are going along about 100 knots, 120, 140 knots. Take-off.
And is it still fun to go in a convoy?
Prime Minister:
Some of the countries that you go to have a really amazing way of doing these convoys. Actually the British bikes are the best that there are.
Eddie Izzard:
The British bike riders who zoom ahead?
Prime Minister:
Yes. The trouble is, because you are kind of cutting through all the traffic and of course everyone else … late … so it is not great.
Eddie Izzard:
But I have heard in other countries they just block off whole roads.
Prime Minister:
Yes they do sometimes.
Eddie Izzard:
So we don’t do that in Britain, we actually have outriders who go ahead.
Prime Minister:
… I think.
Eddie Izzard:
It must be fun being a bike rider, wouldn’t it?
Prime Minister:
Our bikes are fantastic, our police bikes are amazing.
Eddie Izzard:
It was interesting on the football thing. I don’t know if I said this yesterday, I think that you have to, I think the citizens of Britain would expect you to do politics here because you know it is taxpayers’ money, and also watch the football at the same time. I don’t know about the Scottish and the Welsh, they are not … care about it, but the English citizens certainly would, so I suppose you have to do both at the same time.
Prime Minister:
Yes, and you can. I mean I had to miss some of the match because there was one of the discussions that was crucial we had to be there, and my first priority has got to be to do the job that you are supposed to do, as much as I would … to watch football.
Eddie Izzard:
I understand that. The Dutch Prime Minister went into that room with you and then suddenly when he came out we had won 2-nil … change in the dealmaking when we score goals?
Prime Minister:
I was actually, that is right because I had to see the Dutch Prime Minister because we are trying to get an agreement on something together, and he came in right in the middle of the football, just before Peter Crouch scored. So I was watching the screen and … negotiation at the same time.
Eddie Izzard:
And does it change your way of … confident about negotiating once we have scored a couple of goals.
Prime Minister:
Yes, you kind of feel more relaxed about everything.
Edide Izzard:
On a serious, vaguely serious thing, does stuff get done at these European Council meetings?
Prime Minister:
Yes. I mean you prepare a lot before the meeting, nobody just walks into the meeting without masses of work done beforehand, so you reach certain conclusions. For example what we did about the constitutional treaty, or things to do with regulations, managed migration and so on, so there were a whole series of things … from that perspective. But then you have got the issue of the other conversations you have in the margins, or the corridors as people call it. So basically in a summit like that I will probably speak to 8 or 9 different leaders, talking about different issues that I may have with their country. So it is an opportunity where you kind of cut the deals you need to, or get the understandings you require. For example I had breakfast this morning with the German Chancellor, so that gives you a chance to go through the … of the things that are important.
Eddie Izzard:
You have done a whole bunch of these European Councils. I think this one was quite easy comparatively, nothing huge to go on.
Prime Minister:
Yes it was, yes.
Eddie Izzard:
Have there been hellish ones?
Prime Minister:
Yes.
Eddie Izzard:
What is it? I have read there are people in the corridors haranguing people and saying change your mind. You know is it like school, is it just like a high powered school?
Prime Minister:
No, it is not like that at all, it is like any very, very tough high powered negotiation, which is what it is, but it is better to negotiate than fight, which is what we used to do before.
Eddie Izzard:
Yes, I know.
Prime Minister:
Of course because you are also dealing with countries’ interests and sometimes the interests clash and then the question is how you find a way through. You know some people go into the sort of Brussels cauldron and they get sort of irritated or depressed by the constant negotiation and haggling and all the rest of it, but my attitude to it is it is just part of the way you do business internationally today.
Eddie Izzard:
So, in conclusion, what have I learnt? I have learnt something, I have learnt that everyone who goes to the European Council, there is a lot of hard work, there is a lot of running about, there is a lot of sorting things out in meetings, people to get together, there is a lot of boring bits, there is a lot of translation of stuff into 20 languages I believe it is. Everyone seems to work pretty damned hard. It is very tiring, but I think it works. So I like it, you know this is a good and positive thing, yes. So if you want to read more about this stuff, people say there is not enough information, there is tons of information, maybe too much information, you can go back with the information. The BBC site is very good, you can look up stuff there about Europe, and there is a government site, they are all going to be linked on this. So anyway thanks for listening and I hope it has been vaguely illuminating.
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