Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume 2

by Charles Moore

  Some of the most consequential decisions Mrs Thatcher took in relation to the future of the EEC concerned appointments to the European Commission, the bureaucracy which runs it. Given her own vision of a largely economic Community, the choices she made were striking. So was the advice she received. Even among her ministers, there was a failure to understand – or sometimes a desire to avoid understanding – just how little Mrs Thatcher bought in to the European ideal. In 1984, for example, when discussion began about who should succeed Gaston Thorn as the head of the European Commission, Geoffrey Howe canvassed the cause of the Belgian Vicomte Étienne Davignon,* the Vice-President of the Commission, whom Mrs Thatcher did, in fact, favour. By way of praise, Howe wrote to her that ‘in the last resort, he [Davignon] is less a Belgian than a European.’67 Mrs Thatcher marked this sentence with her wiggly line of distaste: it was never a recommendation in her eyes that someone was a ‘good European’. Even being a Belgian was better.

  When it became clear that Davignon was not a runner, and that the Germans were unlikely to put forward their own candidate, the Foreign Office saw that the French would probably produce the new man. They wished to steer the choice away from the left-wing, anti-British Claude Cheysson and towards Jacques Delors,† Mitterrand’s Finance Minister, whom they saw as more responsible. There is no record of Mrs Thatcher and British ministers discussing the appointment in terms of the candidates’ attitudes to European integration. Mrs Thatcher knew relatively little about the characters on offer and so relied to a great degree on advice from the Foreign Office. Seeking to promote his own choice of Delors, Howe wrote to Mrs Thatcher that he ‘would be likely to take a far more serious interest in the management of the community’s finances’.68 The following week, Mrs Thatcher met Howe’s close ally Roland Dumas and discussed the appointment. Dumas commended Delors to her on the grounds that ‘M. Delors was very strict in budget matters.’69 These formulations are so similar, and occur so closely together, that it is hard to resist the idea that Howe and Dumas colluded to persuade Mrs Thatcher in the matter. Delors himself noted that Mrs Thatcher liked his determination to sort out the finances of France after the failure of Mitterrand’s initial socialist version of a dash for growth: ‘She was the daughter of the grocer, a hard-working man … She demonstrated a sort of revolt against the old British system with their tea breaks. I had respect for that. Mrs Thatcher appreciated that I was operating in a difficult climate in France and she liked my methods. I think that may have played some part in her “yes”.’70 In terms of ability and experience, Jacques Delors was indeed eminently qualified to run the Commission, but he was also certain to try to use it to move Europe in a direction which was anathema to Mrs Thatcher. No one pointed this out to her. In the end, she supported Delors’ candidature.

  A similar attempt to make the system work for her rather than question its overall direction lay behind Mrs Thatcher’s appointment of Lord Cockfield as the new European commissioner for the internal market and services. Here, Mrs Thatcher relied not on the advice of her ministers but on her own instincts. As a tax expert and believer in making markets operate efficiently, Cockfield had always impressed her, although, as a minister, he had been successfully marginalized by Nigel Lawson. Half-admiringly, half-teasingly, she used to say, ‘Arthur can’t walk past a row of pigeon-holes without wanting to fill every one of them.’71 She thought that he would bring his formidable energies to bear to force the European Single Market to come into full existence. Charles Powell warned her that Cockfield, being a technocrat, would not make the political alliances she would find she needed, and recommended the more overtly pro-European Michael Butler for the post,72 but she thought that Cockfield would be more ‘one of us’. When she saw him on appointment, she told him that he must bring financial discipline to the EEC, and ‘see the internal market completed and the proliferation of directives on industry drastically reduced’.73

  Cockfield agreed enthusiastically, but once in harness he decided that the Single Market meant much more than Mrs Thatcher was prepared to countenance. Visiting her in May 1985, he said that, in order to create the Single Market by 1992, as planned, the Community must get rid of all fiscal barriers. ‘The Treaty of Rome’, he went on, ‘provided for the harmonisation of indirect taxes.’74 This provoked Mrs Thatcher into a learned dispute about the precise wording of the treaty, and then a fulmination: ‘There was absolutely no question whatsoever of the UK accepting tax harmonisation. It would strike at the root of Parliament’s powers … She was not going to be told by anyone outside the United Kingdom what rate of tax was to be charged here.’75 But that was exactly what she was going to be told, including by people she had thought shared her view. Jacques Delors recalled Cockfield admiringly as ‘quite inflexible, especially on difficult matters such as the harmonisation of indirect taxes’.76 New directives poured out of the man, to Mrs Thatcher’s extreme displeasure. When Cockfield came up for reappointment in 1988, she was determined not to keep him, but to replace him with Leon Brittan, a strange choice because he was quite possibly the most ardent Europhile to have served in any of her Cabinets. Even at that late stage, she was surprisingly unaware of the ideological nature of the struggle in the EEC. She would often promote people who were allies in other fields, only to be shocked by their adherence to a European creed which was almost completely at variance with her own.

  When she met Delors for the first time after his appointment as president of the Commission, Mrs Thatcher emphasized to him that it was ‘necessary to be practical’ and to avoid vague idealism: ‘For instance, these constant references to European unity, something which could never come about.’77 Delors, who was to work unremittingly for just the sort of European unity which she opposed, did not disclose his own hand, but diplomatically observed that there were two trends in the community – one of ‘practical improvements’ and the other ‘those who aspired to a new treaty’. Mrs Thatcher declared that the idea of a new treaty was ‘absurd’. Yet Delors wanted new treaties. Before he had finished in office, he would have carried through two such, of huge importance. In such encounters, there was, no doubt, wishful thinking on both sides. The pro-Europeans wanted to think that Mrs Thatcher must really share their beliefs if only they could avoid irritating her too much; Mrs Thatcher wanted to believe that if she could only expose the Continentals to a bit of British common sense, all would be well. But, broadly speaking, Mrs Thatcher was more deceived than deceiving. Europe was not, for the most part, going her way, and it was never at any time likely that it would. This her officials and, with a very few exceptions, her ministerial colleagues did not tell her. Instead, they tended to try to make her feel better about everything. Not long after Delors had taken up his post, Geoffrey Howe’s private office passed on the following piece of indirect flattery: ‘Delors is reported to have told some of his associates earlier this week that there was only one Member State which had a clear idea of where it wanted the EC to go, and was organising its efforts to that end effectively. No, he said, it was not France. It was the UK.’78 In reference to the Single Market, his compliment to Britain was just; in reference to longer-term and deeper European aims, it was not. There was no British strategy for Europe, no sense of destiny to match – or rival – that of the Germans or the French.

  As well as being deceived, Mrs Thatcher must also have been self-deceiving. For the Single Market to function, which she wanted, individual states could not be allowed to impose their own regulations on imports from the rest of the EU. Instead decisions had to be taken at a European-wide level by majority voting (and not subject to a national veto). Mrs Thatcher understood this, and consciously supported the biggest ever extension of majority voting in the Community in order to bring the Single Market about. So when she complained later, she was in effect repudiating what she herself had driven forward.

  It was true, however, that, post-Fontainebleau, Mrs Thatcher’s public prestige in Europe, if not her popularity among the elites, stood high. She had
won a war in 1982 and a second, resounding electoral victory in 1983. She seemed to be presiding over an economic recovery at home as the result of her policies. Even her struggle with the National Union of Mineworkers, then at its height, reminded everyone of her strong will and her determination to bring about economic reform. She was the most arresting figure on the European, perhaps on the entire global stage. She had ‘indisputable star quality’.79 European leaders generally resented her success in the battle of the EEC budget but felt the need to be seen to listen to her, and all hoped that she could be persuaded to go along with Community development rather than oppose it. Some of them – some Dutch, some Danes and, now and again, Helmut Kohl – even agreed with a good deal of her free-market economic agenda. So, after Fontainebleau, serious efforts were made to keep Britain on side.

  For her part, Mrs Thatcher was anxious to seem positive without ceding the national independence she prized. To all those attending the Fontainebleau Council, she had sent a copy of a short British document entitled Europe – The Future which set out a programme for making sure that ‘internal barriers to business and trade come down’80 so that ‘the genuine common market in goods and services which is envisaged in the Treaty of Rome’ could be created. The document was deliberately focused on liberalizing markets and was modest or silent on the reform of EEC institutions which tended to obsess the builders of Europe. It should be contrasted, for example, with the ‘Spinelli Treaty’, approved in draft by the European Parliament in February 1984, which sought to bring about European Union, or with the work of the Dooge Committee, established at Fontainebleau, to advance the EEC’s institutional development and encourage a treaty on European Union.

  Britain was certainly seeking to mobilize the power of the EEC to bring about economic change, but it was not seeking to increase that power more than was necessary for that change. It therefore played a curious, though not wholly inconsistent double role – urging Europe onwards towards some reforms while working hard to prevent others. Malcolm Rifkind, then a junior Foreign Office minister who was Britain’s representative on the Dooge Committee, recalled that he had to object to all calls by other member states for what he called ‘Great Leaps Forward’, especially in relation to European Union. He feared having to issue a minority report, but instead ‘I succeeded but in a very EU way. I got agreement that for each proposal I did not like there would be an asterisk with a footnote that the UK representative did not agree.’81 He had, under close Downing Street supervision, to stick in references to the Single Market and take out references to qualified majority voting (QMV)* and to European Monetary Union (EMU), the long-contemplated move to create a single European currency and central bank. None of this prevented the drift of the Dooge Committee from going firmly against Britain.

  As this process of debate continued through 1984 and 1985, it was not always easy, even for the participants, to work out who was winning. Britain was succeeding in putting the Single Market at the top of the agenda. On the other hand, Britain was at odds with the ultimately much more powerful Franco-German axis which was determined (though Germany was more enthusiastic than France) to further the process of European integration. The situation was also complicated by the fact that, despite being fellow conservatives and allies in the Cold War and on most matters regarding spending, Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher did not get on.

  Having just taken up his post as British ambassador to Germany, Sir Julian Bullard summed up his first impressions to Charles Powell in September 1984: ‘the Anglo-German relationship at the highest level is not all that it should be.’82 He had given Mrs Thatcher’s message of greeting to the Chancellor, but ‘his response was perfunctory … the Foreign Secretary may have been right when he remarked to me the other day that Mrs Thatcher and Herr Kohl [would probably] not be particularly close friends even if Kohl spoke English.’ Couldn’t John Gummer, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, who was calling on Kohl anyway, take a message from Mrs Thatcher ‘saying something warm and special’83 to the great man, Bullard suggested? Powell seconded the idea and put it up to Mrs Thatcher. She could send a speaking note for Gummer to use, ‘but I think a letter would be more effective (particularly if you can bring yourself to put “Dear Helmut”).’84 Mrs Thatcher obliged by signing some words about Kohl’s ‘vision and statesmanship’, but she felt quite incapable of supplying the personal warmth pleaded for: the letter began ‘My dear Chancellor’.85

  As well as the lack of personal rapport, there was a doubt on the British side about Germany’s intentions. The ‘German Question’ – the existence of an artificially divided Germany – remained. Mrs Thatcher never doubted for a moment that the Berlin Wall was an abhorrent symbol of Soviet oppression, but equally she was never happy with the idea of Germany united and strong. The very fervour of West German expressions of Europeanism made her suspicious. Since she could not imagine her own great country seeking its salvation in the extinction of its sovereignty, she did not believe another great country when it protested that this was exactly what it wanted to do. Kohl’s endless pleas for ‘a European Germany’ to avoid ‘a German Europe’ sounded almost like a threat in her mind. Julian Bullard sent a despatch on this subject in early October 1984, shortly after the hand-holding ceremony at Verdun. ‘The statesmen of Europe’, he wrote, ‘will … one day have to address themselves to “The German Question” in a very concrete form, namely the question of what adjustments to the post-war political order in Europe might need to be considered in order to give a political shape to the common aspirations of the divided German people.’86 Charles Powell drew it to Mrs Thatcher’s attention and wrote: ‘German reunification is an area where we have to say one thing and think another.’87 Mrs Thatcher underlined these words, but saying one thing and thinking another was not her greatest skill. She tended to say what she thought, and what she thought about German reunification was already uncomfortable, and would later become unprintable. Even in 1984–5, her thoughts were rather dark. In February 1985, Powell passed to her another analysis from Bullard, with the words, ‘An interesting letter … but it doesn’t … answer your question: what are the implications of greater German consciousness of being German, and their growing tendency to throw their weight about in Europe?’88 German reunification was, to use an expression not then employed, the elephant in the room. Helmut Kohl’s elephantine person reminded Mrs Thatcher unpleasingly of this fact.

  These difficulties, though real, were usually kept in the background. Both sides did make genuine efforts to foster a co-operative relationship. Rather surprisingly – for he usually tried harder than she did to be pleasant – it turned out to be Kohl, not Thatcher, who played a bit of a dirty trick.

  With pressure for a new treaty on European Union building, it gradually became clear that the Milan European Council of June 1985 would settle the question of whether such a treaty, a significant step forward for those who favoured greater integration, would come to pass. Under Community rules, a new treaty would require an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of the member states to frame and agree it. Euro-integrationists loved treaties because only they could be enshrined in the domestic law of every member state and thus enforced in the courts. Since Britain did not want such a treaty, it did not want an IGC. Mrs Thatcher preferred Community agreements and conventions which were not legally binding and did not turn up as tiresome Bills in the House of Commons.

  Seeking to avoid the ‘isolation’ which, in the diplomatic mind, is always the worst result of any negotiation, the Foreign Office advised Mrs Thatcher to get in ahead of France and Germany and develop her own ideas for Milan, sharing them with Kohl in advance. The opportunity presented itself because, as Charles Powell put it to Mrs Thatcher, ‘You invited Chancellor Kohl (or to be more accurate agreed to his suggestion to be invited) to Chequers in May/June.’89 Possibly Kohl had his own anxieties about the meeting: he conveyed through Julian Bullard his wish that the menu should ‘not repeat not … include game or lamb (espec
ially with mint sauce)’.90* Powell set out for his boss the purpose of the occasion. It was necessary to move towards ‘sensible conclusions’ on the future of the Community: ‘On the one hand we have to convince the Euro-enthusiasts if not the Euro-fanatics that Britain is prepared to move ahead. On the other hand we don’t want to succumb to the drivel about European union.’91 The agenda should therefore consist of the completion of the internal market, ‘no more powers for the European Parliament’, more majority voting (subject to the Luxembourg Compromise being formalised),* and formalizing the existing arrangements for political co-operation (‘PoCo’), which meant a closer approximation to a common foreign policy. Mrs Thatcher had always been in favour of PoCo, because of her belief that Europe should speak up for Western ideas with a stronger voice in the Cold War. Powell attached a draft on PoCo and explained, in a phrase which might have made Kohl, with his hostility to lamb and mint sauce, queasy, ‘It does not restrict our national independence of action. In short, it is dressing up mutton to look like lamb.’ ‘The experts will not be convinced,’ Powell went on, ‘but I think you could sell it politically to Chancellor Kohl and to wider Community opinion as a British initiative, stake out a strong position, and make it impossible for others to put us in the dock as being a back marker on European union.’92 ‘Yes,’ wrote Mrs Thatcher, ‘it seems fairly reasonable.’