German former Chancellor Helmut Kohl has said that the views on Europe of the late UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher were the source of the tensions between London and Brussels which continue today.
The 83-year-old ex-CDU leader described Thatcher, who died on April 8, as “difficult”, saying that their relationship during the 1980s was never “trusting and warm”.
“[She] wanted Europe, but a different Europe from that wanted by most of her European colleagues and me. From our point of view, this antagonism characterises British policy on Europe to this day,” he told The Times
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