European Diary, 1977-1981

by Roy Jenkins

  He was as elegant and nervous as a finely bred racehorse. To begin with he thought he ought to speak French at Commission meetings, which made him take his fences rather slowly. One summer, when Commissioners were asked to give their holiday addresses, he submitted a quiet pensione in Venice for ten days plus Villa Giolitti, via Giolitti, Cuneo, for the rest of the time. That perfectly summed up his mixture of modesty and hereditary slightly other-worldly authority. His wife had translated Proust into Italian.

  Guido Brunner, b. 1930, was a German professional diplomat (Ambassador in Madrid since 1982) who had become a Free Democrat nominee to the Commission on the resignation of Ralf Dahrendorf in 1974. By 1977 he thought that he was entitled to the External Affairs portfolio, but I did not consider that he had enough weight. He had a Spanish mother and was an excellent conversationalist, able to adjust to his interlocutor’s interests with equal ease in German, Spanish, English and French. He sometimes engaged less robustly with his Commission responsibilities, which were Energy and Science. He resigned in November 1980 when he was elected a member of the Bundestag, but he did not long remain a legislator.

  Raymond Vouël, 1923–88, was a Luxembourger Socialist who had served in the Ortoli Commission for its last six months. Despite this short head-start over a half of us and the centrality of his country to the Community, he was never much at home in the Commission. Taciturn and suspicious, although honest and determined, he was I fear always ill at ease with me, and frequently locked in conflicts with Davignon (their portfolios were adjacent), who danced around him like a hare with a tortoise, except that the tortoise did not win in the end. He was in charge of Competition policy. He was not reappointed in 1981, and although only fifty-seven went home to retirement.

  Richard Burke, b. 1932, was a devout and provincial Irish-Catholic who came from the same party. Fine Gael, as Garret Fitzgerald but did not share many of his liberal views. He had been a minister and was a man of dignity and of a certain shy charm. I rather liked him, but did not often succeed in handling him well. His portfolio in my Commission, arrived at with considerable difficulty (see pages 666–8), comprised Transport, Taxation, Consumer Affairs, and Relations with Parliament. This last item (the most interesting one) he voluntarily surrendered in June 1979. He was not reappointed in 1981, but came back to Brussels in 1983 for the last two years of the Thorn Commission.

  Christopher Tugendhat, b. 1938, was the only Commissioner under forty. He had been Conservative Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster since 1970. He was very much my personal choice as second British Commissioner. Mrs Thatcher looked in another direction, but James Callaghan was pleased to be able to throw a bone to me and irritate her at one go. I never regretted the choice. Tugendhat was a very good Commissioner. What particularly impressed me was that, starting as he did beholden to me, he never allowed this to affect our relations. He was neither subservient, nor (a more likely reaction) tiresomely contrary or overassertive. He was a pillar of support on the EMS and staunchly committed on all European issues. His father was a distinguished Austrian refugee who rejected his homeland to the extent of not bringing up his son to speak German, which was a pity as it meant that Christopher Tugendhat arrived in Brussels almost monolingual. His portfolio comprised the Budget, Personnel, and Financial Services. It was a mixed bag in which the first item assumed an importance in the affairs of the Community greater than was thought likely when he was appointed. Tugendhat continued in Brussels until 1985, and is now Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority.

  SECRETARY-GENERAL

  Emile Noël, b. 1922, was Secretary-General from the creation (1958) to 1987. He was French in nationality and style, but the epitome of a European who transcended nationalism in motive and performance. He conducted most of his business in a series of elegantly phrased memoranda, heavily dependent upon a very precise use of the subjunctive. Yet he rarely allowed this precision to lead him into negativism. He was capable of major constructive swoops. His personality was at once warm and elusive. He had been the Chef de Cabinet to Guy Mollet when the latter was Prime Minister of France at the time of Suez. He may well know more about the hidden mysteries of that affair than anyone else now alive. Since 1987 he has been Rector of the European University Institute in Florence.

  The Cabinet

  My Brussels cabinet or, in the by no means exact English equivalent, Private Office:

  Chef de Cabinet

  (Sir) Crispin Tickell, b. 1930, later Ambassador to Mexico, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Overseas Development, and now Permanent Representative to the United Nations, New York.

  Senior Adviser

  Michael Jenkins, b. 1936, having been Chef de Cabinet to George Thomson in the Ortoli Commission, stayed on for my first seven months as a supernumerary but valuable member of my cabinet. In the autumn of 1978 he returned to Brussels as a member of the Secretariat-General (later Deputy Secretary-General) and in this capacity worked closely with me, particularly on the British budgetary question. Now British Ambassador in The Hague.

  Chef Adjoint

  Hayden Phillips, b. 1943. (Until January 1979.) Formerly my Home Office Private Secretary 1974–6, now a Deputy Secretary, HM Treasury.

  Nick Stuart, b. 1942. (From January 1979.) Now a Deputy Secretary, Department of Education and Science.

  Senior Counsellors (Grade A3)

  Michael Emerson, b. 1940. Dealt primarily with economic and monetary affairs until the end of 1977 when he became a Director (A2) in the Directorate-General dealing with these matters (DG2) where he still is. He continued to work closely with me on monetary matters, but was replaced in the cabinet by:

  Michel Vanden Abeele, b. 1942, Belgian, for the remaining three years. He is now Head of Division in DG8 (Development) in charge of relations with UNCTAD and primary products.

  Graham Avery, b. 1943, who dealt primarily with agriculture and enlargement. He had come from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Soames cabinet but in 1981 entered the services of the Commission and is now a Director (A2) in the agricultural Directorate-General.

  Spokesman

  Roger Beetham, b. 1937. He was attached to the Spokesman’s Group in DG10 rather than in the cabinet itself, but he worked closely with it. A member of the Diplomatic Service, he was Counsellor in Delhi, 1981–5, and is now in the FCO.

  More junior members

  Klaus Ebermann, b. 1945. German. Dealt with industrial affairs and overseas development. Now in the external affairs Directorate of the Commission.

  Etienne Reuter, b. 1944. Luxembourgeois. Dealt, under Crispin Tickell, with relations with countries outside the Community. Now in the Spokesman’s Group of the Commission.

  Laura Grenfell, b. 1950. (Until June 1979.) She dealt, under the Chef Adjoint, primarily with parliamentary affairs. Now Mrs Hayden Phillips.

  Penelope Duckham, b. 1952. (From June 1979.) Later parliamentary adviser to the Consumers’ Association. Now Mrs Matthew Hill.

  Secretaries

  Celia Beale. Inherited from the Thomson cabinet. Stayed with me throughout and for three subsequent years in London. Now Mrs Graham Cotton.

  Susan Besford. Inherited from the Soames cabinet. Went to Tokyo in early 1979 and was replaced by:

  Patricia Smallbone (now Mrs James Marshall) who stayed until December 1979 (but see under London Secretary) and was then replaced by:

  Sara Keays who stayed until the end.

  Secretary (London)

  Bess Church who had worked for me since 1957 and who stayed until the spring of 1980, when she was replaced by Patricia Smallbone.

  Drivers

  Peter Halsey, who had worked for me during both my periods as Home Secretary and who continued to drive me in London until 1982. He died in 1988.

  Ron Argent, expatriate English, inherited from the Soames cabinet, now retired to Spain, until mid-1977, when he was replaced by:

  Michael O’Connor (Irish) who stayed with me to the end of my Brussels time.

  Epilo
gue

  On Sunday evening, 4 January 1981,1 returned to Brussels for forty-eight hours. I stayed with Michael and Maxine Jenkins in their house in the drève des Gendarmes. I held a final press conference in the Berlaymont, reviewing with modified rapture the previous four years. I received my old friend the French Permanent Representative who had been sent in by the Quai d’Orsay, true to the last to its habit of never missing a trick, to tell me that some speech of Christopher Tugendhat’s was inacceptable. I gave a lunch for the Commission and a dinner for my cabinet. I signed a few last-minute documents. I formally handed over to my successor, Gaston Thorn, who was late and flustered. Within three hours, pausing only for my last farewell visit—to Comme Chez Soi—I was in the air for London. It was to be two years and nine months before I again saw Brussels.

  Back in England, I was at once remarkably free and remarkably encumbered by political ‘promises to keep’. I had no office, no job (for I did not think I should take up my part-time City commitment until a few months had gone by), and for the first time in London for thirty-three years, no Parliament on which to base myself. On the other hand, the new party, soon to be christened the SDP, was achieving a much quicker but by no means entirely painless birth than I had thought possible. As a ‘Gang of Four’ (a name which, as an import from China, was then barely out of the customs sheds) we had a slightly disputacious weekend on 17–18 January. I then went to America for five days, thinking that a brief detachment would do no harm, and returned on the morning of Saturday, 24 January, to watch on television an immensely helpful special Labour Party Conference. It is amazing, looking back, how dedicated a large section of that party was to forcing a predictably damaging partition. Although perhaps, in view of the 1987—8 behaviour of the SDP, political self-immolation should not occasion surprise.

  On the Sunday morning we went to Limehouse and before the early January dusk had produced and launched the Declaration of that name. It did not set up a new party, merely a Council for Social Democracy. But what was crucial was that it put us wholly into the public domain. Thereafter popular response took over. After Lime-house the Gang of Four or any individual member of it could no more have stopped launching a new party than logs could prevent themselves being swept down a mountain torrent. The Council became the Social Democratic Party on 25 March, a month or so ahead of our original timetable, but not, we judged, early enough for us to be ready to fight the May local elections.

  We could not however for long pretend that we were a popular movement but refrain from putting ourselves to the test of popular suffrage. The first bye-election vacancy was created at Warrington, an old industrial borough on the borders of Cheshire and Lancashire, in the last week of May. It was traditionally a safe Labour seat, and we rated it, on the basis of some calculus I have now forgotten, about 550th (out of 630) in order of favourability for us. However, I thought I had better fight it.

  I had never much enjoyed electioneering, regarding it as a disagreeable cure which one had to endure every four years or so in order to have the indulgence of sitting in the House of Commons for the rest of the time. Such an approach was possible in traditional politics, but it was no way in which to found a new party, particularly as Brussels had inevitably given me a somewhat remote image. I therefore decided that I had better reconcile myself to a life of campaigning, and to my amazement found that I quickly came to enjoy it. During the five Warrington weeks my heart was rather in my mouth, because I had no idea whether the result was going to be an humiliation or a respectable defeat, but in retrospect at least the streets and landmarks of that somewhat sombre town have come to glow in my memory. This was as well, for the next two years were taken up with almost continuous electioneering. Apart from my own second bye-election at Hillhead and the General Election of 1983, there was Croydon and Crosby and Gower and Bermondsey and Darlington, as well as a number of less needle encounters. By a curious irony it was the House of Commons, when I re-entered it in March 1982, which I came to regard as providing the disagreeable interludes between the stimulating election campaigns.

  All this preoccupation accounted for my failure to find any time to go back to Brussels before October 1983. But it did not mean that my mind had turned away from European issues. I followed them closely, maintained a good number of personal contacts, and spoke frequently on the subject. Britain to my dismay continued to find an infinite series of unconvincing excuses for remaining outside the European Monetary System. If the mark was too high, the dollar was too low, or vice versa, or the moon was in the wrong quarter. Every conceivable set of circumstances was surveyed and rejected, not overtly on principle, but on the ground that a more favourable combination must be awaited. Even deprived of British adherence, the System achieved a distinct practical success and reduced the fluctuations between the seven participating currencies by a substantial and measurable margin. Governments did not however push on with the further phases of development of the EMS which had been envisaged at Copenhagen and Bremen. The main monetary advance of the mid-1980s came through the spontaneous increasing use of the écu in private transactions and not through Government action.

  With the disappearance of the Giscard-Schmidt partnership in 1981–2 the political leadership of the Community became temporarily weaker and its energies were diverted for too long and too obsessively into the British budgetary dispute. Most of the years of the Thorn Commission were therefore disappointing, although they brought the negotiations with Spain and Portugal to fruition (these countries entered on 1 January 1986) and prepared the way for the Single European Act of December 1985. Partly as a result of this institutional reform, Iberian enlargement, unlike the admission of Britain, Denmark and Ireland in 1973, has led to no weakening of Community purpose. On the contrary, the plans for 1992 and associated developments amount to the greatest resurgence of dynamism since the great days of the early 1960s.

  Throughout these fluctuating fortunes for the Community the old SDP and its Alliance partner maintained a wholly committed European position. I therefore experienced no ideological break on my return from Brussels. It was merely a very sharp change of gear.

  Appendix 1

  Allocation of Portfolios, 4–7 January 1977

  TUESDAY, 4 JANUARY. Brussels.

  After lunch I went briefly to my temporary unattractive office in the rue de la Loi and then back to the house to begin a series of ‘portfolio’ interviews. The first two on the list, Haferkamp and Ortoli, were both late, as all the members of the old Commission had been off on an excursion to Paris, where Ortoli had assembled them for a farewell lunch at Lasserre. There was fog on the road and they therefore all arrived back behind time and disordered.

  Haferkamp made it clear that his mind had become more and more fixed on the suggestion that I had thrown out to him at Ditchley, that he should do External Affairs. I said the principal difficulty about this was the question of how the German Government, and perhaps Genscher in particular, was going to take the switch from expectations between him and Brunner, and that I must see Brunner but that he (Haferkamp) also must try to help handle this in Bonn. There was also the question of whether he was prepared to work hard at this job and at his English, which, although it had already improved a good deal since I had first seen him in the autumn, clearly needed to be better for relations with the Americans. On all points he was sensible except for a great and unconvincing protestation that he always worked immensely hard at all jobs. However, a reasonably satisfactory interview.

  Ortoli came next and, given the fact that it was my view that he was bound to have Economic and Monetary Affairs (this, indeed, was one reason why it was essential to get Haferkamp out of them) and that he greatly wanted this, there was not much problem with him either. He was, as usual, a mixture of the warm and the prickly and talked a little too much about his dignity as an ex-President rather than about his qualifications, which were great, for the Economic and Monetary job.

  We then had Gundelach to dinner, together with
Hayden and Crispin, and had a productive talk. He confirmed that he was willing to do Agriculture, was insistent, but reasonably so, that he must keep Fisheries for the time being, as the subject was so very much on the boil and he was the only person who really knew about it, but equally willing to hand it over in perhaps four to six months.1 He also talked rather usefully about other aspects of the disposition of portfolios, sticking to the view which he had accepted when I put it to him at Ditchley that Haferkamp was the bigger man and would be better than Brunner in External Affairs. After dinner he talked a bit about agricultural policy, saying we would have to get an interim price settlement, which he would try and keep as low as possible, before we could embrace any question of structural reform, but that he hoped to be ready for structural reform by May or June.

  WEDNESDAY, 5 JANUARY. Brussels.

  Vredeling at noon. No great difficulty with him on this occasion. Having rejected so contumaciously at Ditchley the ‘human face’ portfolio of Environment, Consumer Affairs, Nuclear Safety and Transport, he expressed considerable pleasure and gratitude when I proposed to him Employment and Social Affairs together with the Tripartite Conferences.2 As usual with Henk Vredeling there was a good deal of talk and it took me nearly an hour to deal with him.

  After lunch I came straight up against what was likely to be one of the most difficult interviews: that with Brunner. And difficult indeed it proved to be. As I had never got near to promising him External Affairs he was not in any great position to complain. But complain he did and very hard indeed, and attempted to put a veto on Haferkamp’s appointment. I said that I couldn’t accept that and he then went off into, for him, some extremely rough talk indeed, talking at one stage, so Crispin avers, of ‘loosing the dogs of Bonn’ upon me, and at another stage of becoming part of the ‘loyal opposition’ in the Commission, and being about as threatening as he could.