European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

UTA plane to Paris via Lagos at 9 o’clock.

  SATURDAY, 13 JANUARY. Paris and Brussels.

  Roissy at 7.25 a.m. France was covered in snow and freezing as when we left. Rue de Praetère at 11.30. Lunched with Jennifer alone. There was a lot to talk about, what with Africa and what had been happening in England about which I was signally ill-informed. She was surprised that I hadn’t realized how the country seemed to have plunged into chaos during the previous week and how there was a mood of deep morosité and how ill-judged Callaghan’s remark about ‘What crisis?’ had been as he returned from Guadaloupe the previous Wednesday or Thursday.5

  FRIDAY, 19 JANUARY. Brussels.

  Dinner party, rue de Praetère, for General Haig plus wife. We expected the Harlechs, who were due for the weekend, but had been frustrated by British Airways. Therefore we had a slightly truncated party with only the Tickells and the Davignons to help entertain the Haigs. It went just tolerably well, I think, no more. It was a little difficult to get it to jell, but things improved later on. Haig is a strange man, with a simple manner and very right-wing views, very critical of Carter, full of political ambition and I think rather overrating his chances. She is more agreeable than I had thought on the previous occasion.

  MONDAY, 22 JANUARY. Brussels and London.

  To London, taking four or five hours, for a meeting followed by dinner with the Labour Committee for Europe. I had an interesting bilateral conversation with Shirley at dinner, who was in a great state of political gloom and was disposed to agree with me that the big mistake we had made was not to go and support Dick Taverne in 1973; everything had got worse since then. By an irony we hadn’t supported Dick when we ought to have, and we had supported Reg Prentice, and although neither of us regretted this, there was a good deal less compelling a case, in retrospect at any rate, for having done it. She thought the election lost whenever it came and that the party would be in a very bad state after it, and she was thinking very clearly in terms of splits and anxious for me to come back.

  TUESDAY, 23 JANUARY. London and Brussels.

  I was due to make a speech in Dublin to the Irish Confederation of Industry, lunch with them, and see the Taoiseach in the afternoon. We awoke to quite thick snow and I was told that the avion taxi which we had ordered could not possibly get into Northolt and that no commercial flights were running. Therefore I firmly cancelled the Irish expedition (Crispin was fortunately in Dublin already and able to perform on my behalf) and set about the difficult but necessary task of getting back to Brussels. London Airport was announced as closed until 1 o’clock. When I got there at about 12.30 I was told that it was now closed until 4 o’clock and so went away to lunch until then.

  There then seemed a good prospect of a Sabena plane leaving, but an endless sub-farce set in. We got on the plane, but were told that the plane was iced up and they couldn’t find any de-icing equipment, and we would have to get off. Then we were told that they had borrowed some de-icing equipment from KLM (Benelux solidarity), then we were told that the de-icing equipment wouldn’t work, so that we would have to get off the plane. So we got off the plane and were off it for about three-quarters of an hour, during which I had some quite useful telephone conversations with both Callaghan (who seemed surprisingly pleased to hear from me) and with Gundelach in Brussels.

  Then we got back on the plane again. Then came a frenzied request that passengers should please sit down in any seat as the plane was moving away and if we missed the slot we might easily be there all night. Then it was eventually discovered that there were five passengers for whom there were no seats. An attempt was made to get the five people who had got on without boarding cards to own up, this being put in high moral terms, the steward saying, There are five of you here not entitled to be on the plane. Unless you identify yourselves you may prevent 110 people who are entitled to be here from getting to Brussels at all tonight.’

  Eventually one man, looking rather like a young version of Christopher Mayhew, did own up; the other four did not. Thereupon an announcement was made that the only alternative was to clear the plane and re-check everybody—although fortunately not first-class passengers. This enterprise needless to say took a good forty minutes. Passengers came back on, having been cleared, looking as though they had had a successful interview with the Parole Board and were being allowed their freedom again, half sheepish, half pleased. Eventually we got into Brussels at about 10.30, having spent literally the whole day trying to do this simple journey.

  THURSDAY, 25 JANUARY. Brussels.

  In the late afternoon Noyon, head of the Commission Security Service, accompanied by a British security officer, came in to see me in great agitation and secrecy. Apparently the Belgians had been informed through British sources that there was a serious IRA plot to assassinate in the fairly near future a senior British representative (as it was put) in Brussels, and they had narrowed the list of possible targets down to me, Tugendhat, Crispin rather surprisingly, the three ambassadors and, I think, two generals.

  There were a few hazy clues, such as that they had set up some sort of watching/firing post quite some time previously outside the house of the person who was the target and that they had reported that his habits were somewhat irregular—which is not true of mine. My morning walking or running habits are only too regular, particularly as this report came from before Christmas, before the snow introduced a certain irregularity. And they also reported that near the house in question there was a school, which posed certain dangers of shooting the children by accident. That seemed to rule out rue de Praetère, although, on the other hand, of all the targets mentioned, I (to the IRA) was much the most obvious one, as well as, presumably, being the best known generally. Crispin, on the other hand, did have a school near him, although on other grounds he seemed the least likely target.

  Noyon took it all very seriously and said that we must take much heavier precautions. Obviously I couldn’t ignore the matter completely, particularly as they stressed it was a real threat and that the attack was likely to be made in the course of the next few weeks.

  I went home for a short time, rather rushing across the pavement in an embarrassed way, and, looking round the house, realized how incredibly exposed it was for shooting through a window for it is overlooked on all sides.

  FRIDAY, 26 JANUARY. Brussels and East Hendred.

  I saw the comité des sages, Robert Marjolin, quite well known to me, Edmund Dell, also quite well known to me in a different way, and Biesheuvel, Dutch ex-Prime Minister, who was unknown to me but who, in some ways, made the best, most agreeable and coun-structive impression of the three. I talked to them in a fairly animated way, leading them on to subjects rather than waiting for them to ask questions, for two hours. I formed the impression that Biesheuvel had the concept closest to us, that Marjolin though very sensible on many things had a typical French antipathy to the Parliament, which he refused to regard as a significant institution, and that Dell, although broadly a European, was pretty firmly against any form of more effective decision-making and rather complacently satisfied with the Council from his experience of it. What effect I had on them I didn’t know. However, it was a more agreeable two hours than I had expected.

  Then to London by a plane which was only one and a half hours late, and to East Hendred.

  SATURDAY, 27 JANUARY. East Hendred.

  On a very cold beautiful sunny day I walked in deep snow over the Lower Downs for three miles. Then with Jennifer to Seven-hampton to lunch with Ann Fleming, who had the Lees-Milnes,6 John Sparrow and a keeper of manuscripts at the British Museum called John Gere, whom I liked very much. I also liked the Lees-Milnes more than on previous occasions and much enjoyed the whole occasion. We returned in a perfect winter sunset at 4.30.

  THURSDAY, 1 FEBRUARY. Brussels, Paris and Brussels.

  I left at 9.30 in lowering skies and heavy rain to drive to Paris for the lunch of the four Presidents which Giscard had summoned, and, arriving at the Etoile by about 12.151 decid
ed to call unexpectedly on the Beaumarchais’. Even so, I arrived slightly too early at the Elysée, the first of the Presidents. Kutscher arrived soon afterwards and then Colombo. Giscard, accompanied by François-Poncet, only descended when we had all assembled—rather typical behaviour. However he was out to be gracious and to smooth some of the many feathers already ruffled by the French presidency. It was a bit overdone because he began by saying to me, ‘Ah, Monsieur Jenkins, vous parlez admirablement le français maintenant, il y’a quelqu’un qui me l’a dit au cours des dernières semaines, j’ai oublié qui. Non, non, je me souviens, c’était le Roi d’Espagne.’ I said, ‘C’est un peu étrange, Monsieur le Président de la République, parce que le Roi d’Espagne et moi avons toujours parlé en anglais.’

  We then proceeded into lunch, which was in its way agreeable, in a small dining room on the ground floor with a burning fire which slightly illuminated the gloom of the day. The conversation was moderately serious, mainly conducted by Giscard and me. It was in French, which was indeed the only remotely common language of everybody, but was a disadvantage for Kutscher and me, as Kutscher is much better in English than in French, and to some extent a disadvantage even for Colombo, though he is no good at all in English.

  It was partly about agricultural prices, Giscard advocating some small increase, and my saying firmly that we were against this. Giscard asked at one stage whether I was not worried by having the Commission isolated with the British alone on the price freeze, which was a slightly malevolent way of putting it, and to which I replied that I did not think this would be the case. The Italians and maybe some others would be with us, but, in any event, I had opposed the British sufficiently firmly when I thought they were wrong and I was certainly not going to move from a position I was convinced was right merely because the British happened to share it.

  After lunch we had a further forty-five minutes, in another room, mainly about the budget. This gave me the opportunity to say, as I had wanted to do for some time, that the fundamental error which had been made was both for the council to try and control the maximum rate of expenditure (which in my view was not unreasonable since even national parliaments on the whole did not have the ability to spend money except in agreement with the executive—and in any event they had the responsibility of raising the money in a way that the European Parliament did not) and, something else, which in my view was totally unreasonable, which was to try to combine this with control over Parliament’s priorities. It had been clear for some time past that Parliament was giving priority to the Regional Fund, and to resist this on the basis of the sacred texts of the European Council’s decision of fourteen months before was to make a nonsense of Parliament as part of the budgetary authority. If it was intended to try and restrict them in both ways then it was hardly worth pretending that the Parliament had any budgetary powers at all, and certainly a mistake to move to a directly elected Parliament.

  Giscard accepted this to a surprising extent and said, ‘Yes, within a ceiling I see that Parliament must have freedom to manoeuvre.’ I also trailed the possibility that the Commission would put forward in due course a supplementary budget. It would be necessary because of the EMS arrangements, and we might do it in such a way that we went above the total of 11,000 million units of account which Parliament had voted. Giscard and Poncet did not look very pleased but took no violent exception.

  We also had some pronouncements from Kutscher about the competence of the Court if the budget issue was put before it, to which on the whole he gave an affirmative answer, with Giscard warning that France would not necessarily recognize the validity of this and a very grave position might consequently arise, etc.

  Despite all this, we left on reasonably good terms, with Giscard courteously coming out with us, although we soon discovered that this was because there were a lot of television cameras outside to which he duly spoke and then turned, first to me and then to Colombo and then to Kutscher, for us to add a few words.

  I also gave a brief interview to Reuters and then drove off taking Colombo with me in my car as I wished to ask his advice on some parliamentary point. A slight farce then set in. I was proposing, in response to a note Nicko Henderson had sent to me at the Elysée, to go and see him at the Embassy. For some extraordinary reason, however, we also had in my car, accompanying Colombo (whose car had not turned up), François-Poncet’s Directeur de Cabinet, and I was not anxious for it to look as though I ran straight from the Elysée to the British Embassy. I therefore rather unconvincingly dropped them in the rue du Faubourg St Honoré, made another time-wasting circuit by the rue Boissy d’Anglas and left myself only ten minutes for Nicko.

  We then drove back to Brussels through pouring rain and a sodden landscape. Berlaymont at 6.45, where there was rather a lot of work, as well as a speech to get into shape for a Val Duchesse change of presidency dinner at 8.30. The dinner followed the regular pattern of these occasions. I had Hedwige de Nanteuil on one side and Signora Giolitti on the other. I made a rather serious speech, more so than the last time, which probably wasn’t a bad idea. Sigrist as the outgoing President of COREPER had no difficulty in being equally serious, curiously apologizing for the incompetences of the German presidency, and then Luc de Nanteuil made, if not exactly a frivolous speech, one which was not remotely about policy or substance, but which was exceptionally nice about me, much more so than anyone else had been previously at these dinners.

  FRIDAY, 2 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  Drove to Leuven where I was being given an honorary degree. It is an intensely Catholic university. At the Mass in the cathedral everybody except me took communion, including all the professors. Then a two-hour ceremony in a rather nice hall.

  The other degree recipients were the ex-President of Venezuela (Caldera), the Cardinal Archbishop of Kinshasa (Malula), and the Polish composer Penderecki. I had to make the principal speech near the beginning, which was neither very good nor very bad. Tindemans then did an allocution about me, and towards the end the ex-President of Venezuela made a rather good speech in French which is not however the best language for Leuven. Then lunch with the Tindemans and back to the Berlaymont at 3.30, where two days away had produced a pile-up of work.

  SATURDAY, 3 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  On a beautiful clear, cold morning I drove Neil Bruce7 (staying) and Jennifer to Crupet beyond Namur where after a half-hour’s walk up to and round the village on an extremely slippery surface we lunched at Les Ramiers and then drove back to Namur via the river and walked for another half-hour on the Citadel. A small dinner party for Neil and the Plajas (Italian Ambassador). A lot of talk with Plaja after dinner about the Italian position and some of my complaints about the way the French presidency was conducting itself so far, although my views had been a little assuaged by Thursday’s Elysée luncheon, which had undoubtedly done some good.

  MONDAY, 5 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  At noon I addressed a group of about eighty so-called US leaders, who were people from business working in government for a year, or vice versa. They looked quite bright, I spoke to them without a text and spoke quite well, but they then asked very boring questions, mainly about the technical details of tariffs affecting the industries from which they came.

  Then to a lunch of about ten for the Spanish Foreign Minister Oreja which Simonet gave in the Palais d’Egmont. The anecdotal conversation was all in French, which meant that I couldn’t tell as many anecdotes as I might have liked! My command of punch lines in French is inadequate.

  At 6 o’clock we had the formal opening of the Spanish negotiations, a long speech from François-Poncet, a shorter but in some ways better one from me, and a good and serious reply from Calvo Sotelo. Then a dinner for the Spaniards at the Val Duchesse, at which François-Poncet and Oreja spoke, but not me, and at which I had a good talk with the latter, whom I was next to, and decided that he was an exceptionally nice and intelligent man with a wide range of interests. After dinner I had a prearranged forty-five minutes with Fra
nçois-Poncet alone, during which we went through the agenda for tomorrow’s Council and made it clear on which we were going to have difficulty. I told him what we would have to say on the budget and also warned him that we were bound to have a major clash on Euratom questions, where there could be no question of our not upholding the Court ruling, which the French must understand absolutely clearly.8 He took all this fairly well and there was certainly a vast improvement in atmosphere from my very unsatisfactory meeting with him before Christmas.

  TUESDAY, 6 FEBRUARY. Brussels.

  Still beautiful weather, very cold and clear. Jennifer went to London and I spent the morning in the Foreign Affairs Council. Then lunched with the Council and had another four hours in the afternoon. It was quite a good Council from my point of view and rather morale-boosting. I made an intervention summing up the budget debate in the middle of the morning, then carried on the Euratom argument in the afternoon, getting support from nearly everybody except the French, and eventually putting them into an oddly pleading position of saying would we accept this, would we accept that. We had a long-drawn-out negotiation on this and eventually reached a slightly inconclusive but much more satisfactory outcome than might have been expected. Dohnanyi played his hand well and helpfully on both occasions.

  I saw Richard Mayne and was greatly relieved to discover that he was happy to accept retirement from the London office with goodwill and that there was no unpleasantness there. I dined with Davignon, Ortoli and Gundelach (who joined us rather late from the Agricultural Council). Morale was slightly higher than when the four of us had met before Christmas, but not vastly so. I gave them an outline of the Haferkamp affair, and they cluck-clucked in a suitable way, though Ortoli made the perceptive but depressing comment that things would probably swing round on to Willy’s side and that he would be regarded as a persecuted semi-hero and that the rest of us would get nearly as much mud as he did himself without deserving it.