THATCHER AND THE EU

Thatcher is remembered in Britain for resisting the idea that the European Union should move ever closer to political union, but, at a time when Britain is once again agonising over its role in Europe, EU leaders much keener on closer integration had warm words for her.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said she would be remembered "both for her contributions and her reserves to our common project".

"She signed the Single European Act and she helped bring about the single market. She was a leading player also in bringing into the European family the central and eastern European countries which were formerly behind the Iron Curtain."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a fellow conservative who grew up in communist East Germany and went on like Thatcher to become the first woman to head her country's government, said:

"The freedom of the individual was at the core of her convictions; in that sense Margaret Thatcher recognised the strength of the movements for freedom of eastern Europe early on and stood up for them.

"Margaret Thatcher was not a women's politician - but by asserting herself as a woman in the highest democratic office at a time when this was not yet a given, she was an example to many."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thatcher was "a pragmatic, tough and consistent person" and that these qualities had enabled her to help pull Britain out of economic crisis, for which people should be grateful despite the criticism she faced.

Putin, who once called the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century", said Russia "will always be thankful" for the contribution Thatcher made to British-Soviet and British-Russian ties.