Thatcher Urges a Magna Charta for All Europe : Human rights: Britain’s leader, in talk at Aspen, favors moves to end East-West divisions.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on Sunday called for a new Magna Charta that would establish basic rights for all Europeans, including the Soviets.

“The European Community has reconciled antagonisms within Western Europe; it should now help to overcome divisions between East and West in Europe,” Thatcher told a crowd of more than 3,000 at the closing session of the 40th anniversary of the Aspen Institute.

“We don’t see this new Soviet Union as an enemy but as a country groping its way towards freedom. We no longer have to view the world through the prism of East-West relations. The Cold War is over.”

At the end of her half-hour speech inside the big blue-and-white Aspen Music Festival tent, the crowd gave Thatcher a standing ovation.

Thatcher traveled to the institute to address its annual symposium and receive its Statesman Award, which recognized the prime minister’s long reign and her commitment to democracy and peace.

Thatcher met with President Bush in Aspen on Thursday before his opening address at the institute. She is scheduled to travel to Washington today for an afternoon meeting with Bush, then return to London early Tuesday.

During her speech, Thatcher said Western nations need to help nations struggling to establish democracy and also should maintain secure defenses, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization supported by U.S. forces in Europe.

“The unity and strength which we in the West have found from joining together in defense can now be turned to serve more positive and ambitious purposes,” she said.

King John of England was forced by English barons to grant the original Magna Charta at Runnymede, England, June 15, 1215. It traditionally has been interpreted as guaranteeing certain civil and political liberties.

The prime minister said her proposed European Magna Charta would “entrench for every European citizen, including those of the Soviet Union, the basic rights we in the West take for granted.”

Among those rights: freedom of speech, worship, access to law and the marketplace and the freedom to hold democratic elections, own property, maintain nationhood and remain free of “fear of an over-mighty state.”

She also suggested that the European Community be poised to accept all Eastern European nations as members “when democracy has taken root and their economies are capable of sustaining membership.”

“We can’t say in one breath that they are part of Europe, and in the next our European Community club is so exclusive that we won’t admit them,” she said.

Founded in 1950, the nonprofit Aspen Institute gathers leaders in all parts of society to discuss critical issues of the world. The symposium over the weekend concentrated on topics including health care and education.