European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  WEDNESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  Pouring with rain. I had noticed a ring around the moon in an otherwise clear sky when walking back from the Charlemagne to the Berlaymont at 7.15 the previous evening. It is the most reliable of all weather signs.

  Commission for three hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon. The afternoon session was rather exhausting, with one or two difficult items. I persuaded them with only a little difficulty that we should not present a new budget at this stage. Then there was an unexpected raising of the Haferkamp affair by Cheysson, who did it nominally in helpful terms but who only has to see any bubbling pot to want to stir it. And then an unexpected and tiresome defeat on GSP9 for China. Haferkamp presented it fairly badly. I thought it was all arranged, but to my dismay, Ortoli, Gundelach, Davignon and Cheysson (Cheysson was expected, the others not) all came out in a rather hostile way, so there was nothing to do except half accept a negative decision for the moment but say that I would have to come back to it before I went to China: a boring end to the meeting.

  THURSDAY, 8 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  A difficult meeting with Aigner,10 who is Chairman of the Budget Control Committee, about the Haferkamp affair and its repercussions. Then had Francis Pym, accompanied by Crispin, to lunch, rue de Praetère. He was extremely anxious to learn not only about Brussels, but how to be Foreign Secretary which, as I recorded at the beginning of January, he is quite confident that he will be, although he is not necessarily expecting an election before the autumn. I felt a bit like Lord Melbourne with Queen Victoria, although apart from a certain dumpiness they do not look exactly alike. However, I think Pym is nice and straightforward, even if not intellectually sparkling. Crispin liked him too. Then to Bruges, where I spoke and answered questions at the College of Europe for an hour and a half. I enjoyed the meeting which was attended by all their 180 students.

  FRIDAY, 9 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  Cheysson at 9.45 to try and move him, not very successfully, on GSP for China. I then saw Napolitano,11 and a delegation of about five from the Italian Communist Party, who had made a great issue about coming to see me. Napolitano was talkative, svelte and moderate, and indeed agreeable and sensible, as I had thought when I had seen him in London about three years before; most of the others were silent.

  At 12.30 I had Klose, the Governing Mayor of Hamburg, for half an hour’s talk and a lunch. Unfortunately before seeing him I made the mistake of reading the summary of the German press comment on the Haferkamp affair, which Tugendhat had sent me, and was horrified and depressed to find how anti-British, anti-Tugendhat, and indeed how anti-me the German press comment had turned into after its initial, but brief, anti-Haferkamp phase. How right Ortoli was. Therefore I started in a gloomy and not very pro-German mood. However, Klose is a nice agreeable man, though he doesn’t get on with Schmidt I am afraid, nor with Apel.

  After lunch I saw George Thomson and wept a little on his shoulder about the Haferkamp affair as he had done on mine over the Rhodesian sanctions affair the year before. Then I got the figures for which I had asked for various forms of expenditure, and discovered the horrific bit of news that our 1978 expenditure on avion taxis was more than twice the previous year’s, and that as a result we were over our budget for this part of Commissioners’ travel and accommodation expenses, though not over the budget for either representation expenses or travelling expenses in the Commission as a whole (that is including officials). After seeing Tugendhat about this bad beginning to the weekend I went home, where Caroline had arrived to stay and where we unusually had a purely English dinner party.

  MONDAY, 12 FEBRUARY. Brussels and Luxembourg.

  I saw the acting Egyptian Foreign Minister, Boutros-Ghali, for just over half an hour at 10.30: an agreeable, intelligent man. Then I attended a reception which Brunner was giving for Heath and the European Youth Orchestra, spoke briefly to Ted and listened to one or two rather good little performances.

  At 12 o’clock I saw Greenborough12 and two or three other people from the British CBI and then, at 12.30, Vredeling, to lobby him successfully about reversing the previous Wednesday’s GSP decision for China. Crispin had done a good and much more difficult job with both Davignon and Gundelach the previous week.

  After this I gave lunch to a highly distinguished body of Norwegian parliamentarians containing at least two ex-Prime Ministers and, so I was told, either one or two future Prime Ministers—that is always more difficult to tell. At 3 o’clock I saw Ortoli on several matters, including telling him that I was going to try and change the GSP decision, which he accepted with neither enthusiasm nor complaint. He was not going to be at the meeting on Wednesday so he was not of crucial importance, but I thought it necessary to tell him.

  4.27 train to Luxembourg and worked all the way, mainly on my draft statement relating to expenses, while Nick Stuart and Laura did a breakdown on the dreaded avion taxi figures. We arrived in filthy, gloomy weather and I went to see Colombo to discuss various bits of business for the week with him—a friendly conversation as always.

  TUESDAY, 13 FEBRUARY. Luxembourg.

  Delivered my not very exciting Programme speech to the Parliament at about 10.15. A tolerable debate during the morning, except for a notably ungracious speech from Fellermaier, the leader of the Socialist Group, who I am afraid likes me as little as I like him. Then I found myself rather unexpectedly called upon to reply to half the debate at about 12.10, and then went out to lunch at Hostert with the Tickells and Nick. I took a minor debate (about Eurobaromètre—a public opinion poll commissioned by us in which a foolish and embarrassing question had been asked) at 6.00, and then did a ten-minute TV interview with Robert Mackenzie. 13

  WEDNESDAY, 14 FEBRUARY. Luxembourg.

  The weather still filthy. A two-hour Commission meeting at 9.00, longer than usual during a Parliament week, but not altogether unsatisfactory. I told them about the avion taxi figures, which reduced them to a state of stunned dismay—most of them at any rate. I got the GSP decision satisfactorily reversed, had a rather gloomy interview with Tugendhat, who is even more depressed than I about the Haferkamp affair, and spoke to Robin Day on the telephone for a World at One recorded tribute to poor Reggie Maudling, whose death had been announced that morning. Then, at 12.30,1 recorded a Southern Television interview with Stephen Milligan, the author of all the Haferkamp trouble, whom I treated fairly frostily.

  In the afternoon I appeared before the Budget Control Sub-Committee, which I had had to promise Aigner I would do. I had arranged with Aigner that I would merely make a brief statement, telling them what I was going to say in the Parliament the following afternoon, and then withdraw, and it would all be done without publicity. He interpreted this sufficiently freely that the room was crammed with television cameras and the Committee seemed to have swollen to about four times its normal size, and I had, with the support of a number of other members, to get the television cameras removed before I would start. However, I eventually made a brief statement and they did at least observe the no-questions agreement, mainly due to British Tory and Labour members (Bess-borough and Bruce) being particularly helpful.

  At 5 o’clock I saw the Australian Ambassador who had come partly to complain about us and partly to complain about his Government, as is usually the case with that admirable man. Then I saw Donald Bruce and thanked him for his help in the afternoon. He thinks that he has got no chance of being directly elected and would like a job in my cabinet, which is perhaps why he was so helpful, but one should not be too cynical.

  I dined with Laura at the St Michel and had the most cheerful meal of this long Luxembourg visit. I decided that I really must bounce up and not allow this dreadful cloud of Haferkamp affair gloom to suffuse me; whether I will stick to this excellent resolution remains to be seen.

  THURSDAY, 15 FEBRUARY. Luxembourg and Brussels.

  Listened to and wound up with a twenty-five-minute speech the second half of the debate on my Programme speech. Lunched wit
h Laura and Nick, going back to the Parliament rather early to be ready for questions at 3.00. The only one I took was that relating to the Haferkamp affair, on which I made a statement of about seven minutes. This was quite well received with only Fellermaier producing a slightly snide question (which probably turned out to be rather helpful) asking what were the national motives of the Economist. I replied that I had no idea, but one thing I greatly deplored was the introduction of this nationalist note into the dispute, and spoke rather emotionally about my attachment to Anglo-German friendship, and that we must really grow up as a Community. It was unimaginable that if an attack on a New York politician appeared in a Chicago paper it would be regarded as an Illinois plot against the East Coast. It was not very carefully considered, but probably worth saying and went rather well.

  Back to Brussels by car, still in horrible weather.

  FRIDAY, 16 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  A morning Commission meeting on the budget. The issue was whether we did a budget which was purely supplementary, to which I half inclined the night before, or one which was lightly rectifying as well as supplementary. The two French, Ortoli and Cheysson, both wanted a heavily rectifying budget, and the two Italians a purely supplementary one. Eventually there was no alternative but to compromise on a lightly rectifying one, which indeed Tugendhat had put forward and expounded rather well, and was eventually agreed with dissent from Cheysson from one side and Natali and Giolitti from the other, but not with formal dissent from Ortoli. Therefore a reasonably satisfactory outcome.

  Jennifer and I had Ortoli to lunch, rue de Praetère. The purpose of the lunch was to discuss with him things which might happen while I was away14 and, in particular, the paper—not wholly satisfactory—which he had prepared on convergence for the European Council. In view of my impending absence, it was not possible to do more than suggest that he made about four moderately significant changes of presentation, to which he agreed.

  About 4 o’clock I went across to the Commission TV studios, thinking I was due to do a ten-minute interview with Michael Charlton. It turned out to be a major programme, lasting forty minutes, with not only Charlton, but Malcolm Rutherford and Maclntyre, the BBC man in Brussels, as well. I began in dismay, totally unprepared for a long interview. However, most mysteriously, although I was somewhat worried when it was over, subsequent responses suggested it was one of the better things I had done on television for a long time.

  I saw Davignon at his request for three-quarters of an hour to talk about MTNs, on which he was fairly depressing. Dined at home with the Beaumarchais’, who had arrived to stay.

  SATURDAY, 17 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  Jennifer having put her back out the previous day, there was extreme uncertainty as to whether or not she would be able to come to China. She stayed in bed. I took the Beaumarchais’ to Crupet (once again; it is the only near Ardennes restaurant open in February). We had a short walk (still on ice) before lunch. It was not a bad day. Returned via Namur. Snow started to fall quite heavily in the evening and I drove the Beaumarchais’ with difficulty to the Nanteuils’ christening party. I learnt there that war had broken out between China and Vietnam, which was a highly inconvenient time and raised a question of whether we should still go to Peking on Tuesday.

  MONDAY, 19 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  At noon I had a meeting with the Chinese Chargé d’affaires, the Ambassador being in Peking waiting for us (we had made a definite decision during the morning that we should go to China rather than postpone the visit; Jennifer fortunately somewhat better, having seen doctors) and did some visit planning with him, including the abandonment of the boat trip through the Yangtse gorges on the ground that three days was too long.

  Bill Rodgers came for a drink at 7.30. He was on very ebullient form, although he said he was depressed after the action, but he clearly thought that he had had, as Peter Jenkins put it, ‘a good war’ during the strike period15 and was exhilarated by having made a public breakthrough and the feeling that he had performed effectively, which he certainly had. He is a great fighting colonel.

  TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY. Brussels, Paris and Karachi.

  A snow run in the Bois, then some fairly frenzied packing before leaving rue de Praetère at 9.50 to address the joint twentieth anniversary of COPA, the European farmers’ union, and two other agricultural organizations down near the Gare du Nord. The President of COPA spoke too long, so that I was only just able to get in my short speech (a rather good, tough speech written by Graham Avery) before driving to the Gare du Midi for the 11.43 to Paris, accompanied by Jennifer, Crispin, Celia Beale, Enzo Perlot and Etienne Reuter (Emile Noël, Roy Denman and Endymion Wilkinson, Tokyo-based Sino-expert and good Chinese speaker, joined at subsequent points), lunching on the way. Then to Charles de Gaulle and the 4.10 plane. I did some hard work on briefs during the early evening. We arrived in Karachi after seven and a quarter hours flying and spent an hour and a half on the ground there, standing out for a large part of the time on the platform at the top of the steps. It was a cool, agreeable night, starlight, waning moon and the temperature about 60°F.

  WEDNESDAY, 21 FEBRUARY. Karachi and Peking.

  I slept for quite a long time—well on into the light—before putting on fresh clothes and breakfasting only a short time before a 2.30 p.m. arrival in Peking on a greyish day, no snow, temperature about 32°. We had done the whole flight quickly, in thirteen and a half hours flying time from Paris.

  We were met on the tarmac by the Minister of Foreign Trade and various other Chinese dignitaries, including the Ambassador in Brussels; Sung, the old Ambassador in London, now more or less permanent head of the Foreign Office; and the ambassadors of the Nine or rather the seven there represented (no Luxembourgeois, no Irish), less the Italian who was away and represented by his Counsellor. Drove, accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Trade, to the guest house in the western part of the city (the grandest one, they claimed), where we arrived at 3.15. Then we had some programme discussion, unpacked, and went over a speech for the banquet that evening.

  Arnaud, the French Ambassador, came by a slight confusion just as we were leaving. We had asked him, were told he could not come, and then had a summons to be at the Great Hall of the People earlier in order to have a talk to Gu Mu, the Vice-Premier who was host, before the banquet at 7 o’clock. So there was a slight embarrassment, but not greatly so, for Arnaud is an agreeable man. I drove with him in the car for the quarter of an hour to the Great Hall, and consulted him as to what I should say on Vietnam in my speech. I talked rather formally with Gu Mu for fifteen minutes or so and we then proceeded into the banquet soon after 7 o’clock. It lasted, including the speeches, for the statutory two and a quarter hours. The food was not as good as I remembered Chinese food on our last visit (1973), partly because apparently it never is very good in the Great Hall of the People and partly because it belonged to no particular cuisine but was an all-China mélange.

  Gu Mu made a perfectly tolerable speech, rather short. My speech was longer; maybe given the fact it had to be translated after each paragraph it was a bit too long (ten minutes plus ten minutes’ translation). On Vietnam I stuck firmly to the declaration of the Foreign Ministers of the Nine, issued on the Monday morning.

  Bed at 10.30 and then, after about four and a half hours I woke up sleepless. I noticed that there had been a considerable fall of snow, the first apparently in Peking since well before Christmas, and then heard and saw two tremendous explosions accompanied by great orange flashes in the sky, the first a loud bang like a V2 going off about two miles away, the second a still louder bang which made the furniture shake in the room, like a V2 going off half a mile away. I was not frightened for some reason or other, thought it unlikely that a Soviet air attack had begun, but wondered in a rather detached way what on earth was happening. After that I worked until 5.00, writing out some notes for an opening statement at my meeting with Gu Mu the following morning and generally clarifying my thoughts on a number of points. T
hen back to bed and slept heavily until 8.00.

  THURSDAY, 22 FEBRUARY. Peking.,

  I had great difficulty in gearing myself up from a state of extreme somnolence for the meeting with Gu Mu at 9.00. Fortunately we were told that this had been put back because of the snow, and, rather surprisingly, his difficulty getting to the Great Hall (where does he live?), but then we were summoned only about twenty minutes late. There were hundreds of people hurriedly clearing up the streets of the snowbound city.

  The meeting lasted three hours and was held in a conference room round a table. After a welcome, Gu Mu invited me to open as he had indicated the previous evening that he would do. I then made a statement about the world situation, sounding a fairly sombre note, and ranging over matters from Iran, Africa, the Middle East, American leadership or lack of leadership, progress within the Community, normalization of Chinese relations with America, Chinese/Japanese friendship treaty, to Vietnam. Vietnam I coupled with the decline in American self-confidence, and said that that unhappy country had already contributed enough to world instability in the last ten years and therefore the Chinese embroilment causes us considerable concern and I hope very much that when you say it is limited in space and time that that will indeed be the case and the time will be very short. That will make things much easier for the ‘friends of China’, of whom I count myself one.

  I then went on to a description of developments within the Community, EMS, direct elections, enlargement, etc., and then, in the third part of my statement, I came to Chinese/Community trade relations, saying that their modernization programme could certainly be amongst, and perhaps the major development for the remaining years of this century16 and was something in which we wished to participate fully and which might indeed play a significant part as an impulse to growth for which the industrialized world had been looking. This all took, with translation, a good hour.