Editing Norman Lamont (section)

===Negotiating the Maastricht Treaty===
On succeeding Thatcher, the Major government had to decide its position on the negotiations on European [[Economic and monetary union]] (EMU); this would lead to the [[Maastricht Treaty]]. It had been Thatcher's opposition to EMU which triggered the end of her premiership. Like Thatcher, Lamont was a long-standing opponent of EMU and the European single currency. In his memoirs, Lamont wrote that he was "horrified" when [[Ted Heath]] in 1972 announced Britain that it was accepting the [[Werner Plan]] for monetary union.<ref>Norman Lamont, ''In Office'', Little, Brown and Company (1999), p. 112.</ref> Newly appointed as Chancellor, Lamont therefore supported Major's idea of Britain negotiating an opt-out from the single currency. Negotiations on the economic aspects of the proposed treaty began in earnest at the end of 1990 with monthly meetings of European finance ministers. At an Intergovernmental Conference held in Rome on 15 December 1990, Lamont declared, "I remain unconvinced that the potential benefits of a single currency are as great as its supporters allege."<ref name="Norman Lamont 1999 p. 116">Norman Lamont, ''In Office'', Little, Brown and Company (1999), p. 116.</ref>

In a minute to the Cabinet's Defence and Overseas Policy committee the following month, Lamont set out his three objectives for the negotiations: first, to ensure that Britain did not have to join the single currency; second, to ensure the opt-out was legally water-tight; and third, to ensure that during the period in the run-up to the single currency, there should be no binding obligations on Britain.<ref name="Norman Lamont 1999 p. 116"/> In meeting the third of these, Lamont had to overcome the resistance of the prime minister and the foreign secretary, [[Douglas Hurd]], who told Lamont: "I can't see what you are so worked up about. We are in the ERM. What difference does it make if it is in the Treaty?"<ref>Norman Lamont, ''In Office'', Little, Brown and Company (1999), p. 127.</ref> Lamont decided to ignore their objections. At the next negotiating meeting on the treaty, he told his fellow European finance ministers that Britain would not accept membership of the ERM as a treaty obligation. As a result, the meeting agreed to remove it.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

Lamont decided that the best way of securing the first two of his negotiating objectives was for Britain to draw up a protocol listing those parts of the treaty from which Britain would be exempted. When [[Wim Kok]], the Dutch finance minister chairing the finance ministers' negotiations at [[Maastricht]], decided that the meeting should review the British opt-out line-by-line, Lamont said the text was not negotiable. After Kok persevered, Lamont walked out of the meeting. In his absence, the protocol was endorsed without amendment.<ref>Norman Lamont, ''In Office'', Little, Brown and Company (1999), pp. 131–132.</ref>