European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  WEDNESDAY, 14 DECEMBER. Strasbourg.

  Early Commission before the Parliament sitting, at which Simonet began with a report on the European Council. I followed for fifteen minutes, and then listened to the debate before leaving for a lunch at the Hôtel de Ville which Pflimlin, the last Fourth Republic Prime Minister and Mayor of Strasbourg for twenty years, had surprisingly and agreeably decided at short notice to give in my honour. Attractive eighteenth-century Mairie; short informal speeches afterwards.

  THURSDAY, 15 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  Addressed the Economic and Social Committee as a beating-up-of-support exercise for EMU. Back to the Berlaymont for a particularly useless COREPER lunch; the ambassadors were at their worst. I think Nanteuil is the best, awkward although he can be.

  Australian Ambassador (Plimsoll) at 3.30, who was obviously anxious to remove the acerbities which Fraser had created in our relations. American Ambassador (Hinton) at 4.15 who, in his usual ponderous but well-informed way, wanted a preliminary run over the subjects for the Carter visit on 6 January.

  FRIDAY, 16 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  A large (and for once mixed) luncheon party in the Berlaymont for the Japanese. This had started as an occasion for Nishibori, the Ambassador, to thank him for the help he had given on the Tokyo visit; but it coincided with the visit of Ushiba223 (new trade negotiator) which we had pressed for very strongly following immediately on his Washington visit so we somewhat changed its nature. Ushiba I thought nice and able, a little exhausted after his Washington trip.

  Unfortunately the lunch was almost completely inedible: the worst meal which I have ever known served in the Commission dining room. There was an indifferent fish course and then a veal chop, which seemed to be an attempt by Davignon to dispose of some of his surplus steel products. Nobody could get their teeth into it. How much the Japanese noticed I don’t know; perhaps they merely thought that if we intended to be nasty we could be very nasty indeed.

  SATURDAY, 17 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  Drove with Charles224 and Jennifer in brilliant sunshine down the familiar autoroute over the Meuse at Namur to lunch at the Val Joli at Celles. Afterwards a walk to see the old marooned, swastikaed tank marking the furthest point of the German advance westwards in the Battle of the Bulge on Christmas Eve thirty-three years ago. Whether Rundstedt went to the Val Joli for réveillon I do not know; but his élan had fortunately died away by Christmas Day.

  MONDAY, 19 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  The beginning of the last week of this long, fifteen-week autumn term. Jennifer left to try to go to London at about 9.30, but after spending the whole day at the airport, with a mixture of fog in Brussels and fog in London, came back and then went by the night ferry. Yet another special Commission meeting to tie up still further the ends of the Davignon steel and textile proposals.225

  Foreign Affairs Council at 3.00. We dealt quite well with a few internal items, and then the question of the Greeks, who had turned up in Brussels again. Papaligouras226 made a fairly discontented statement, though in my view with some justification, about the state of the negotiations. Then, after a fairly wearing five hours in the Council, we had to go to a dinner which the Greeks were giving in the Carlton Restaurant. I sat next to Papaligouras and listened to various complaints from him, which I am on the whole disposed to take quite seriously in spite of his state of advanced neurasthenia. During the course of the meal, at which he ate practically nothing and drank nothing either, he must have lit and put out between twenty and thirty cigarettes, and his whole manner was totally in line with this. Back to the Charlemagne at 11 o’clock for another two hours in the Council on steel, which Stevy (Davignon) handled very well.

  TUESDAY, 20 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  A continuous meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council from 10.00 to 5.30. A mixed day: first we disposed of the textile issue quite satisfactorily, the British withdrawing their opposition to the Commission proposals. Then we got the Germans to say that they would accept the 32 million units of account (for steel) ad referendum to their Cabinet, but with a strong implication that this would be all right.

  Then into a discussion on the Regional Fund; this was far from all right. The Germans and the French were determined to get the Commission committed to the figure of 1850 million units of account, which had been proposed by Giscard and agreed at the European Council. There wasn’t any real issue of substance, for we had no intention of challenging this by putting forward different figures in our preliminary draft budgets. But equally we strongly took the view that as an independent institution we could not just say, ‘Yes, yes,’ to any last-minute decision of the European Council and give our acquiescence in the minutes of the Council without even a Commission meeting considering this seriously. Such an acceptance might indeed place us in considerable embarrassment vis-à-vis the Parliament, and also considerably limit our ability to play a mediatory role, which we had on the whole done very well during the early part of December, between the Council and the Parliament, in the event of a future dispute.

  The Germans and the French, although united in wanting some commitment from us, had, as is typically the case, rather different motives. The Germans were concerned with the money; they didn’t want to be under further pressure to provide more, and they wanted to have guarantees that we would not put them into a corner over this again. The French position was much more theoretical and constitutional; they wanted us, being present at the European Council, to accept ourselves as being bound by its decision, on the ground that any challenge of it—most of all from the Commission—would be almost lèse-majesté towards Giscard.

  We had about two hours’ rather difficult argument before eventually—after an adjournment—we arrived at a formula which was slightly softer and more acceptable from our point of view than the one I had offered half an hour before. The Council accepted 1850 million units of account as its programme for three years; the Commission ‘took note’ and said that it would ‘act in consequence’, which was precise enough in my view to be committing in practice, but imprecise enough to raise no great questions of principle.

  It emerged during the adjournment that the Germans would accept anything that the French would accept; it emerged also that the French very typically had spent the adjournment going round muttering that if we persisted in being difficult not only would a very bad view be taken in Paris, but the whole question of our future participation in European Councils would be raised. The French are always great ones for using dark threats of this sort, and it was also typical that when the issue was over, Dohnanyi, who had been leading for the Germans, was extremely agreeable and said it was all very satisfactory and he totally understood my position, whereas Deniau, ex-member of the Commission though he is, went on looking dark and said that he thought the issue might have done great damage in Paris. Deniau is an able, vain, difficult man; Nanteuil had also been flapping round a great deal during the interval, but he, unlike Deniau, was worried and anxious to be helpful.

  To the far end of the Avenue Franklin Roosevelt for my dinner of well-deserved thanks to Simonet for his presidency of the Council. Home under a great moon and a hard frost.

  WEDNESDAY, 21 DECEMBER. Brussels and London.

  Commission from 10.10 to 1.25 without any great difficulty. Then a festive Commission lunch to which all but two came. There were complaints from Cheysson and Davignon that there was no Christmas pudding, which was a pity as I had thought of having it but decided that it would be regarded as too heavy and too English.

  Commission again until 4.30, when we satisfactorily rounded up the business with a normal exchange of compliments between myself and Ortoli on behalf of the others. Very well and warmly done by Ortoli, as indeed had been the case at the end of the summer. Ten minutes’ drinks for my immediate staff, and the 6.25 plane to London. More or less on time for once. Then to the Savoy Hotel where I gave dinner for Edwin Plowden’s now slightly ageing but still very powerful group of businessmen, who had entertained m
e so often since 1968. Apart from Plowden himself, there were Orr of Unilever, Pocock of Shell, Geddes of Dunlop, Wright of ICI, Partridge, former Chairman of the CBI and former head of Imperial Tobacco. A good discussion on EMU at the end. They were all in favour of it but totally sceptical as to whether it would be possible for the politicians ever to do anything so imaginative.

  There was also an interesting discussion about the political situation: broadly they were satisfied with the Government’s performance over the past year and equally apprehensive for the future under either a Thatcher Government or a Callaghan Government or any other Labour Government with a large majority; a typical view I think of a large and influential sector of British opinion. I was also struck by the extent to which the prospect of continuing and rising unemployment over the next decade was oppressing all their minds and striking them very sensibly as being the central economic problem.

  The new flat at Kensington Park Gardens being only semi-habitable with builders in, I spent the night in the Savoy, the first time I had stayed in a London hotel since I had stayed in the same hotel nearly thirty-three years before, after our wedding in the Savoy chapel. Then we had the diversion of several V2s falling quite near.

  FRIDAY, 23 DECEMBER. East Hendred.

  Soggy, incredibly warm morning; temperature 59°, one of the warmest December days on record. Horrible weather, in my view. No remote possibility of frost or snow; there unfortunately seems now to be a regular pattern, a cold Advent, followed by ten days of nondescript weather with no winter quality over Christmas.

  SATURDAY, 24 DECEMBER. East Hendred.

  Oxford for an hour’s not very effective shopping, then lunch with Arnold Goodman at Univ. Michael Astors,227 Stuart Hampshire,228 Jennie Lee and Hilde Himmelweit229 (whom I had put on the Annan Committee on Broadcasting but never met before); the two last ladies staying with Arnold for Christmas.

  WEDNESDAY, 28 DECEMBER. East Hendred.

  Luncheon party of Bradleys,230 Rodgers’ and Gilmours. Bradleys on particularly good form, Tom being extremely funny; also the Gilmours, Ian very easy and agreeable. I am not sure how happy Bill is, although full of hope, almost of complacency, for the future.

  FRIDAY, 30 DECEMBER. East Hendred.

  To lunch at the Wyatts’231 at Connock, forty miles away. Clarissa Avon,232 Weinstocks233 and John Harris at lunch, the Weinstocks and Clarissa all being surprisingly agreeable. I used not to like Arnold Weinstock but I have greatly come round to him and now find him thoroughly interesting, partly I think because he listens better. Netta Weinstock has always been a nice woman. Clarissa Eden out to be pleasant to a really quite remarkable extent. Woodrow I thought a little subdued.

  SATURDAY, 31 DECEMBER. East Hendred and Hatley.

  Drove with Jennifer to stay with Jakie (Astor).234 Arrived at Hatley for lunch, croquet from 3.00 to 4.00, then the Rothschilds to dinner just before 8 o’clock. Quiet New Year’s Eve, although Victor in some ways on obstreperous form, but very typically insisting on leaving at about seven minutes to twelve, thereby avoiding any midnight celebrations. Although he complains about it a good deal, he seems rather fascinated with the minutiae of the gambling Royal Commission, and I therefore feel less guilty about having pressed him into chairing it.

  It has been an extraordinary year and in some ways a great strain, both on Jennifer and me. Looking back, it is now almost impossible to imagine the atmosphere of oppressive strangeness in the first days of January. Certainly my mood for the greater part of the year was such that I would not have made the decision to go to Brussels had I been able to see things in advance. The job is more difficult to get hold of and less rewarding than I thought. Also in many ways I am not particularly well suited to doing it, lacking patience, perhaps at times resilience, certainly linguistic facility which, while not essential, would be a considerable asset (this notwithstanding the fact that my French has improved a lot during the year). The number of opportunities to make a persuasive impact is also smaller than in domestic politics. The Parliament, although I have got increasingly to feel at home there as the year has gone by, does not compare as a sounding board with the House of Commons, and the opportunity to do effective television appearances on a multinational scale is much less than on a national scale in the United Kingdom.

  On the other hand I think I am able to run the Commission itself, as opposed to the Berlaymont, reasonably well. The contacts with Parliament, with other bodies like the Economic and Social Committee, and the outside speeches and lectures go reasonably well, as do on balance the contacts with the heads of government. I find the most difficult gathering to be the large, inflated, sprawling Council of Foreign Affairs. I considerably prefer, despite the fact that there is always a lot of strain associated with them, the much more restricted meetings of the European Council, and greatly prefer the informal Foreign Affairs Ministers’ meetings of the ‘Schloss Gym-nich’ type, particularly under Simonet’s chairmanship. What I think have gone really well have been the contacts outside the Community, relations with the Americans in particular, although the Japanese trip also seemed to come within this category; also with the Portuguese and the Spaniards.

  The year has been sharply divided into two parts, with the first seven months being on the whole dismal. Since 5 September, the date of the return from the holidays, although there have been setbacks, my sense of direction (provided by EMU) and morale have improved greatly.

  1978

  1978 was the year of the creation of the European Monetary System, and as a result the best of my four in Brussels. The trigger was the fall of the dollar. In October 1977, the month of my Florence speech, a dollar bought 2.30 D-marks. By February 1978 its value was down to DM 2.02 (it went further down to DM 1.76 by that autumn). By the standards of 1987 this was not a precipitate decline. But in the late seventies, when the era of dollar omnipotence was only a decade behind, it seemed like a collapse of the verities. It produced considerable inconvenience as well as competitive disadvantage for Europe. It also confirmed Helmut Schmidt’s view that President Carter was abdicating from the leadership of the West. And the German Chancellor was less inhibited about filling the monetary than the political gap, and even better qualified to do so.

  On 28 February, at what I expected to be a fairly routine meeting with him in Bonn, he electrified me by announcing his conversion to a major scheme of European monetary integration. What he proposed was well short of full monetary union. But it went about 30 per cent of the way down the ambitious road which I had charted at Florence. It was a wonderful ‘turn-up for the book’, a sharp contrast with the attitude of mildly benevolent scepticism which he had taken at the Brussels European Council only three months earlier, and a transformation of the Community landscape. Germany was the one country which could make a reality of monetary advance.

  Schmidt normally coordinated his European moves with Giscard. But in the late winter of 1978 the French President was preoccupied with his legislative elections, the first round of which was due on 12 March. He was widely expected to lose his majority and find the second half of his presidency as hobbled as President Mitterrand’s was between 1985 and 1988. This did not happen, but its prospect affected events both by making Schmidt’s initiative dependent on the left not winning in France (hardly a signal example of Socialist solidarity) and by making Giscard remote from the very early formative stages of the EMS.

  Schmidt therefore used me as his main non-German confidant (and on 28 February he said that he had only two or three German ones) to a greater extent than he might have done if ‘my friend Valéry’ had been more secure and available. The question of confidentiality was a teasing factor throughout the incubation of the EMS. Schmidt was a naturally indiscreet head of government. But this did not mean that he liked other people betraying his confidences before—and sometimes even after—he had done so himself.

  I am not sure that I was instinctively any more discreet than he was, but I knew what a big fish I had on my monetary union line
, and I was certainly not disposed to shake it off with talkative clumsiness. I had the advantage of a reliable cabinet (mostly trained in the British Civil Service) and the disadvantage of having to keep in some sort of informal array both the traditionally leaky Commission and six or seven other governments who saw no reason why they should respect secrets of which their big brothers had mostly not bothered to inform them directly. Difficult choices about whether to inform X of what Y had said about Z consequently constituted a slightly comical sub-plot throughout 1978.

  Once the EMS was into the phase of discussion between governments it became very much the creation of European Councils. It remains the most constructive achievement, and one which in itself justifies, this early institutional innovation of President Giscard’s. One of the main reasons, in my view, why the EMS was able to be so quickly implemented (only sixteen months from Florence, twelve months from my Bonn conversation with Schmidt) was that it did not require a multiplicity of formal, unanimous decisions by the slow-moving Council of Ministers. Heads of government provided the direction and the will, while the central bankers handled much of the detail. Although no one could accuse the latter group (particularly the nodal figure of Otmar Emminger, the President of the Bundesbank) of unseemly enthusiasm, they were at least used to operating informally and quickly. The need for unanimity was obviated by Britain, the only country of the Nine not to participate in the exchange-rate mechanism, the central feature of the system, simply standing out and not attempting to veto what others did.