Topics discussed during the interview include:
- Education and career steps;
- Permanent Representative;
- Contacts with domestic groups, lobbies, associations (BA, Jaguar);
- Santer crisis and power of EP;
- Effectiveness of the Commission and representation of national interests with it;
- Opinions on main figures (Delors, Santer, Cloos, Prodi, Monti, Brittan, de Boissieu);
- Inner workings and practices of Coreper;
- BSE (‘mad cow disease’) crisis;
- British politics and the EC, UK and Amsterdam Treaty;
- The Labour government and Tony Blair’s approach to EU;
- BSE affair and the Santer commission scandal;
- Appointment of Neil Kinnock;
- Foreign policy issues, attitudes and decisions about Eastern enlargement;
- UK and Europe in a broad perspective;
- British understanding of integration, particularly the Euro project
- The UK and Franco-German relations.