How did Margaret Thatcher shape Britain's relationship with the EU and European integration itself? The UK's longest-serving PM still remains a divisive figure.

360°: The Iron Lady and Europe

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/15964472/d004-0008-en_mf.srt

Hello, and welcome to a new 360°,  which is dedicated today

to the longest-serving British  Prime Minister of the 20th century.

In the '80s, a Soviet journalist  nicknamed her 'the Iron Lady'.

For many Europeans,  she's the symbol of UK Euroscepticism

or, in other words,  what is known today as Thatcherism.

Some love this policy, some hate it,  and so do my guests.

Let me first present a British  Member of the European Parliament,

You said... It's a quote  I had in The Economist.

Your point of view is,  'Thatcherism is relevant

and many countries should think about it.'

Still the same point of view,  I think, I hope.

You're a Luxembourg Member  of this European Parliament too.

Your point of view is quite different.  You thought Margaret Thatcher's policy

was more the symbol of cherry-picking  and opt-out policy in Europe.

Maybe we could start with you,  Timothy Kirkhope.

How would you describe  Margaret Thatcher in 30 seconds?

Everybody tries to compartmentalise  Margaret Thatcher.

I remember her from my time  in the House of Commons in London.

She appointed me to my first job  in government as a government whip.

I think that, talking as we are  in a Europe context now,

it would be very, very sad  if Margaret Thatcher went down in history

remembered as an arch-sceptic  in relation to Europe.

and many of the things she argued for  in relation to the EU

were positive, useful, and indeed  we are benefiting from them now.

Robert Goebbels, positive, useful.  Do you agree?

She undoubtedly is an important figure  of recent European history,

but Maggie Thatcher was rather harmful  for the European Union

and for what is still our goal, a closer  cooperation within the European Union.

She is the mother of  as little government as possible.

She is the inventor of  'I want my money back',

which is not the solidarity policy  I expect for the European Union.

So I have a slightly critical view about her.

So who was Margaret Thatcher?  We tried to give an answer.

Let's look at this report from Jim Gibbons.

She was elected Britain's first  woman Prime Minister in May 1979.

Margaret Thatcher changed  her country's relationship with Europe.

A month after she was elected, the first  direct elections to the EP took place.

The only MEP to have been a member  ever since was optimistic.

I understood it all.  Although she was very conservative,

that ladies can become  prime ministers or chancellors,

as we have now in Germany  with Angela Merkel.

Mrs Thatcher was  the first head of a government

holding the Council Presidency  to report to MEPs on a summit.

She cited the problems  of the Common Agricultural Policy,

I believe that the Community  can and will rise to the occasion.

For however diverse  our national histories,

we all know that our future lies  in working together.

It was in 1984 at the EU summit at  Fontainebleau, and not for the first time,

explaining that the CAP meant Britain's  contributions exceeded its receipts.

We are not asking for a penny piece  of Community money for Britain.

What we are asking is for a very  large amount of our own money back.

Her close friends say Lady Thatcher  was suspicious about Europe's direction.

Although supporting the single market,  she negotiated away Britain's veto to get it

and got a minister, Lynda Chalker,  to sign it.

She saw the Single European Act  as a chance

and a lot of needless obstructions  could be removed.

I don't think she realised until later what  the political implications of this might be.

When she next addressed the European  Parliament in December 1986,

she was interrupted  by Northern Ireland MEP Ian Paisley,

It was not his protest that stopped her,

but the vain attempts of a small usher  to snatch a poster from his hand,

something she couldn't see,  but it reduced the Hemicycle to hysterics.

She could cope with somebody  shouting at her, standing in front of her.

She could not cope  with people behind her laughing at her.

They were in fact laughing at Ian Paisley,  but that's when her speech was stopped.

Mrs Thatcher's attitude to Europe  was made clear

in her speech to the College of Europe  in Bruges in September 1988.

We have not successfully rolled back  the frontiers of the state in Britain

only to see them reimposed  at a European level

with a European superstate exercising  a new dominance from Brussels.

Two years later, her hostility to Europe  and unpopular domestic policies

led to ministers' resignations  and leadership challenges

An award-winning film of her life  shows her continuing influence

but her views remain entrenched  in British political life.

Gentlemen, your view  concerning this report.

What is the one thing  you would remember here?