• English Site
• > Europe

SPIEGEL Interview with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

'Ten Years Is Long Enough'

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is stepping down on June 27 after a decade in 10 Downing Street. On the eve of his departure, DER SPIEGEL spoke with him about the results of the G-8 summit, the war in Iraq, and his feelings about leaving office.

SPIEGEL: Prime Minister, last week there was talk of a new Cold War because of Russian resistance to American plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. President Putin spoke of a new arms race and talked about Russian missiles targeting European cities again. Is there a new era of détente after the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm?

Blair: No.

SPIEGEL: But everyone smiled at the end.

Blair: I think that there is a desire to overcome this difficulty but I think the issue remains. The truth is that everyone wants a good relationship with Russia and knows it’s important. There are deep concerns in Europe at the moment and the dispute over ballistic missile defence has obviously awakened tensions. The issue has not been resolved by the summit, but it gave us a chance to talk about it with him.

SPIEGEL: Actually we talked to President Putin one week ago and his arguments against the missile shield seemed completely comprehensible to us.

Blair: The fact is, the Americans have always been very open that they wanted to develop this. There is absolutely no way that it offers protection against Russian missiles. And it is there for the reason it is there, which is that America wanted the development of the technology to have a defence against the possibility that Iran or North Korea or another rogue nuclear power might emerge with a long distance missile.

SPIEGEL: Can you understand the Russian fear that the defensive missiles could be used not against Iran but against Russia?

Blair: That’s surely something that has been obvious for a long time, since this has been under discussion for seven or eight years. So it’s not suddenly been discovered. Now, I’ve got, and have always had, a good personal relationship with President Putin, and I want us to have a good relationship with Russia. But there is obviously at the moment a fundamental misunderstanding between the West and Russia. We have to try and get to the bottom of it and resolve it, otherwise what will happen over time is that instead of maximising the business people want to do with Russia, they are going to minimize it.

SPIEGEL: What do you think of Putin's suggestion to build a joint radar station with the Americans in Azerbaijan?

Blair: I don’t know. I’m not qualified.

SPIEGEL: What is your opinion of the G-8 agreements on climate change?

Blair: This is a huge step forward. And I think Chancellor Merkel has done a brilliant job on this. When I tried to put this on the agenda in 2005 at Gleneagles, we got it on the agenda and we started the G-8 plus 5 process and it was a real struggle. Now we have got a situation where everyone agrees there should be a global deal, everyone agrees it should include all the main emitters, America and China particularly, and everyone agrees it should have at its heart a substantial reduction in emissions, and everyone agrees that is of the order of halving emissions by 2050. This is big progress.

SPIEGEL: But you still couldn’t get very clear cut goals.

Blair: I think we did, actually. The American position is a very simple one, which is that it's not prepared to do a deal without China and India in it and they say China and India have not yet agreed. They won’t agree till they agree. It’s not that America is excluding the possibility that a target of that nature is adopted -- on the contrary. For the first time America is committing to a new agreement, saying it wants to be part of it and saying the agreement will have a substantial binding target in reduction.

SPIEGEL: Are you confident that the US will really pursue this under the auspices of the United Nations?

Blair: Yes I am. And President Bush said that himself. Because there is no way of doing this outside of the UN. At Gleneagles I began the G-8 plus 5, and I did it because there is no point in 100 countries sitting around the table whose combined emission is 20 percent of the problem.

What is fair is a matter of negotiation. What, however, is happening to the climate is a matter of science and fact. Therefore there is no point in having a situation where it may be fair, but China, India and the developing world don’t have any obligations. The climate when it’s changing doesn’t distinguish between the provenance of the emissions, if they're from China or from the US.

The fact is I began this process of G-8 plus 5 precisely because I thought, you’ve got to start with a small core group and build out. That’s what we did at Gleneagles and that’s what the Americans intend to do. And the fact that the Americans are prepared to lead this now is a big thing. The Americans can’t call these 13 countries to Washington and then say we’re calling you here and doing nothing.

SPIEGEL: In Gleneagles you were successful in getting the other seven states to commit themselves to doubling aid to Africa by 2010. So far Germany and a lot of the other states are lagging behind in delivering on their promises. Are you confident that this is going to change by 2010?

Blair: Yes. The important thing is there’s a focus on Africa every year. The Japanese will put it again on their agenda for the summit next year. And even in the last week, Germany has announced an extra €3 billion of aid, America $15 billion more on HIV/Aids. Other countries like Italy and Japan are making other announcements. You have to struggle for it every year. You have to commit and recommit every year.