24 Facts About Bruges speech

Bruges speech was given by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to the College of Europe at the Belfry of Bruges, Belgium, on 20 September 1988.

Bruges speech considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for federalisation and clashed with him publicly.

Thatcher's speech recounted Britain's history within and close connection to Europe and called for the EEC to resist a move towards centralisation of power.

Bruges speech called for reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy and for the EEC to continue to support the work of NATO.

The Bruges speech exposed a divide in the Conservative Party between those favouring federalisation and the majority who opposed it.

Related searches

Much of Thatcher's Bruges speech was drafted by her foreign-policy adviser Charles Powell and Conservative peer Hugh Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton.

Bruges speech did not object to it, although the final version of the speech contained some significant changes.

Bruges speech deviated slightly from the text but not in any politically significant manner.

Thatcher began her Bruges speech by noting that her last appearance before the College had been shortly after the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, in which Belgians had saved many British lives.

Bruges speech went on to reference Bruges' long history and the city's association with English literary figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Caxton.

Bruges speech thanked the College for having the courage to invite her to speak on the topic of Europe and noted that some federalists would regard it as "rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence".

Bruges speech noted that Britain had long been associated with Europe and that its ancestors were Romans, Celts, Saxons and Danes.

Bruges speech afterwards noted that Britain had supported the European resistance movements against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Bruges speech urged the audience not to forget those parts of Europe under communist rule, stating "we shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities".

Bruges speech argued that the EEC should not look to model itself upon the US and that it seemed to be moving towards greater centralisation of power at the same time that the Soviet Union was moving away from it.

Bruges speech suggested that by doing so, the agriculture budget could be redirected towards training and aid.

Text of the Bruges speech was released to the media at 17:30 GMT by the Downing Street press office.

The Bruges speech was seen as a warning against expanding the remit of the EEC beyond the limits of the Treaty of Rome into the social policy of member states.

Bruges speech regarded it as marking British resistance to the Economic and Monetary Union and setting out an alternative model for European cooperation under a voluntary association of independent states.

The Bruges speech exposed a divide in the Conservative Party between the minority of European federalists and the majority who were opposed.

The Bruges speech greatly affected Howe, who considered Thatcher's position to be at odds with his own, and on 4 May 1989 he met with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, who had been planning for the country to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, an EEC economic stability measure, against Thatcher's wishes.

The Bruges speech is sometimes described as "setting the UK on the path to Brexit", though some writers such as David Allen Green have stated that this was not the case and was instead "a call to battle" to reform the EEC.

Eurosceptic Bruges Group think tank was founded in 1990 and named after the speech.

The original drafts of the Bruges speech were released by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust in 2018 under the thirty-year rule.