European Diary, 1977-1981 (10 page)

After the service, I walked across towards 10 Downing Street, where Callaghan had a lunch for the four Foreign Ministers who had come—Forlani of Italy, Andersen
⁶¹
of Denmark, Thorn of
Luxembourg, and van der Stoel
⁶²
of Holland—as well as for Maurice Schumann representing Guiringaud, and David Owen and me. The conversation was fairly stilted, I thought, with Callaghan rather ill at ease trying to lead the assembled people through a mixture of international gossip and semi-serious points. What did they want him to put to Carter? What did they think of Carter's views about dissidents? he asked, and nobody seemed to have anything very much to say. Then at the end he did a rather deliberate and calculated rehearsal of his difficulties about getting through the legislation for direct elections, while saying that he would of course do his best.

After lunch I had twenty minutes' official bilateral talk with him, and then we leant over the banisters at the top of the staircase at Number 10 for some time and talked more widely. He told me that he would not have appointed Tony Chancellor, even had Denis moved and even had Tony lived, because he had decided that his health was not good enough, which if true obviously showed considerable foresight. I asked him who then he would have appointed and he said he didn't know, and talked rather vaguely about splitting up the Treasury. At no time, though he was perfectly civil, did he express any regret that he had let me go.

3.55 plane to Brussels. Back in the Berlaymont more or less on time, we started rather long consultations with Gundelach about how to handle the European Parliament vote of censure. We eventually decided without too much difficulty, though with the consumption of a good deal of time as consultations with Tugendhat and Burke were also involved, that we would take the initiative in forcing a debate before the vote of censure itself could be taken, at which Gundelach would open and I would wind up.

TUESDAY, 8 MARCH.
Brussels and Strasbourg.

Foreign Affairs Council. Routine business until just after 12.00, with David Owen proving a good and effective, self-confident but not aggressive chairman. Then a restricted session to discuss primarily the matter of Community, i.e. my, presence at the Western
Economic Summit. David Owen threw it to the meeting without a lead, Guiringaud immediately spoke, but in a rather unengaged manner, slightly shame-facedly, saying the French Government were against. Almost immediately afterwards he left the room, leaving poor Nanteuil
⁶³
to hold the fort. Van Elslande and van der Stoel then spoke in strong opposition to the French.

I followed, making a statement for about ten minutes, knowing the Belgians and others wanted something pretty strong from me, stating that our position was clearly and firmly in favour of being there, arguing the case in relation to the items under discussion and saying that it clearly would be absolutely ridiculous if we wasted our time at the Rome European Council, as we would have to unless Community presence was agreed to, debating this procedural question, rather than what at this moment of economic crisis we should say when we actually got to the Summit. The Irish State Secretary, Fitzgerald being away, supported this view, as did Forlani, as did Thorn, though rather tortuously.

David then said that regrettably there was not a consensus in favour and therefore -1 think this was in accordance with his brief -the decision was that we should not be invited. He had first asked Nanteuil if the French wished to change their position. Nanteuil, who looked rather like an apprehensive goat tethered to his post, wishing he could go away and certainly not wanting to be called upon to say anything, produced a monosyllabic ‘non'. Genscher then came in rather reluctantly. He had been leaning back throughout the discussion. He said the Germans had not changed their position; they were in favour of Community participation; that would continue to be their view, but they did not want to have any great rows with anybody.

I then contested David's summing up, saying the fact that there was not unanimous agreement certainly did not mean that a decision had been taken against; there were still two months to go and clearly the matter would have to be raised at Rome apart from anything else. This was strongly supported by a number of other delegations and agreed to. We then went down to lunch. I reluctantly had to sit next to Guiringaud. We had some perfectly polite
general conversation until near the end, when I told him that I had not been very pleased with what he had said, which would not surprise him, and that I wondered how much give there was in the French position. He implied that he thought there was some, without entering into any very definite commitment.

We then went upstairs, when curiously enough he twice came running up to me to make some little point: Giscard hoped very much I would do some work on the institutional implications of enlargement; and that nothing was to be taken personally. Rather surprisingly overforthcoming for the French.

Back to the Council for three hours. Then to Strasbourg by avion taxi. Dinner with Gundelach. Then half an hour's walk round the cathedral.

WEDNESDAY, 9 MARCH.
Strasbourg.

To the new Parliament building at 8.30. The building, the
hémicycle
apart, is ghastly and inconvenient, as generally irritating and unattractive as I had feared at the opening ceremony it would be. Routine Commission meeting for an hour in a room about seventeen times too big, in which we sat as though we were on the platform of the Birmingham Town Hall with nobody in the audience. I spent most of the morning working on my fairly short speech on butter for the afternoon, its shortness being balanced by my relative ignorance of the subject.

The speech did not satisfy me, and whether it satisfied anyone else I could not quite tell, but perhaps it more or less did. The Parliament is not really a rewarding body to which to speak. There is of course the linguistic difficulty and the fact that the Chamber is often pretty empty (not that it is different from the House of Commons in that respect, but it is bigger), and these difficulties are compounded by the extraordinary proliferation of the photographic industry in Strasbourg, so that not only are you liable to have moving television cameras producing film which is hardly ever used, but you also have flashlight photographers who come and photograph you the whole time you are on your feet—and even when you are not.

FRIDAY, 11 MARCH.
Brussels.

Commission meeting from 11.00 to 1.15 involving Davignon on steel, which he did excellently. One of the best discussions on a specific issue which we had had in the Commission. Lunch in my dining room in the Berlaymont, with Jennifer, who had arrived in Brussels for the first time for nearly three weeks, and George Thomson, who was in Brussels, plus one or two
cabinet
members. Then back for another two hours' Commission meeting, this time mainly on North/South questions.

Soares, the Prime Minister of Portugal, arrived at 6.00 and Haferkamp and I went down to meet him at the front door. I then saw him alone for forty minutes. He speaks good French but no English at all. Agreeable, friendly, quite impressive man, who seemed rather tired, as well he might be after his tour round Europe. He talked reasonably interestingly but not fascinatingly. I asked him had he found much difference in the approaches to Portuguese admission as he went round the capitals, and he said yes, the Benelux countries were mildly
réticent and
the French were difficult, but the main thing the French wanted was that Portugal should pay a price and buy their colour television system. I said, ‘What—you mean that even Giscard raised this with you? The great head of this great Government, confronted with this great issue, is acting as a television salesman?' ‘Yes, indeed,' he said, ‘Giscard pressed it more than anybody else.'

We then went into the special Commission meeting which lasted just over an hour. Soares did most of the talking: long, not bad, introductory statement, rather less good, slightly rambling reply to some general questions. We then adjourned until the dinner at the Château Ste Anne at 9.15. Relations became still warmer after my speech there, which the Portuguese were particularly pleased with, and which indeed did sound rather good. I had done very little of it myself; it was a considerable achievement of Michael Jenkins. Unfortunately the young woman interpreter was so moved that she fainted about three-quarters of the way through. Soares was a little slow to go—he seemed particularly interested in talking to Nanteuil, I think about general French cultural matters rather than about politics—and we did not get home until 12.30.

SATURDAY, 12 MARCH.
Brussels.

Into the Berlaymont just before 10.30 in order to receive Soares again. He was very late, so we gave up the attempt to receive him at the front door and retreated to the top of the lift, where Davignon said, Tor every minute he is late, put an extra year on the transition period.' Soares's great concern was against ‘globalization', in other words the Portuguese application being treated as part of a package with Greece and Spain. He was quite realistic economically. He left us at 12.00 for a press conference.

MONDAY, 14 MARCH.
Brussels.

Lunch with the Ecofin (Finance Ministers) Council. Sat between Apel and De Clercq,
⁶⁴
with Denis Healey opposite. Considerable row at the end about representation at the Summit, Duisenberg
⁶⁵
being very effectively aggressive and saying that if we were treated like this the Dutch would not lend any money to the British, or for that matter the French, in the future. A good sledge-hammer technique for dealing with Denis's thick skin, and I think it was moderately effective. De Clercq said he wasn't sure the Commission was strong enough on the need for representation and I assured him he was quite wrong and did a ten-minute piece.

WEDNESDAY, 16 MARCH.
Brussels.

A ghastly day. Two hours' work at home in the early morning because the Commission papers did not arrive until ridiculously late the night before, a rather bad-tempered briefing meeting in the office at 9.30, then into the Commission at 10.00. Commission business not perhaps too difficult during the morning. We disposed of a good many routine items and began Vredeling's major paper on the Social Fund.
⁶⁶

Commission farewell lunch for Lebsanft (German Ambassador),
at which I had to make a short speech, and then a resumed Commission at 3.30, which, alas, went on until 9.50. The main subject of contention was one aspect of Vredeling's Social Fund proposals, in which the ‘regionalists', Giolitti and Natali, were against the ‘sectoralists', who were primarily Ortoli and Davignon. At one stage we had an adjournment for redrafting. Then Giolitti and Natali said they would vote against. I thought this unfortunate. A minority of two is one thing. But a minority of both the Italians on regional policy is another. So we went on and on, trying to find a compromise and eventually put it to a
Chefs de Cabinet
meeting for an hour, who did then produce an acceptable draft, a rather good piece of work by the
Chefs,
with Michael Emerson in the chair. But it was all very time-consuming and I doubt if I ought ever again to allow a Commission meeting to go on as long as this.
⁶⁷

In addition to the Social Fund problem we had the very difficult issue of certain personnel appointments, including that of Christopher Audland
⁶⁸
as deputy Secretary-General, David Marquand
⁶⁹
as head of the special new Parliamentary and Social Partners Group, and my proposal to set up a Central Planning Unit with a German at its head. A good deal of opposition on all grounds. Davignon was against Audland, supported by Haferkamp and Giolitti. I then thought I ought to give Ortoli a chance to support Audland, which he had said he would do, but in fact didn't and merely went off into a typical ‘defend-the-old' attack on the Central Planning Group. A bit of general muttering against that, and I had to say that I would provide them with a more clear outline of its role. But I hope that will go through eventually. David Marquand's job—though not for the moment his appointment—I got through by a small sleight of hand. Tugendhat was not very effective at this meeting, which was important for him as Personnel Commissioner and which is unusual with him. But I suspect everybody was tired and rather bad-tempered. I went home at 10.30, too exhausted to eat.

FRIDAY, 18 MARCH.
Brussels, Bonn and East Hendred.

Crispin and I set off by car for Bonn just after 12 o'clock. Rather cold, standing-up picnic lunch by the side of the autoroute just short of the German frontier. Into Bonn shortly before 3.00 for my meeting with Schmidt.
⁷⁰

It was a bad day for him, as is now often the case, for the telephone bugging row which had been simmering away in Germany for some time had suddenly blown up to a new dimension. As a result he was half an hour late, although full of apologies. I then had a one-and-a-quarter-hour meeting with him, talked a little about the Commission, and secondly about representation at the Western Economic Summit, which was the main purpose of my visit. Here he opened hard, aggressive/defensive: he wasn't going to quarrel with his ‘friend Valéry'; he was the only real friend he had; he was the only person who supported him, while others were yapping away at him to reflate the whole time, etc.

I argued the case in a variety of ways. The point he was keenest on was when I told him I wasn't going to preach reflation at him, which indeed I did not think was very sensible. The point that at first he seemed less keen on was any argument about the Americans being eager that we should be there, which provoked a good number of anti-Carter complaints, and I wondered whether my having slipped in that Carter was inviting me to an early visit to Washington was wise, as Schmidt obviously was not tremendously pleased to hear this. However, later aspects of the conversation made me slightly change my mind about this. He dismissed the Dutch—‘The trouble is that the Dutch ought to be 60 million and the Germans 12 million; it would no doubt be better for the world, but God had decided otherwise.'