John Major: "Levez vos yeux, il y a une terre au-delà"

John Major, « Raise your eyes, there is a land beyond »

This text is a article written by John Major which was published in The Economist newspaper on 25th September 1993. John Major became Prime Minister on 28th November 1990 after Margaret Thatcher left the election. Before he was elected Prime Minister, he held the post of Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the governement of Margaret Thatcher. He was also the leader of the Conservative Party. Being Prime Minister for John Major was uneasy as he had to face a period of difficult political and economic events. He was involved in the peace process in Northern Ireland. But the most important measures he had to face was to put the Pound out off the Exchange Rate Mechanism after Black Wednesday. The governement did not succeed to keep the Pound at an acceptable rate level. Moreover, the European question was important as one year before, the Maastricht Treaty has been discussed. The European membership has always been a source of controversy in Britain as the Conservative Margaret Thatcher and some others were Eurosceptic. John Major, in this text tries to find solutions to the European crisis of confidence and efficiency. He exposes his pros and cons of the European membership of Britain but the necessity to find an European unity as well in order to be strong on the international scene. So to what extent can we say that John Major was aware that with the growing importance of the European Community it was neccessary to adopt a pragmatic European policy ? In a first part, I will deal with a British dimension on European membership, what kind of benefits Britain had but also the fears of John Major towards this European membership and I will end in a second part about the debate on the European Community which occured with

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