European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  SATURDAY, 18 NOVEMBER. East Hendred.

  Took the Simonets into Oxford for a brief tour, including a visit to the lantern at the top of the Sheldonian. Henri bought a lot of books at Blackwell’s, which made us late for lunch at Sevenhampton with Ann (Fleming) who had the Bonham Carters, Derek Hill, whom Ann wants to paint my portrait but who is very expensive, and Stuart Hampshire who arrived even later than we did. We returned on a dismal afternoon by way of Buscot. I had to work before dinner and could not get Henri to settle. As he is Foreign Minister, why does he not have a lot of despatch boxes from the Belgian Foreign Office? Perhaps they don’t have them. Enjoyable dinner with them alone.

  SUNDAY, 19 NOVEMBER. East Hendred and Brussels.

  Saw the Simonets off at 11.15. The weather had been awful but the brief weekend was otherwise very successful. Gilmours, Wyatts, plus John Harris to a rather hilarious lunch. Woodrow, John Harris and I played croquet in the twilight until Jennifer and I left for the 7 o’clock plane to Brussels.

  MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

  To the Ecofin Council, mainly listening to Ortoli doing well in a general EMS discussion, which however failed in its main purpose of eliciting what the British were going to do. In the afternoon to the Palais d’Egmont for the great conference with the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers which Genscher has been so keen to organize. I made an opening speech, as did he, and then went back to the Ecofin Council. Val Duchesse dinner for the ASEAN ministers. I sat next to General Carlos Pena Romulo, the Philippine Foreign Minister, aged nearly eighty, one of the San Francisco signatories of the UN Charter, President of the General Assembly in the early 1950s, and the longest serving Foreign Minister in the world after Gromyko. He made a rather good speech after dinner. His oratorical style might be described as early Stevenson, though with a much harder line and without the jokes.

  After dinner Genscher insisted on organizing a discussion which I thought was going to be a disaster, but wasn’t, mainly because two or three of the ASEAN ministers spoke extremely well. All of them were notably more anti-Russian (though rather pro-Chinese) than were the European Foreign Ministers. So the discussion turned into Genscher and others excusing themselves to these Third World gentlemen for being relatively soft with the Russians because of the problems over Berlin, etc. A curious evening.

  TUESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

  A meeting with Abela, Secretary-General of the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is said to be the most sensible of the Maltese. However, he was by normal standards quite remarkably foolish (and tiresome), complaining about everything, at once aggressive and boring, so that eventually I said to him, ‘Do you think that Malta gets a worse deal from the Community than do other countries?’ He predictably answered, ‘Yes.’ So I then said, ‘Well, why don’t you change your tactics, which are well known to be the most objectionable in Europe, since you think they do you so little good?’ No coherent reply emerged.

  FRIDAY, 24 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

  Spierenburg for another talk about the various members for his review body. I sold him Victor Rothschild and accepted one or two of his. Then, I had a meeting with the Gambian President followed by a Berlaymont lunch for him. It was not a particularly interesting or purposeful occasion, but no doubt necessary.

  SUNDAY, 26 NOVEMBER. Brussels and Paris.

  Drove on a cold misty day, it having quickly reverted to the high pressure freezing weather, to a village about twenty miles beyond Huy in the near Ardennes where the Jonquières have Fernand Spaak’s country house temporarily at their disposal. They had a large luncheon party for Roderic Braithwaite, a departing British diplomat.

  5.17 TEE with Crispin to Paris, and installed ourselves in the Embassy. It was a beautiful clear cold night.

  MONDAY, 27 NOVEMBER. Paris and Brussels.

  A talk with van Lennep57 at OECD, and then to the Elysée for a meeting with Giscard. This followed the normal pattern: a guard of honour in the courtyard, a fairly punctual ushering in, though not as absolutely so as usual, and an hour’s discussion. François-Poncet, whom everybody knew was about to be appointed Foreign Minister, was still present and still ‘avec la tête dans ses blocnotes’, but was supplemented on this occasion by Wahl, the new Secretary-General of the Elysée, so that we were five altogether, with Crispin on my side.

  The conversation was perfectly friendly, though, as is always the case with Giscard, without warmth. Not a great deal about the EMS. He said it was all satisfactorily fixed: he didn’t think the British would come in, but maybe from their point of view they were wise. This was done rather dismissively (indeed he was rather lofty throughout) and was in contrast with the Embassy impression that the Callaghan visit had been a great success. So in a sense it had been, but mainly because Giscard didn’t want to argue with Callaghan and was perfectly willing for him to stay out. Giscard’s clear assumption that the System would come into operation on 1 January. He assumed too that the Italians would come in, although the wider margins for them were a mistake, but if they wanted it, so be it. And so far as assistance to them and the Irish was concerned, he thought that subsidized loans through the European Investment Bank should be the main mechanism. I ought probably to have contested this elliptical dismissal of the Regional Fund, but I wasn’t too anxious to get into a detailed argument with him about this and other budgetary questions, and, perhaps mistakenly, I rather let that go.

  We had a certain amount of conversation, but obviously not very deep, about agriculture, about fisheries, and about MTNs, on which he appeared to be taking a rather milder line than Deniau and not objecting to any particular timetable, but merely saying the quality of the package was what mattered. Then we talked about his ‘Three Wise Men’, in which he was forthcoming about names, saying that for a Frenchman he had in mind Marjolin, about which I knew, of course, or, as a second choice, Soutou, retiring General Secretary of the Quai d’Orsay, which I did not know. He also mentioned Brinkhorst58 (he wasn’t quite sure of his name but we got to him by a roundabout route) as a possible Dutchman, leaving the third slot probably for an Englishman, as to whose identity he expressed no particular preferences.

  We also discussed my ‘Five Wise Men’ for the external inquiry, in which he showed some interest, but was firmly against Spieren-burg’s first choice (and therefore at that stage mine also), of Fontanet, French ex-minister, on the ground that he had received so many recent setbacks, electoral and otherwise, that he was a used-up man. On the other hand he was firmly for Delouvrier,59 the second man on Spierenburg’s and my list, currently head of Electricité de France. So, having put the issue to him, whether wisely or not, I clearly have to go for Delouvrier.

  I returned hurriedly from my Elysée meeting to the Château de la Muette for a large OECD lunch with all their many ambassadors. I had a good talk with van Lennep at lunch, who, throughout the day, I liked rather more than I had previously. After lunch but at the table there was a fairly intensive discussion, with an opening statement by me and a lot of questions from ambassadors which I wound up with a general answer at the end.

  5.44 TEE to Brussels. Dined with Michael Jenkins, whom I am very glad to have back in Brussels.

  TUESDAY, 28 NOVEMBER. Brussels, Rome and Brussels.

  Avion taxi to Rome accompanied by Crispin and Plaja, the Italian Permanent Representative, for lunch with Andreotti. We arrived in dismal weather and drove straight to the Palazzo Chigi where we started with Andreotti and two or three officials, Ruggiero, who seems to be coming up in the hierarchy, La Rocca60 as usual, and Plaja of course; Pandolfi (Minister of Finance) was with us for part of the time.

  The Italians, both Andreotti and Pandolfi, sounded extremely positive about EMS and gave the impression that while they had previously been somewhat influenced by British hesitations they were now moving away from them and were on the brink of a favourable decision. I got them on to some detailed discussion about concurrent studies. They were less interested in agr
iculture than they had been when I had last seen Andreotti in September. They were not even overwhelmingly interested in the Regional Fund. Their clear first interest was in subsidized loans. They wanted the subsidy to be 4 per cent off the normal interest rate and they wanted a good deal of money (although they weren’t anxious to say exactly how much), which was to be specifically directed to infrastructure projects in the Mezzogiorno. They implied they had had helpful conversations not only with Schmidt but also with Giscard about all this.

  Immediately after lunch we left for Ciampino, from where we took off on a nasty rainy day just after 3.30. After several hours in the office, I went to Tervuren to a fashionable dinner party of the Ullens de Schootens, she Swedish and Prince Bernadotte’s daughter. After dinner I had about half an hour’s talk with the Chinese Ambassador, who was a rather incongruous guest, and I suppose that was quite useful, though not exactly relaxing after my long Roman day.

  THURSDAY, 30 NOVEMBER. Brussels, Bonn and Brussels.

  Received Al Ullman, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, a curious figure, in his sixties, though looking younger with a somewhat trendy hairstyle, though rugged face. I found him friendly and intelligent and thought it well worthwhile having seen him.

  Then at 11 o’clock, I went downstairs on a bitter, freezing day, to receive the Prince of Wales. I brought him up to my room and had half an hour’s easy private talk with him. He was anxious to be informed about what life in the Berlaymont and the Community was like and showed interest in the details of operation, which I found sensible and agreeable. He gave me a photograph of himself in a rather nice self-deprecating way, saying, ‘I am told I ought to give you this. I don’t suppose you want it, but I hope you won’t do the same as Trudeau, who immediately stuffed it into a drawer which was crammed full already of ones of most other members of my family.’ So I said I would not do exactly that and gave him a leather-bound copy of Asquith in return, with which he seemed pleased.

  Then I took him into the Commission room for a meeting lasting about fifty minutes. I made a little speech of welcome, to which he responded nicely, and then several of the Commissioners performed, with him being given an opportunity to ask questions at the end of each. First, Ortoli, who kept saying, ‘Donc, Monseigneur, deuxième [or troisième or quatrième] hypothèse,’ but on the whole did well and wasn’t too long. Then Gundelach, then Tugendhat, who got in not because I changed my mind but because the question of the budgetary contribution had become of immediate relevance and was an appropriate subject to have; then Stevy Davignon, who performed brilliantly, the best of the four, whereas Gundelach rather surprisingly was the worst. Davignon gave a four-minute thumbnail sketch of industrial policy and what we were trying to do. The Prince asked a few questions. And then at the end he asked one or two more general questions not directly relating to what had been said, including one to Cheysson, to whom I thought it was misdirected but it shrewdly wasn’t, about the Atlantic Colleges of which he has become chairman following his Uncle Dickie.

  Then I conducted him into the ‘cathédrale’ 61 where we had a reception for a selection of the British staff–they had all been chosen by lot so it ought to have been fair–which he did well for forty or forty-five minutes. Then we went on into lunch with the Commission where he was placed en face to me and had Ortoli on one side and Gundelach on the other. The lunch went perfectly easily, though without any tremendously penetrating discussion. Afterwards I saw him off, just before 3 o’clock, walking most of the way to the Charlemagne with him, where he was about to see COREPER. There were a lot of people about, mainly photographers I think.

  I immediately went to Zaventem to take an avion taxi to Bonn, and got into the Chancellery for a meeting with Schmidt at 4.30. This went on until 6.00 and was a good, useful, optimistic meeting.62 He thought and hoped that everything would be all right with the Irish and Italians, though not with the British. He said he had had a lot of very difficult negotiations with the Bundesbank, and that indeed a lot of opinion in Germany was against him on the issue, which considerably restricted what he could do in making concessions on the operation of the exchange rate mechanism in the new system. He indicated clearly what were his limits, which were certainly not intolerable. He had just come back from a long and exceptional session with the Board of the Bundesbank at Frankfurt, the first time for years a Chancellor had attended. He was however prepared to be pretty forthcoming on concurrent studies, although he was much more reserved on our tough agriculture paper, which I left with him. He said firmly, what I think he had said to me before, that his position vis-à-vis Ertl was such that while he could agree to a freeze he couldn’t agree to a combination of a freeze and the dismantling of positive MCAs, which he interpreted as meaning an actual reduction in German farmers’ incomes (it would not necessarily).

  On concurrent studies, however, he was willing to contemplate two windows: one on the Regional Fund, in which he mentioned an increase of 200 or 250 million units of account, to be shared among the less prosperous participating countries, although if necessary letting this be distributed according to the established key if that got over a particular difficulty with the British; and, second, he was willing to do a significant sum in subsidized loans, with interest rate subsidies of the annual order of 400 million for a few years. He didn’t like a 4 per cent subsidy, would have preferred 2 per cent, but thought one might settle at 3 per cent. So everything seemed in reasonably good shape from this point of view. He was rather more forthcoming than were Schulmann and Lahnstein, who were there, but I assumed that he could get his way with Federal Government officials.

  The question was would he get his way with Giscard? I said, ‘What about the Regional Fund? Are you going to be able to move Giscard on that?’ ‘I don’t know, I think so,’ he said. ‘I am going to telephone him now.’ And, indeed, at the end of the interview I left the room with the call to Giscard starting and my assuming that, on the basis of their relationship, Schmidt, apparently firm on this, would prevail.

  Back, reasonably satisfied, to Wahn and a quick return to Brussels, where I got into the office at 7.10 and did an hour’s work before dining at home with Jennifer who had arrived from London. On balance I was pleased with the day.

  SATURDAY, 2 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  After breakfast I went to see Vanden Boeynants, the new Belgian Prime Minister. I found him quite impressive and incisive, much more so than Tindemans, his only disadvantage being that he cannot speak English.63 Nonetheless I had a good hour’s talk with him in French, which he speaks very clearly in a Flemish sort of way. He gives the impression of being more on the ball about the European Council than Tindemans did, even when he, Tindemans, was in the chair. Vanden Boeynants was anxious to be helpful, but was reserved on agriculture (not unnaturally with Belgian elections coming up) and also a little more reserved than the Germans on the Regional Fund. But in general he was quite forthcoming, though expecting difficulty with the French, particularly in view of the adverse vote on the sixth VAT directive which had taken place in the French Chamber the night before, which was a dangerous defeat brought about by an unusual alliance of Communists and Gaullists.

  A lunch party, rue de Praetère, for Averell and Pamela Harriman, plus Andre de Staercke, the old Belgian diplomat. The Luns’ were also supposed to come, but didn’t turn up. A telephone call at 1.30 elicited great confusion and abject apology from him–he thought it was Monday. ‘Never have I done such a thing in my life before,’ he said. But I subsequently discovered from Jacques Tiné at dinner that evening that he had done almost exactly the same thing in Paris ten days before, so perhaps elderly absent-mindedness is beginning to affect the mind of even that Great Dane of a Dutchman.

  Averell, who was off to Russia the next day, was on remarkable form for eighty-seven. He had had an endless programme of dinners in Brussels but seemed thoroughly fit on them. He was wearing a large pair of very new expensive shoes which is surprising if you have be
en a multi-millionaire all your life and therefore presumably accumulated quite a lot of good old shoes. Such a purchase at the age of eighty-seven seemed to point to an unusual combination of confidence in the future and meanness in the past.

  SUNDAY, 3 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  I had a long pre-dinner meeting with Ortoli and his Director-General, and Crispin and Michel Vanden Abeele from my cabinet. It was not particularly useful or well structured. Francis, as he does sometimes but not often, talked too much and not very purposefully. His only good remark was: ‘Everything is too well set up for this Summit. It is too well prepared. I think it will go wrong. They generally do in these circumstances.’ I went to bed with a distinct sense of apprehension about the following day.

  MONDAY, 4 DECEMBER. Brussels.

  To the Charlemagne at 1.30 for lunch there and the beginning of the European Council. The heads of government turned up more or less on time and we got down to a working lunch by 2 o’clock. This was partly concerned with the agenda, although the shape of this was not discussed sufficiently rigorously, and partly with general economic problems, during which Giscard threw out the sensible idea that the Commission should produce a study of the shape of the European economy in relation to the world division of labour in 1990, to which I gladly acceded.

  The Council session began at 3.45. Quite unexpectedly, instead of being a short session leading on to a meeting of heads of government and me, as had been the successful pattern at Copenhagen and Bremen, this developed into a long, grinding niggle which ran until 8.15, dealing almost entirely with the internal mechanics of the EMS. There was a lot of slow argument about detailed points–the balance between short- and medium-term credits, a semantic argument about the ‘presumption of intervention’, or stronger or weaker words, when a currency was on the margin of divergence, and an Italian point, which caused a lot of difficulty, about a request for a specially loose obligation of repayment in the case of ‘involuntary debtors’.