European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  The staging points in the fairly rapid journey were Copenhagen on 7/8 April, where under the Council’s Danish presidency the purpose and scope of a monetary integration scheme were first expounded to most of the governments; Bremen on 6/7 July, where in the first days of the German presidency the scheme was given a fairly precise shape and it was agreed, with some British reluctance, that governments would study this particular scheme as opposed to ranging all round the intellectual horizon and give their answers at the next meeting; and Brussels on 4/5 December (that next meeting) where, still under the German presidency, the great advances of the year appeared to dissolve into futility at what should have been the exact point of fulfilment. Giscard there became mysteriously sullen, Schmidt became defeatist, and (temporarily) negative answers were received not only from Britain, which was expected, but also from Italy and Ireland, which most certainly was not.

  Fortunately, however, the solidity of the previous advances was too great for it all to disintegrate into chagrin and disappointment. The Italian and Irish Governments had fairly rapid second thoughts and announced their renewed adhesion before Christmas. Giscard remained sulky, and held up, nominally on a complicated point of agricultural finance, the inauguration of the scheme which was due for 1 January. Eventually this problem was not so much unravelled as left to dissolve, which process did nothing to explain why it had briefly been given such importance, and the EMS came into operation on 1 March. But this development belongs to 1979. 1978 closed with the system kicking lustily as it moved into its tenth month of pregnancy, but with one of its parents (which Giscard had an adequate claim to be) suddenly cool about its birth. As tends to be the case, such belated coolness was ineffective—except to prevent the child being born en beauté.

  For the rest, 1978 was a year in which enlargement problems were increasingly prominent on the Community agenda. Greece, which I visited in late September, was by far the furthest down the road to entry of any of the candidate countries. It was also in my view the least qualified for membership, but it was too late for that view greatly to signify, particularly as it was balanced by the high regard which I developed for Konstantinos Karamanlis, then the Greek Prime Minister.

  Spain was the most interesting (partly because both the biggest and the one with the strongest tradition of political influence) of the three candidates. I went to Madrid in April, having been to Lisbon the previous November. There was considerable latent opposition within the Community to Iberian enlargement. France was the most hostile, while the Benelux countries were reticent, and Italy uncomfortably torn between Latin solidarity and the rivalries of Mediterranean agriculture. I was firmly of the view that Spain and Portugal met all the three qualifications for membership (they were indisputedly European, democratic—even if only recently—and had a settled desire to join), and that rejection or undue delay would be damaging to them and discreditable to the Community.

  Outside Europe my visits of the year were to the Sudan and Egypt in January, to Canada in March and to the United States in mid-December. It was a measure of the dominance of the EMS issue that I went away so little.

  In July the Bonn Western Economic Summit took place. There was no trouble on this occasion about my attendance at all the sessions. This Summit was centrally concerned with trying to get an agreement for concerted economic growth. As ten years later, the Americans and most of the others wanted the Germans to expand. Eventually a sensible if not very precise plan was agreed. But it was aborted as a result of the oil price increase which set in a few months later.

  The political situation in France has already been described. In Germany politics were reasonably stable. No Federal election was due until 1980 and the SPD/FDP coalition was showing no particular signs of strain. Schmidt/Genscher relations appeared tolerable if not warm. In Britain the Callaghan Government briefly enjoyed its period of greatest stability between late 1977 and the summer holidays of 1978, but subsequently began to look near its end. The avoidance of an election in October 1978 created bewilderment rather than confidence, and even before the ‘winter of discontent’ a change of government in 1979 became the general expectation.

  The Italian Christian Democrat Government survived the tidal wave of Aldo Moro’s murder after kidnapping in April and paddled along reasonably steadily under the subtle presidency of Giulio Andreotti. Forlani was Foreign Minister throughout the year. Pandolfi, when he became Treasury Minister in March, made more external impact. In the Netherlands there was a fairly sharp political move to the right, with van Agt (Christian Democrat) having replaced the Socialist den Uyl as Prime Minister in December 1977. The new Government was just as easy to work with on European issues as the old one had been.

  In Belgium some fresh twist to the communal problem led to the European fame and oratory of Leo Tindemans being replaced in October by the less distinguished but more direct Vanden Boeynants, a multiple butcher from Ghent. Gaston Thorn (Liberal) continued as both Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Luxembourg. Anker Jørgensen (Socialist) and Jack Lynch (Fianna Fáil) were equally undisturbed at the head of the governments of Denmark and Ireland.

  The weather (always a preoccupation of mine) was rather better than in 1977. The winter was briefly severe in February, the summer was tolerable without being noteworthy and the autumn was superb, warm and settled until mid-November, and then cold and settled until into Advent.

  TUESDAY, 3 JANUARY. London.

  Andrew Knight, editor of the Economist, to lunch at the Athenaeum, the first time that I had been there since being elected a member under their special semi-honorary arrangements. Knight agreeable to talk to and indeed we went on upstairs until after 4 o’clock; he was well-informed about Brussels, though not exactly exhilarating in his appraisal of prospects.

  WEDNESDAY, 4 JANUARY. London.

  Kingman Brewster, American Ambassador in London, for a drink at Brooks’s at 12.30.1 had not seen him for over five years and not at all since he had been in London, and was agreeably surprised by an approach from him the day before saying that he much wanted to see me (mainly about European monetary union) during the few days I was in London. Very quick and well worth talking to. Then William Rees-Mogg to lunch. I found William much as always, perhaps ageing a little though he has always looked at least ten years older than he is, and having moved, as he expressed it, somewhat to the right on economic affairs, but politically quite pro-Government: thought Callaghan was doing very well; was detached from but not anti-Mrs Thatcher, and thought the whole prospect for the next election was very open. I did not feel as close to him in outlook as I have done at times in the past.

  In the evening Jakie Astor and I gave our dinner for Solly Zuckerman1 at the Capitol Hotel. This was Jakie’s idea with which I happily fell in, not because there was any special event to celebrate—many people thought it was some great birthday of Solly’s, but in fact he is seventy-three and a half, which is not a particularly notable time for celebration, nor has he for once received any recent honour—he has them all—but we were both in his debt from an entertainment point of view, like him very much, and thought it would give him pleasure, which I hope it did. The others present were Victor Rothschild, Robert Armstrong, Jacques de Beaumarchais, Christopher Soames, Sebastian de Ferranti, Eddie Playfair, Gordon Richardson2 and George Jellicoe.

  Soames, booming away, managed to get the thing going very well with general conversation towards the end of dinner, mainly by insulting everybody in sight. ‘Tell me, Solly,’ he said, ‘why was your advice on nuclear matters, and indeed on all defence questions, invariably wrong? Was it primarily stupidity or cowardice? I have often wanted to know.’ Solly made a very good response to this and thereafter the evening hardly looked back.

  FRIDAY, 6 JANUARY. Brussels and East Hendred.

  At 10 o’clock a rather difficult meeting with Ortoli, who came in in a fair state saying that he wished to complain about the arrangements for the debate on EMU in the Parliament in twelve days’ time. What h
e mainly wanted was that he should open it with me, both speaking one after the other, which I think is a foolish idea. The basis of his complaint was that he feels outmanoeuvred since the acceptance of the compromise paper in November by my continuing to proclaim the high road of monetary union while he went on with the details. He was not willing, he said, to play Martha to my Mary (his phrase), and this was accompanied with faint threats that he might not wish to stay in the Commission. He was not disagreeable, as has never been the case with Francis, but his complaint was obviously the result of a lot of brooding over the Christmas holidays.

  Francis is a very nice and instinctively loyal man, but he pushed too hard to keep near to his version of the paper in November, and a bit of reaction of this sort is almost inevitable. The trouble is that he likes detail himself and yet doesn’t like to feel that he is being left only with the detail, while the broader lines are sketched in by me. Also he is instinctively a very cautious man who likes working in the Finance Ministers’ club, and doesn’t like sticking his head above parapets in relation to governments and taking risks of this sort.

  Then to Zaventem to meet Carter. Waited about twenty-five minutes before his slightly late arrival, talking partly to Simonet, partly to Tindemans, partly to Luns, partly to the King, who arrived very quietly, almost sidled up, and began talking in his soft, agreeable voice with his nice shy smile about his holidays, about Spain politically and various other things. Speeches from the dais, the King doing rather well in English, Carter, also in English, doing I thought less well, getting much too much boom from the microphones, and also making an extraordinary solecism by referring first to ‘Your Majesty’ and then to ‘Your Royal Highness’ and ‘Her Royal Highness’ - who on earth writes his texts I can’t think. He then came round and greeted us all with considerable warmth.

  Carter drove up to the Berlaymont after a couple of hours with NATO at 2.25. He is a tremendous one for paying attention to crowd impact. As soon as he got out he climbed up—perhaps in order to give himself extra height—on the step of his car and waved enthusiastically, looking away from the welcoming party to the crowd, and all the way round he was very ready for instant response to anyone who was willing to cheer him, which a substantial number of people were. Also, on coming out of my office before moving to the Commission room, he spotted Alexander Phillips, Hayden’s eight-year-old son, and immediately went over to him, saying, ‘Do you work here?’, which was, needless to say, a great success with him and, indeed, with his mother.

  First we had the so-called ‘restricted session’ with five people on either side. I had Haferkamp and Ortoli, Hayden and Fernand Spaak, and he, Brzezinski, Cooper, Deane Hinton (his Ambassador) and Bob Strauss. He asked me what I thought were the main issues for the Community in the next few months; and we talked about the Multilateral Trade Negotiations, relations with the Third World, and then went on to enlargement and monetary union. Also the date of my next visit to Washington, which he hoped would be within six months.

  At the Commission meeting itself he and I each read out our formal statements with a little improvisation around them. We then had some fairly brief discussions on MTNs, on energy, and then I asked him to say a word about the future of the dollar on which he was fairly reticent and did little more than whistle into the wind about the underlying strength of the American economy and therefore of the currency (there is a good deal of long-term truth in this). Ortoli got in a good point at the end, saying what we very much looked for was a consistency of support for the dollar now that such support had started so that we knew where we were and could plan and proceed on this basis. Carter left punctually at 4 o’clock. I then did a forty-minute press conference.

  I left the office at 7.10 and made a remarkably quick journey: 7.35 from Zaventem, London Airport at 7.25 (English time), and an hour after that, at 8.25,1 walked into the house at East Hendred.

  SATURDAY, 7 JANUARY. East Hendred.

  To Sevenhampton for lunch with Ann Fleming, who had the Donaldsons, Diana Phipps and John Sparrow.3 We returned via Buscot, as I wanted to drive round the park for the first time since Gavin’s4 death and see what it looked like under the new Lord Faringdon. On the way round one of the back roads we got into the most appalling skid, which I suppose was due to my going slightly too fast on mud, so that the heavy car started slewing and I had great difficulty in preventing it plunging into one of the tree trunks which lined the road. I think we did five or six slews before I was able to get it back under control. Back at home we had my old protection officer (Ron Rathbone) for a drink—a pity he wasn’t protecting us at Buscot. Beautiful day, wonderful winter light, which was partly the reason we nearly killed ourselves.

  TUESDAY, 10 JANUARY. Brussels.

  At 12 o’clock I spoke to about a hundred people organized by a European Federalist propagandist body, of which George Thomson had just handed over the presidency to Gaston Thorn. Quite an excitable little gathering. My reception at a gathering like this has been much improved by the Florence initiative.

  An interview with Perlot,5 the spokesman for the Italian Permanent Representation and their very strongly supported candidate as a replacement to Ruggiero as head of our Spokesman’s Group. As a result of the Italians making it so clear that they much wanted him to have the job, I started a little biased against him, but in fact found him an extremely engaging and intelligent man and therefore swung in his favour.

  WEDNESDAY, 11 JANUARY. Brussels.

  A short and relatively easy Commission meeting from 10.10 to 1.20. Lunch with Hayden, going on a long time while he argued with compelling logic that he thought he ought definitely not to stay much beyond the end of the second year, that if he was ever going to leave me it would be time to go, that five years was about long enough to work for anyone, otherwise one became too much their creature. It was all done in the nicest possible way. I regretfully think it a sensible decision. God knows what it will be like without him, however.

  THURSDAY, 12 JANUARY. Brussels.

  An important and potentially difficult lunch with Ortoli rue de Praetère, not made easier by the fact that he was drinking nothing, which is unusual. However, after a slightly sticky start, the occasion definitely went rather well and was worthwhile. Rather typically with him, we did not get final agreement at the end as to exactly when we should speak in the EMU debate in the Parliament. He said he would reflect upon it, but we were obviously en bonne voie. He made it quite clear that he was anxious to build bridges and relations perked up a good deal as a result of the lunch. Lesson: it is particularly worth seeing people at times when a looming dispute makes one loath to do so. As he reasonably hinted, if I had had a talk alone with him at an earlier stage this difficulty would probably have been avoided.

  Dinner party composed of Davignons, Tugendhats, Ebermanns of my cabinet, and Laura. The best evening I have had with the Davignons; Francie out of her summer purdah and animated, and Stevy very funny; a lot of anecdotal conversation about world political figures, particularly Americans, over the past fifteen years or so; it was mostly Stevy and I who were talking after dinner. We all sat over the table until midnight.

  FRIDAY, 13 JANUARY. Brussels.

  Lunch for the five or six British journalists, which was all right from a conversation point of view, not I thought as interesting as the one they had given me a few months ago, but worth having and no great knots or difficulties, but no great theme either. However, they expressed a desire to go on with the series. Jennifer to Brussels in the early evening.

  SATURDAY, 14 JANUARY. Brussels.

  Drove to Henri Simonet’s house in the country at Gooik, on a dismal day, for what turned out to be a rather grand Belgian luncheon party with the Boëls6 and various other notabilities, about twelve people altogether. The house itself was rather elegantly done but it is a curious place to have a country house as it is only about ten miles from their Brussels house and rather on the same side of the city. It is a little like having one house in the Hampstead
Garden Suburb and another in Barnet. However, the lunch was excellent, and the conversation rather good too.

  TUESDAY, 17 JANUARY. Brussels and Luxembourg.

  Foreign Affairs Council at 10.00. Three hours there before leaving by train for Luxembourg. I spoke to the Parliament almost immediately after arrival on economic and monetary union; a speech of about half an hour, followed by what I thought was going to be a substantial debate but in fact, owing to the mysterious working of the Parliament, turned out only to last one and a half hours and to involve no very serious contributions from the floor. Therefore the response was a bit disappointing. Ortoli, however, intervening at the time we had eventually agreed, spoke well and warmly. A drink with the Socialist Group, which was intended to be for Hayward and Underhill from Transport House, but they were hopelessly fog-bound, proceeding from Brussels in a coach, apparently, and did not turn up.

  WEDNESDAY, 18 JANUARY. Luxembourg and Khartoum.

  Commission from 9.00 until 10.00, with no great difficulties, sat in the Parliament until 11.30; met a deputation of Spanish MPs and then off to the airport to leave by an avion taxi which had come down from Brussels containing Jennifer for a flight to Munich to pick up the Lufthansa plane to Khartoum. Munich was sunny but covered in snow and we took off late. An easy flight via Cairo, arriving at Khartoum at 11.30, with filthy food. The temperature both in Cairo and Khartoum was almost perfect, absolutely clear sky. Drove to Government Guest House No. 1, which was slightly reminiscent of, although less luxurious than, Lee Kuan Yew’s guest house in Singapore.