European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  TUESDAY, 8 APRIL. East Hendred.

  A large lunch party for the Clive Wilkinsons,30 Bradleys, Rodgers’ and Oakeshotts.31 It all lasted with a lot of conversation until 6.15, which was rather too late, but it was, I think, worthwhile. Tom (Bradley) and Matthew (Oakeshott) absolutely firm and hard in favour of a new party, Bill more forthcoming than I expected, Clive Wilkinson much the least. He clearly won’t move and my judgement is that to a greater extent than I had thought the half-cock Colin Phipps publicity has done harm in the West Midlands.

  WEDNESDAY, 9 APRIL. East Hendred.

  In the evening I had two hours with a young man called Pimlott, who is writing a life of Hugh Dalton, and found him very good. He is a lecturer or research fellow at LSE and seems to understand Dalton very well, and I think should produce a serious, but also penetrating book about him.32

  SUNDAY, 13 APRIL. Dorset and East Hendred.

  Returned from Dorset (where we had stayed two nights with Fred and Simone Warner) on a perfect morning via Salisbury, where we made a brief visit to the cathedral, and found it as usual cold, detached, perfect, but too much of a ship and too little of a shrine.

  David Steel to dine and stay. Again, a satisfactory talk. I like him very much personally, found him as good and firm and committed as ever, no complaints on either side. He said that he had quite a difficult hurdle to clear in the shape of a Liberal gathering at Worcester in May, which would be less favourable to him than the Assembly in some way or other, but was fairly confident that he could get over it. Considerable commitment on both sides.

  MONDAY, 14 APRIL. East Hendred and Brussels.

  Returned to Brussels by a plane which was two and a half hours late, by far the worst delay I have had for months. Arrived rue de Praetère slightly disorganized and more than slightly bad-tempered nearly an hour late for a lunch which I was giving for the Portuguese Ambassador, plus six others.

  In the afternoon I had a request from the Israeli Ambassador for a visit, no doubt intended to balance the fact that he had heard I had seen some Arab ambassador. He is a disagreeable man, quite apart from my disapproval of Begin’s policy, and it was not a rewarding conversation from either of our points of view. Then I saw Nanteuil at his request for him to present the French position in relation to the European Council, which although hard in some ways did not seem to me quite as impossible as I had expected. I rather disconcerted him by thanking him at the end, whereas he obviously expected me to be more shocked by what he had said, and consequently seemed rather thrown.

  TUESDAY, 15 APRIL. Brussels and Strasbourg.

  Strasbourg by the early train for a Commission meeting at noon to discuss preparations for the Foreign Affairs Council next week, which is rather tortuously to prepare for the European Council. Found them as usual before a difficult European Council in a rather bad, edgy, disorganized frame of mind, and therefore decided I had to set about having a series of bilateral meetings.

  Stevy Davignon to dinner. I found him less inspiriting, less ingenious, more downbeat than usual. I got from him the information that he had decided to stay on in the next Commission even though he clearly had moved to a position of assuming that I was not staying on, which was different from what he had last urged on me in Strasbourg a few months ago. He was full of hesitations and doubts about what we should do on the BBQ, and falling back on asseverations that the Commission must take its responsibilities and act firmly or it would lose its reputation: must show nerve, coherence, delicacy, a whole series of phrases to which in the context I found it difficult to attach much meaning. Altogether it was Stevy far from his best, and I returned slightly dispirited, particularly as he was urging me to have a whole series of other dinners in order to bring into line the other ‘Horsemen’ who he said were rather disaffected by not having been consulted.

  WEDNESDAY, 16 APRIL. Strasbourg.

  I made a speech in the institutional debate in the morning, and lunched with Colombo, who, thank God, has replaced Ruffini as Italian Foreign Minister.

  I decided that I ought to cancel my dinner with the Seligmans and the Warners in order to massage Ortoli, and took him to a restaurant. Happily I found him on extremely agreeable form, but with nothing to say about any issue of business before us. However, two hours of literary, reminiscent, personal conversation in French was not unamusing, and no doubt the occasion was vaguely useful.

  THURSDAY, 17 APRIL. Strasbourg and Hanover.

  Pointless Commission from 11 to 11.30, which the others had been very keen on on the Tuesday, but at which it turned out there was nothing to discuss, and then 1.30–3.00 luncheon with the other three ‘horsemen’ at Zimmer at La Wantzenau, which I deliberately chose because, with a prix-fixe menu, it is the cheapest of the ‘good’ restaurants and I am fairly tired of paying for them! Perfectly agreeable again, a certain amount of business discussed reasonably and amicably, but again no tremendous point.

  Then by avion taxi to Hanover for a twenty-four-hour visit to the Nieder-Sachsen land government. Albrecht,33 the Minister-President, I found young, quick and agreeable, without quite seeing him as a Christian Democrat Chancellor of Germany, which is what he much wants to be. Walther-Leisler Kiep, attractive and intelligent, was by far the best of his ministers.

  SATURDAY, 19 APRIL. East Hendred.

  At 12.15 the Ian Chapmans34 arrived from Bristol, where they were attending the Booksellers’ Conference, for Ian wanted to talk to me about several things. I like him very much and find him a most remarkable combination of the agreeable and the effective.

  SUNDAY, 20 APRIL. East Hendred.

  Had my gang of ‘conspirators’, Lindley, Phipps, Taverne, Barnes, Daly, John Harris, John Morgan and one or two others -Marquand unfortunately absent—for a meeting with lunch from 11.30 to 4.45. They were not bad at all, quite businesslike. Phipps was the least good. Lindley, of the ones I did not know well, was the best.

  TUESDAY, 22 APRIL. Luxembourg and Brussels.

  Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg from 10.30 until 3, the Italians believing in their own ministerial luncheon hours rather than anybody else’s, and then from 4.30 until 10.15 p.m. The discussion was partly, although not very usefully, about preparations for the European Council the following weekend, but mainly about sanctions against Iran, with the British taking a tougher line in favour of breaking existing contracts than anybody else. Indeed Peter Carrington, who was next to me at our belated lunch, said bitterly, and as things turned out ironically, ‘I do not believe anybody except us has the slightest intention of breaking existing contracts.’35

  WEDNESDAY, 23 APRIL. Brussels and Bonn.

  Michael Young,36 now Lord Young of Dartington, David Watt and Crispin to lunch rue de Praetère. Mainly centre party conversation. Michael Young, whom I had not seen for a long time, was firm, constructive and sensible. David Watt was rather defeatist, in a sense conservative, believing nothing could ever happen. However, he had been very nice before lunch. It was only when he was confronted with the possibility of something that he much wanted that he became a wet blanket.

  Crispin and I then motored to Bonn for the dinner which Carstens (the Federal President) had decided to offer to the whole Commission. A curious but agreeable occasion, the purpose of which was not entirely clear to me.

  FRIDAY, 25 APRIL. Brussels.

  Breakfast meeting with Martens, the Belgian Prime Minister, plus about five of his officials, on the inevitable and perennial subject. Like most Martens meetings it was reasonably helpful and constructive. Simonet was also there. What was remarkable about it was that it was immediately after (but before any of us had heard of) the ill-fated American rescue attempt for the Iranian hostages. Although it had probably been on the news from 7.30, none of us had a hint of it, not Martens, not me, not most surprisingly Simonet, who had returned from Washington overnight and had been seeing the State Department literally twelve hours before. Consultation with allies did not seem to have been strong.

  I spent most of the day o
n European Council preparations, although I also had a full hour with Gundelach, going through a great range of agricultural issues. At 8.15 to the Italian Embassy, where we were supposed to have a pre-dinner meeting with Cossiga. It was half an hour late starting and although still nominally pre-dinner, went on until 11.15. Cossiga certainly treated it as pre-dinner (i) by not offering us dinner, which was untypically Italian and particularly untypical of Cossiga, and (ii) by keeping about thirty guests, all the heads of the Brussels Italian colony, both their Commissioners, their three ambassadors, journalists, etc. waiting for dinner in the next room.

  He expounded to us almost breathlessly the entirely fresh approach which Giscard had expounded to him that morning at breakfast in the Elysée before Cossiga had gone on to London. It was that the BBQ should be looked at the other way round and considered from the point of view of holding the deficit steady rather than putting in a fixed sum of money. At first I thought this was a destructive proposal, but I became convinced as Cossiga had been, and indeed the British Government had been, that it was possibly constructive. Giscard is an odd man and one can never tell quite how he will operate. A great deal of time in the course of the meeting was wasted by Marcora (Minister of Agriculture) who was also present, and who has a great capacity to talk irrelevantly and incomprehensibly. I returned to rue de Praetère rather exhausted but interested and excited by the new development.

  SUNDAY, 27 APRIL. Brussels and Luxembourg.

  The long-awaited European Council began in the Kirchberg at 3.45 and went on until 7.00. The BBQ was not dealt with at all during this session, and Mrs Thatcher, no doubt learning, perhaps over-learning from Dublin, avoided pressing it. When we assembled for dinner at the Villa Vauban discussion of it was once more avoided. General conversation at dinner, and then we were joined by the Foreign Ministers and went on until 12.30, dealing almost entirely with Political Cooperation questions. Mrs Thatcher was frustrated by this, but reluctant, despite my mild urging, to insist on opening the (BBQ) discussion. I think this was a mistake, both on Cossiga’s part and on hers. A first round, which could be slept on, would have been desirable.

  MONDAY, 28 APRIL. Luxembourg and Brussels.

  Awakened about 5.30 on a dismal morning by a silver band which, perhaps in honour of the European Council, was parading round the Place de la Gare. To the Kirchberg at 9.15, but no session until 12.20, as there were a great number of bilaterals going on. I had a talk with Haughey at 9.45, then Cossiga from 10.00 to 10.30, then Mrs Thatcher about 11.00. It was difficult to know what the prospect was, but it was not looking particularly good.

  When the Council eventually assembled, we met from 12.20 to 3.40. To sit this long was again I think a mistake, although well-intentioned, on Cossiga’s part. We got down to the BBQ straightaway and Mrs Thatcher was certainly being much quieter, less strident, less abrasive, than at Dublin. Early on Schmidt brought forward a proposal which was very good for 1980: the British deficit should not be allowed to grow in that year beyond the average for 1978 and 1979. This opened up in my view a great opportunity for Mrs Thatcher, though it obviously still left the 1981 position open. But later in the discussion Giscard made the proposal that in 1981 the payment to offset the British deficit should be the same as the 1980 figure. This, on top of Schmidt’s proposal, had the effect of giving the British a complete guarantee for 1980 against uncovenanted increases. For 1981 there would be no such guarantee but equally the amount paid to the British should be the same as in 1980, in other words an offer for the two years of about 2400 million units of account which might indeed, according to what the exact sum would be in 1980, have been somewhat higher.

  I suggested at this stage that we might have an adjournment, which I thought would have been useful, and one or two people took it up, but Mrs Thatcher unwisely did not press for it, and Cossiga did not push it through. Had she been able to sit back and consider this—talk to her advisers, to Carrington and perhaps to me—we might have made some progress, but instead Cossiga went on too long.

  I lunched with the others, Giscard asking me directly and semi-publicly across the table what I thought of the offer and my saying it seemed to me a pretty good offer, and one which should be accepted. Mrs Thatcher did not appear, being closeted with British ministers and officials, but then came back at 5.00 and refused it. One or two attempts at nettoyage were made but she remained adamant. I had told her before that I thought she was making a great mistake by not accepting, and she good-temperedly but firmly said, ‘Don’t try persuading me, you know I find persuasion very counterproductive.’ So when she had spoken I said in the Council I thought she was making a major error, that it was a substantial offer, and that we were splitting Europe for a difference which was very small compared with the original gap.

  We then ground on until 9.15 p.m. dealing with a variety of other subjects. Then we had a press conference from 10.50 to 11.30, in which I expressed the view that we had been tantalizingly close to agreement and made it fairly clear where I thought the fault lay. It really was amazing that she did not accept this offer. Carrington was clearly in favour of doing so, so I think were Armstrong and Palliser, but Carrington in my view did not put as much pressure upon her as he should have done, though I believe that this was made more difficult for him by the fact that Peter Walker, who was also present for the Agriculture Council, was putting strong pressure the other way.

  After the press conference we decided to drive back to Brussels, and arrived, tired and deeply disappointed, at 1.30 in the morning. It was an extremely exhausting and madly irritating European Council. The only benefit from my point of view was a slight improvement of relations with the French, who have been waging a minor press campaign against me for playing too much of a British hand.

  TUESDAY, 29 APRIL. Brussels.

  Office only at 11.30. A series of meetings, including a farewell lunch, rue de Praetère, for the Lubbers (the Dutch Permanent Representative), who is going to Washington as Ambassador.

  Home early in the evening to prepare for departure to India the next morning. There was some feeling that in view of the state of crisis in the Community I ought not to go, but my view was that this twice-postponed visit ought not to be interfered with again. I thought some time was needed for the dust to settle before anything could be done, and I must confess also to a certain desire, temporarily at least, to get that dust of Europe off my feet and to move into a different atmosphere.

  WEDNESDAY, 30 APRIL. Brussels and Delhi.

  Commission early. 11.20 plane to Frankfurt, and Air India 747 from there. Comfortable flight to Delhi, arriving at 1.30 in the morning, which was 10 p.m. Brussels time. Only protocol people at the airport, which was a relief at that time in the morning, and drove to Rashtrapati Bhawan, the old Vice-Regal Lodge, where we were installed at 2.15 a.m. in magnificent apartments. Apparently some Viceroys, not Mountbatten—but I think all the previous four of the post-Lutyens era—had themselves lived in the quarters we were in, but Mountbatten for some reason or other had moved to the other side of the vast house. Temperature very high, probably about 95°F when we landed, but dry and therefore not intolerable.

  THURSDAY, 1 MAY. Delhi.

  A rest day for acclimatization. Very sensible, although unusual. To lunch accompanied by Crispin and Jennifer with John Thomson37 (British High Commissioner) alone (his wife was away). Rather a good talk with him, whom I thought a sharp, intelligent, agreeable man. Between 6 and 7 p.m. in the fierce red sunset over the red city we did a drive to the Red Fort and the Great Mosque. Back and received K. B. Lall plus wife, the former (twice) Indian Ambassador to Brussels who had played such a role in Community/Indian relations over twenty years. Then to a son et lumière performance at the Red Fort. Surprised at how much in the final part—it was a history of three hundred years—emphasis was put on the Indian National Liberation Army—the Chandra Bose/Japanese flirtation towards the end of the war.

  FRIDAY, 2 MAY. Delhi.

  Two wreath-laying cere
monies at the Gandhi and Nehru memorials from 8.30 to 9.15. Extremely hot, the Nehru shrine for some reason seeming hotter than the Gandhi shrine, but tolerable and brief ceremonies.

  Then a seventy-five-minute meeting with Mrs Gandhi, with Crispin and one on her side. Moderately interesting talk with her. I found her rather easier, less forbidding, in a way less wrapped up in herself than I had nine years before. Mainly about world affairs, although she was bitterly critical of Desai for having released too many of the dangerous men she had locked up during the Emergency, and of almost everybody in Assam for their misrepresentation of herself and their disruptive attitude towards the Indian state. On Afghanistan she was mildly critical of the Soviet occupation, but spoke with more vehemence against the American response to it and the danger of the Soviet reaction to American bases, growing Sino-American friendship and the Russian belief (this was surprising to me) that the United States encouraged Islamic fundamentalists.

  Mrs Gandhi obviously hoped (and almost assumed) that a world Summit would follow the publication of the Brandt Report, but had no plans for an Indian initiative to this end, apparently looking to either Mexico or the European Community to take the lead.

  She made no concessions to blandness in making clear that India wanted all the Community help she could get. She raised the privileged arrangements which others (i.e. the Lomé countries) already had with the Community. I said that the Lomé Convention which associated the Community with a large number of small and very poor countries (with one or two exceptions such as Nigeria) should not worry India. India was far too big and important to be a member of it. There had to be a more individual and equal relationship between the Community and India. If India had to share in the aid we gave under the Lomé Convention it would be for her no more than a drop in the ocean. Mrs Gandhi said she was not sure she agreed. With the strong Indian social and economic infrastructure, India could make use of whatever was provided. She thought President Giscard had grasped this point when he had visited India recently (a nice piece of gamesmanship). A strong India was well able to assist others. She would prefer to speak of Community aid not as a drop in the ocean but as a rung on the ladder of development.