European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  5 o’clock plane with Jennifer to Rome. It was a rather beautiful evening. We stayed at the Grand Hotel—as opposed to the Hassler -for the Italian Government were putting us up.

  THURSDAY, 6 SEPTEMBER. Rome and Palermo.

  By Italian military aircraft to Palermo. Drove round the edge of the city to the Hotel Villa Igiea, which has a fairly splendid position on one side of the Bay of Palermo (though with slightly too good a view of the shipyards, which are very near on the right). Typically, in spite of all the talk about the unrelenting summer sun of Sicily which beats down from June to October, it was raining when we arrived.

  Then I had an extremely hard day’s work. A one-and-a-half-hour meeting with the President of the Regional Government and about twelve members of his junta, if that is the word. This I thought would be an informal exchange of views, but in fact he opened with a longish prepared statement, lasting nearly half an hour, quite tough though perceptive and well-informed. He was indeed in general quite a bright man, called Matarella, apparently the son of the old mafia leader in the western part of the island, including Palermo, where mafia rule prevails, but was thought not to be mafioso himself.28 This meant that I had to make a substantial reply fairly impromptu, but this was not in fact too difficult to do, particularly as I had to be interpreted in chunks to the room, whereas the interpretation of his speech was merely whispered into my ear. His Regional Council was very well disciplined as none of the others spoke a word.

  We then went to the Palazzo dei Normanni where there are some wonderful mosaics, both in the chapel and in the secular hall, which I do not recollect having previously seen. Next a lunch with short speeches, at which all the notabilities were present, the prefect, the president, the mayor, the cardinal (with whom I had quite an agreeable talk before lunch, he very non-Sicilian), local deputies, members of the European Parliament, a minister from Rome, etc.

  Afterwards an interminable tour of the shipyards and harbour, enlivened only by the fact that the head of the Italian shipbuilding industry, Buccini, who had come down from Genoa, was extremely intelligent and worth talking to. Sicilian labour is apparently markedly unproductive compared with northern Italian labour, partly because they take an average of forty-two days’ sick leave a year.

  Then a still more exhausting meeting with the Chamber of Commerce. There were 350 of them and all the speeches were of reasonably good-mannered complaint about local issues. Unfortunately, the simultaneous interpretation, which was not provided by our interpreter but by two girls they had got from Rome, was almost completely incomprehensible. I really could not understand a word they were saying. I was reduced to listening in Italian, which I could understand more, and as what they all said was fairly predictable it wasn’t too bad. I then wound up for half an hour. Then a press conference, which was a relative relaxation. Then a large reception and buffet dinner at the Villa Malfattini.

  FRIDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER. Palermo, Catania and Taormina.

  Across to the eastern part of the island, along the coast for some time and then through a very bleak inland area to Enna near where we inspected a major soya bean experimental station, run by an extraordinary self-made, very rich entrepreneur called Mario Rendo, the whole thing allegedly run as a foundation. The soya experiment was up to a point quite interesting, though Rendo seemed to me totally unrealistic about the possible results of it. How he has made so much money with such unrealism I do not understand, for he was talking about it providing employment for 250,000 people.

  Natali was standing rather gloomily, with his moustaches drooping, on the edge of the field, God knows why exactly, but this no doubt explains why he does so much travelling to and in Italy. He didn’t, despite being an ex-Minister of Agriculture, manage to look very rural. An agreeable official luncheon at the Jolly Hotel, Catania, from 2.45 to 4.30.

  Then a brief rest before my lecture to the university at 6.15. Nice building, good hall and they seemed reasonably appreciative. Afterwards we left for Taormina and the San Dominico Hotel—a converted monastery. It was rather splendid, high above the sea, with a beautiful garden and good rooms.

  SATURDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER. Taormina.

  Rest day at Taormina. I spent most of it trying to write our response to the wretched Cour des Comptes report. Alas, the weather was not perfect. Etna was briefly visible in the morning, but then disappeared into a mixture of haze and cloud. We dined in the hotel, with our highly intelligent interpreter, Gesulfo, and the far less intelligent Italian protocol man, who had never previously been south of Rome in his life and obviously thought it rather degrading to have to do so. He came from Friuli where he has a wine-growing estate, and looked like a post-Risorgimento House of Savoy cavalry officer.

  SUNDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER. Taormina, Rome and Urbino.

  Back to Rome by military aircraft. Lunch with Malfatti at the Villa Madama. (Malfatti, my predecessor but two as President of the Commission, has become Foreign Minister in the new Cossiga Government.) I think somewhat inspired by my old friend Renato Ruggiero, Malfatti had worked himself up into a great state of excitement and was determined to have a great go at us about the totally unsatisfactory nature, from their point of view, of the paper on convergence. The Italians were very fed up that their budget imbalance had in fact disappeared, but were extremely bad at producing any precise ideas, at this stage at any rate, as to what further they wanted done. I don’t like Malfatti enormously at the best of times, and I didn’t think he did this particularly effectively, or even, in spite of a lot of protestations of friendship, particularly agreeably.

  We set off for Urbino at 4.20 and had the most dreadful drive. The protocol department of the Italian Foreign Office had decided that the thing to do was to go across the peninsula on the autostrada to Pescara then drive up past Ancona and into Urbino that way. Had I looked at the map for a moment it would have been absolutely clear to me that this was crazy, but by the time I got hold of a map it was too late and we were already launched off towards L’Aquila. As a result we had a drive of 480 kms as opposed to the 260 kms which was all that was necessary, on a rather bad autostrada, screaming along dangerously, with sirens going the whole time, in a police-led and police-tailed convoy of about five cars, no fewer than two of which eventually broke down as well as another running out of petrol. We arrived shaken, exhausted and extremely bad-tempered just before 9.00.

  I had been supposed to go to a great reception given by the municipio in the hall of the old ducal palace at 7.30, but we were desperately late for that. However, as they were all assembled I had to go there briefly and make a little speech. After a quick dinner we retreated to the not very good Montefeltro Hotel. Although the rooms were small and ill-furnished, there was at least a magnificent view over the moonlit Umbrian countryside.

  MONDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER. Urbino and Rome.

  Degree-giving ceremony in the university at 11 o’clock. Substantial speech from me, but not a bad occasion. Both Colombo, who had driven up from Rome specially (by the right route, lucky man), and Forlani, who is a sort of local boss as well as an ex-Foreign Minister, came, which was kind of them.

  Then back to the Grand Hotel in Rome by the correct route and with the greatest of ease in three hours despite entering Rome at the rush hour.

  TUESDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER. Rome and Brussels.

  To Castel Gandolfo for our audience with the Pope. Greeted there by the old French chamberlain, Archevêque Martin, whom I know somewhat from previous occasions. Castel Gandolfo has a fine position but is not an attractive building inside. It was not available to the Popes from 1870 until the Concordat in 1929, and it was then done up in a sort of Papal Mussolini style. On the way in Martin first made it clear that the Pope wished to have the main part of the audience with me alone, and that Jennifer and the others were to come in at the end to receive a blessing and have a photograph taken, which was possibly a slight disappointment to them, but was all right from my point of view. Martin also said, ‘En quelle langue, Monsieur Jenkins, aimeriez-vous
parler avec Sa Sainteté? En Allemand?’ he surprisingly added. ‘Certainement pas,’ I said. So Martin then said, ‘Eh bien, le Saint Père est également à l’aise en Anglais ou Français.’ So I said, ‘If he is equally at ease, I am rather more at ease in English, so perhaps we might talk English.’ ‘I am sure the Holy Father would be delighted’ he replied.

  I then had about thirty-five minutes with the Pope alone. He started in French, so I replied in French and we talked so for perhaps the first ten minutes. I did not have the impression that even his French, though he had a good accent, was perfect. He did a good deal of searching for words and, while he was certainly as good as or better than me, he did not give any impression of great fluency. This part of the conversation was agreeable but a little trite. Then when we got on to Northern Ireland, I asked him if he minded if we spoke English and he said certainly not, he would be delighted, and so we did most of the rest of the interview in that language, but this was possibly a slight mistake because his comprehension of English was very far from being perfect, and I suspect that he was not following a good deal of what I said.

  However, I think he might have got the central point which I wanted to make, which was that his forthcoming visit to Northern Ireland was clearly an affair of the greatest possible importance particularly following so closely after the Mountbatten and other murders and that it could have very great impact. Perhaps not even he could influence the very small minority of those who were dedicated to violence for its own sake, and there was no doubt little need to influence the majority of the population who were against violence. But those whom it was extremely important to influence were the sizeable minority who gave passive support to violence. This phrase he certainly seemed to take in and repeated several times, ‘Passive support, passive support, yes that’s very bad.’ So I hope that this at least, which was the central thing I wanted to say, got through.

  He was perhaps a little less impressive than I expected to find him. He has a wonderful smile and, even without the smile, looks agreeable (forceful as well) and made of very good material. He didn’t have anything of great significance to say and perhaps, particularly in the part of the conversation in English, but even to some extent in French, he let me lead the conversation so that I guess I was talking a good 60 per cent of the time. And while it was a much more agreeable, intimate talk than I had ever had with either of the two previous Popes whom I have met, the sheer human and intellectual impact upon me was less than I expected.

  Then the others came in and he did his blessings very agreeably, gave a medal each to Crispin, Enzo Perlot and me, and a book to Jennifer, and we had some very good photographs taken—Vatican photographers seem excellent—and parted on suitably warm terms. He is not tremendously well informed about Community affairs and Western European matters, much less so than was his predecessor, but this is perhaps natural as he thinks much more in Pan-European or Eastern European terms. It appeared to me in one part of the Irish conversation that he was far from clear about the constitutional position by which both parts of Ireland were members of the Community, but Northern Ireland through the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland entirely separately.

  Jennifer went to London and I went to see Cossiga, the new Italian Prime Minister, at 2 o’clock in the Palazzo Chigi. I hadn’t seen him for three years, but had known him fairly well in 1975/6 when I was Home Secretary and he was Minister of the Interior. I thought him then a nice intelligent man and this impression was fully confirmed. Also, unlike most Italian politicians, he talks quite good English, but was not, however, quite naturally, anxious to do any very serious business except through an interpreter. We talked until 3.15, getting very hungry. He was much more reasonable than Malfatti had been and I think I was able to persuade him on a number of issues: first, that the Italians would make a great mistake to block any British solution, because their budget problem really had turned round, and though they had certain wider problems, they were on a somewhat longer time scale and the hope of solving these in a way satisfactory to Italy would certainly not be enhanced by taking a dog-in-the-manger attitude at this stage. Second, that it was essential that they should not just complain about the Commission’s inability to propound solutions to problems which they did not formulate clearly, but that they must submit some more precise proposals, either by sending some high-level officials to Brussels, or by putting in clear papers.

  We then adjourned to an excellent lunch (the tartuffi season is the peak of the Italian gastronomic year) before returning to Brussels.

  WEDNESDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

  Lunch at home for Madame Veil. I found her a good deal different from my expectation following our July meeting. She is nicer and less sharp. Her conversation is engagingly babbling. There are never any silences, never any difficulty about finding something to say: things just come out as they come into her head, a mixture of gossip, how nice her penthouse suite in the Amigo Hotel was (I hope the Cour des Comptes don’t get on to that too quickly), what she thought about Strasbourg, what difficulties she was having with various people, what she thought about Pflimlin, how she was going to deal with the problem of Parliament wanting to move. A mixture of quite important things and quite unimportant things, all spontaneously pouring out.

  I think she feels somewhat lost with the Parliament, which is not surprising considering that she has never sat in a Parliament in her life, and is forming a fairly low view of most of the groups. The British Conservative Group she put at the top of the list, and probably rightly so, so far as coherence is concerned. She is very determined not to be intimidated by Debré, who had been firing heavy Gaullist guns on her flank about the inadmissibility, in his view, of the armaments debate which is scheduled for the September session. But she seemed fairly unshaken by that, and indeed generally gave the impression that the fears she would be Giscard’s woman in the Parliament were misplaced. The real danger is that she will be a slightly incompetent President, not that she will be anybody’s agent.

  Then back to the Commission for a rather excessively long session, from 3.40 to 7.50. However, in the course of this, we satisfactorily disposed of the reference paper, which had looked in real trouble the week before, but as a result of some re-editing and a good deal of lobbying of the more important Commissioners we managed to get through in a tolerable form. Home pretty tired at 8.15, but no respite as the Spierenburg group arrived to dine almost immediately and stayed until nearly midnight. It was mainly a thank-you dinner to them towards the end of their work, but we had some interesting conversation and I found them all in quite good morale.

  SATURDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER. East Hendred, London and East Hendred.

  Edward’s wedding day and a most beautiful morning. Motored from East Hendred to the Savoy Restaurant, the Grill being closed, and at 12.30 installed ourselves in the window and waited rather a long time—despite the fact that they had been anxious to be early—for the children, all of whom eventually arrived together, Edward with his very agreeable Canadian best man. Set-piece family luncheons are liable to be a slight strain, but this one was agreeable.

  The wedding in the Temple Church went off very well. I suppose there were 150/200 people, an amazing proportion of them wearing morning coats. I was surprised at the number of our old friends, because I had encouraged nobody to do it, who turned up so attired (Mark Bonham Carter, Ronald McIntosh, Madron Seligman29), but what was far more striking was the very high proportion of the young who did so; they obviously rather like dressing up. The church was attractive and the presiding clergyman was good. So was the music, though a little unusual, and the scene was much improved by the fact that the west door, through which Sally came with her father (the guests had entered from a south door at the side), remained open throughout with crisp, clear, cool September sunlight streaming in the whole time.

  Then we at first stood about in the piazza-like courtyard outside the church and I wished we had arranged the reception there—it would have been just abou
t the right temperature. But eventually we moved into Middle Temple Hall where everything went on for a surprisingly long time, from 4.00 to 6.30 or so, but quite satisfactorily. The best man’s speech was perceptive about Edward and funny in bits. The whole thing was tremendously traditionally done, to a far greater extent than I had expected, cutting the cake, champagne, confetti for the departure of the bride and groom and God knows what else.

  MONDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

  Roy Mason, accompanied by Gavin Strang, his assistant agricultural spokesman, to dinner at home with Jennifer. Mason was in one sense very agreeable, very pro-European, even prepared to defend almost all aspects of the CAP, which seems to me to be pushing it a bit, and I think enjoyed himself (and wrote a nice letter afterwards). But he is incredibly obscurantist (straight Paisleyite, as Jennifer put it) on Northern Ireland, where his lack of imagination and inability to understand any of the Catholic case really were absolutely shattering. He just loves the Northern Ireland Protestants. Also he is a remarkably insensitive man in other ways. After dinner he held forth in a great set piece about the terrible rigours of his security protection and how he was under constant threat, which may well be so, but all done as though he were addressing three friendly members of his General Management Committee in Barnsley, with not the slightest hint of understanding that I knew anything about these security problems or had ever been Home Secretary.

  TUESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

  In the margins of the Foreign Affairs Council I had a good bilateral talk with Dohnanyi, which was interesting because he was very keen to get out of me what I thought was a sum on which it would be possible to settle with the British, and to tell him what I thought the scale of the problem was. I said I thought one could envisage a settlement at around 1000 million units of account. I couldn’t be pinned to this, but if he wanted some idea of an order of magnitude, this is what I would insert into his mind.