European Diary, 1977-1981 Part 7

FRIDAY, 21 OCTOBER. Belfast, Birmingham and East Hendred.

To Birmingham and the Midland Hotel, where I gave a sort of civic lunch-both Vice-Chancellors, the Deputy Mayor (the Lord Mayor being away), the Anglican Bishop, the Roman Catholic Archbishop, the editor of one newspaper and the deputy editor of the other, George Canning,201 a trade unionist, two industrialists. At 6.00 I delivered the Baggs Memorial Lecture at the university on 'Happiness' (of all subjects), which I interpreted as the quest for national satisfaction; audience of 650, who applauded at the end I thought rather more appreciatively than the lecture deserved.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 22 OCTOBER. East Hendred.

Went to Oxford with the Bonham Carters (who were staying) and did one or two touristic things I had never done before, like climbing to the top of the Sheldonian, which has a splendid view. Then to see Dr Loudon at Wantage about my ankle, who took only ten minutes to deal with the matter and suggested an elastic bandage, which seemed to work rather well.

TUESDAY, 25 OCTOBER. Brussels, Luxembourg and Brussels.

To Luxembourg in Simonet's plane for the Research and Energy Council which dealt finally with JET. At last this wretched dispute has been satisfactorily settled.

Then a meeting with Bordu, the French Communist Vice-President of the Parliament. He talked mildly interestingly about the general European situation in a moderate and indeed plat.i.tudinous way. I told him that I proposed to follow the same rules for the Communists as I had for the other groups and invite them to a dinner at Strasbourg. He seemed pleased but not excessively so. The main burden of what he really had to say was contained in his last few sentences, when he announced that Marchais would very much like to see me and asked whether I would receive him. I said I would reflect upon that grave matter. (My first reflection was that I had already had enough trouble over Mitterrand.) Then some sustained work on my speech for Florence, which was in a fairly advanced state of preparation but not sufficiently so. Dinner for the Gaullist Group, which, rather like the Conservative Group, is mainly made up of one party, i.e. the French Gaullists, b.u.t.tressed by the now Irish majority party, Fianna Fail, and the one statutory and inevitable Dane. Brussels through fog at 12.40 a.m.

THURSDAY, 27 OCTOBER. Brussels and Florence.

Avion taxi to Pisa for Florence, the first time I had been over the Alps in a tiny plane. Excelsior Hotel, Florence, at about 4.30. Delivered the Monnet Lecture at the European University Inst.i.tute in a fine old gothic chapel, with a good audience of about seven hundred, and a friendly pro-European money demonstration outside. The lecture took almost exactly an hour, sounded rather better than I feared it would, and was certainly well received.

At dinner at Max Kohnstamm's202 splendid villa I sat next to a rather fascinating elderly lady who had just become French Consul-General in Florence. She had gone to London with De Gaulle in 1940 and had personally typed the Appel aux Francais there issued. Then she had gone to Canada for about two years as representative of the Free French. She spoke with great contempt of the Quebecois: 'Vichyites to a man and absolutely intolerable to deal with.' The Canadian Government was much better, though the American Government at that stage was very hostile; they simply hated the Free French, she claimed. She had been Porte-parole Adjoint to De Gaulle during his 1945/6 period of government, and said that at that time he was remarkably bad with the press, having no idea of how to communicate with or through them. His mastery over this medium developed only after his return to power in 1958.

FRIDAY, 28 OCTOBER. Florence and Rome.

Flew to Rome, and drove immediately to the Confindustria building in EUR for my meeting with the so-called Groupe des Presidents. Rather an impressive group of about eight people: Agnelli203 in the chair, Plowden from Britain, the head of Rhone-Poulenc from France, the younger Boel from Belgium, Wagner of Royal Dutch Sh.e.l.l from Holland, etc. No Germans had come because they were too frightened to travel, so I was told. Lunch and discussion on monetary union; they thought it desirable, but were sceptical as to whether the politicians would ever agree to do anything about it.

Palazzo Chigi at 3.15 for a meeting with Andreotti and Forlani. Andreotti was courteous and agreeable as always, but seemed to me not on good form, or on good terms with Forlani. However, he gave an absolutely firm a.s.surance that he would support my monetary union proposal. 'Certamente.' he said. Then to the Ha.s.sler, with a sense of having got a difficult week over.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 29 OCTOBER. Rome and Avallon.

9.30 plane to Paris. Jennifer arrived just after me from London. While waiting for her at Charles de Gaulle I read the Economist leader on my Florence speech ent.i.tled 'A Bridge Too Far'. Avallon at 6.00.

SUNDAY, 30 OCTOBER. Avallon and Vezelay.

Drove to Vezelay where we paid our first visit since 1957 to Ste Madeleine, which despite restoration is a magnificent and striking church, and then went for (probably) the last picnic of this magnificent autumn. Installed ourselves at Hotel l'Esperance at St Pere.

MONDAY, 31 OCTOBER. Vezelay.

Jacques and Marie-Alice de Beaumarchais arrived for lunch (and to stay). To Avallon in the afternoon and visited by accident on the way back a little chateau inhabited by an ex-Deputy called Max Brousse who talked without ceasing (and pretty good nonsense at that).

TUESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER. Vezelay.

To lunch with Jacques Franck at Chatel-Censoir. Franck, a Paris interior designer, was flanked by his elderly American companion, a great cook as well as a second cousin of Adlai Stevenson; another strange little Parisian gentleman; and a lady of unprepossessing appearance with a Dutch name but a great deal of blue French blood. A very pretty house, but I thought a purposeless lunch, with a slightly uneasy atmosphere, curiously reminiscent of Buscot Park in the old days.

WEDNESDAY, 2 NOVEMBER. Vezelay.

To Autun where I had never been: a sombre town, built round a sombre but nonetheless splendid cathedral. Did Talleyrand204 like it? Or did he never visit it? Then back over the high plateau of the Morvan in mist, which added to the striking atmosphere of remoteness and lack of habitation. This part of Burgundy is much less agriculturally rich than I had imagined; it looks rather like Breconshire.

THURSDAY, 3 NOVEMBER. Vezelay and Brussels.

A long (350 mile) drive back to Brussels. The end of this Toussaints holiday suggests a few reflections on this autumn. It has been much better, more enjoyable, I hope more successful, than the period before the summer. I then often deeply regretted my decision to come to Brussels. Since returning in September I have felt much more buoyant, and I think this has reflected itself in my general grip on the work, which has in many (although not all) ways gone successfully. I have got more used to the pattern of living here, find the house more agreeable, and can have relaxed periods without having to rush back to England.

Balancing all this, however, has been a certain continuing regret at the severance from British politics. Was I wise? Who can possibly tell? Clearly had I taken Callaghan up on his offer (in April 1976) to stay as Home Secretary and then become Chancellor again in six or so months' time, this would, in retrospect, have been a more enticing prospect than it looked at that stage. Would he have stuck to the bargain? I don't know. But had I been there in the Government and available it might have been very difficult for him, under pressure, not to have moved Healey and put me in the Treasury when everything seemed to be collapsing in November last year, and clearly that would have been very much buying at the bottom of the market with, fortuitously and no doubt undeservedly, a considerable reputation developing over the next six to nine months for having put things right a second time. But that would have been no more than chance, and I suppose one should not regret missing undeserved bonuses. In any case, my mind had become sufficiently detached from the general current of opinion in the Government that it was better that I should leave.

FRIDAY, 4 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

A visit from the Spanish Prime Minister, Suarez,205 and Oreja, his Foreign Minister: a very impressive couple, probably the best pair that any European country could produce. Suarez at forty-three is a good-looking, sharply cut man, who can speak nothing but Spanish. But we nonetheless had a good talk with him before, during and after lunch. Spain has had a remarkable evolution, though they face a pile of almost insurmountable economic difficulties.

In the afternoon I addressed the European Federalists' Conference, with an enthusiastic reception, due no doubt to Florence. Then saw Cheysson, who told me of conversations with Barre and Giscard. Barre very friendly, Giscard less so-doesn't like the Commission, Cheysson said, but added surprisingly that Giscard's complaint about the Commission now was that we didn't put forward enough positive proposals. 'In previous years we needed the Commission just to manage things; now the state of Europe is such that we need them to do more: Jenkins has put forward his monetary union hobby horse. That is all right in theory. I am not sure it is practical, but it is a good thing he should have said it. However, I would like more proposals, more plans, of this sort to be forthcoming.' I have my doubts about the reliability of Cheysson's reporting, but at any rate this was mildly interesting.

MONDAY, 7 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

To dinner at Beloeil, the very grand mansion beyond Mons and close to the French frontier where the Prince de Ligne holds court in considerable style. Great flag-flying, illuminated facade, men in swallow-tail coats and knee-breeches bearing flaming torches on the way in, etc. The house unfortunately was mostly burnt down, in I think 1901, and therefore the main part is an Edwardian rebuild. There are, however, some eighteenth-century pavilions left and some fairly good contents. But the point is more the scale and style than any outstanding furniture or architectural glory.

The Princesse de Ligne, sister of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, has the appearance of a neat, agreeable-looking schoolmistress. Also present were the Archduke Rudolf of Austria, plus his second and younger wife, who is a sister of Antoine de Ligne-all very Almanach de Gotha, but broadly speaking (apart from the English element, which included the Dunrossils,206 as well as General Tuzo207 and wife) representing what one might call the King Baudouin side of Belgium society, more serious-minded and less money-oriented than the demi-gratin of La Hulpe.

TUESDAY, 8 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

Lunch for Reuters who brought over an impressive group of newspaper publishers-Garrett Drogheda (Financial Times), Vere Harmsworth (Daily Mail), Barnetson as Chairman of Reuters, and Denis Hamilton. I had Barnetson on one side of me and Denis Hamilton on the other at lunch and heard a lot of good, interesting Observer gossip into one ear and Sunday Times gossip into the other.

Evening meeting with Ortoli about how we handle the preparation of the paper on economic and monetary union for the European Council. He wants to go along the traditional lines of a catalogue of minor economic measures and avoid any dramatic leap. It will be quite difficult to work out a sensible compromise.

THURSDAY, 10 NOVEMBER. Brussels, Bonn and Lisbon.

Avion taxi to Bonn, and lunch with Schmidt. The Chancellery was ringed with tanks, and Schmidt was still suffering from the aftermath of the Lufthansa hijacking and the Schleyer murder. We talked for the first hour about terrorist matters, including our Irish experiences, and I explained to him some of the SAS methods. He was interested and ill-informed about our siege techniques.

Then on to a run-up to the European Council. He was mostly in a negative mood, which is not unusual, but he at least recognizes that there are a lot of questions to which he doesn't know the answers. He is not unnaturally proud of the way in which he has run the German economy-'kept the garden tidy' is the phrase which I think I used, and he agreed with, but he also feels that it is a walled garden the way out of which he doesn't see. The room for initiative is very limited, the German economy is materially sated; people don't want to consume more, so he says; if you pump more money in it goes into savings rather than into consumption, and the only way you can stimulate investment is in export-directed investment, and this makes the balance-of-payments position still more favourably unbalanced. Therefore a very boxed-in position and a pessimistic view on his part about the future German compet.i.tive position and the world economic situation generally.

He was full of his normal German neuroses: the world needed a lead, but he couldn't give it; Germany was at once too big and too small to do that; it aroused too much antipathy, too much jealousy. A small country might .... I said, 'Which small country?' He said, rather dismissively: 'I don't know; maybe Holland, maybe Belgium, but they are not big enough. The United States almost effortlessly could, but Carter shows no signs of doing so.' Less so than on previous occasions, however, he was not obsessed by complaints against Carter. Nor was he full of praise for any of his European colleagues. There was noticeably throughout the whole long conversation no mention at all of 'my friend Valery'. There was a good deal of complaint about the att.i.tude of the French (and Italian) press towards the Germans. There was also complaint that he had been accused of being a new Hitler, I am not quite sure by whom. The Swedes, he mentioned darkly, had been particularly unhelpful.

The London press, he allowed, had not been similarly difficult, although he had begun the general conversation by saying that he was pretty fed up with the British. He had done a great deal to bring them into the Community, and now he was blamed by other people and given the responsibility for their generally unhelpful att.i.tude. I asked him of what exactly this consisted, but he was vague, muttering something about direct elections and agricultural policy, but not taking a strong or precise line.

He ended by agreeing that he didn't know the way out, perhaps n.o.body did, but accepting my remark that, this being so, he should not be too sceptical, or slap down attempts like my monetary union plan to get some movement. He said he was in favour in principle of monetary union, but against it if it meant German inflation going to 8 per cent. I said I would be too; the great thing was that the best part of German policy should be accepted by other countries; and what was absolutely essential was that both the strong and the weak economies should feel that they had something to gain. He expressed himself with remarkable enthusiasm about enlargement and said that it was a central duty of the Community; he was totally dedicated to a.s.sisting the Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese in this way.

I am not sure how much this long discussion advanced things, but it was a good free-ranging talk with an easy atmosphere, and we both came out looking quite pleased. I flew for a short hour to Geneva, and then on to Lisbon. A most beautiful day all across Europe, particularly at Geneva, where the Alps in the fading light were suffused in a rose-coloured glow. Met at Lisbon airport by the Prime Minister (Soares) and various other dignitaries and drove to the Ritz Hotel, a twenty-year-old building filled with typical mock-Empire Ritz-style furniture. Restaurant dinner given by the deputy Foreign Minister (there being no Foreign Minister, Soares holding the portfolio himself); amiable but not pointful discussion.

FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER. Lisbon.

My fifty-seventh birthday, not greeted with great pleasure, particularly as no celebrations were scheduled during the extremely hard day ahead. I began with Constancio,208 an effective young man about thirty-five, who is in charge of the Portuguese negotiating team and seems to be the most sensible economics man in the Government. Then back to the hotel for an hour to receive the leaders of the five political parties in quick succession, followed by a deputation of industrialists. Cunhal, the hardline Stalinist Communist leader, was the most interesting, and not ostensibly particularly hardline. He was against Portugal's entry more on economic than on political grounds, which is not entirely without sense, and he was in favour of loans from outside, but not primarily from Germany or America. He thought from Britain and Italy, with a rather touching faith in the ability of these countries to have any money to lend.

Then to see Soares: eighty minutes of French exposition from him, with a few questions from me. He gave a lucid a.n.a.lysis of the political situation in Portugal and how he hoped to deal with it by forming a common platform to get the hard budget through, but not by a coalition which would be either impossible or undesirable. He has a good logical mind on political questions, and drew a very effective little socio-political map of Portugal, on which he pointed out the various groupings on the ground of the party forces in a way that I found easy to follow and helpful. On economics he is much less sure; he knows he has got to be fairly tough, though he is complaining a good deal, as all the Portuguese are, about the IMF terms.209 I told him fairly bluntly that in my view they had little alternative but to accept them, though I thought that the IMF after their return from Washington would be a little more reasonable, as was their habit. The Portuguese must get the IMF money and, indeed, in the position they were, it was no good saying that this might prevent sustained expansion, since a policy of reculer pour mieux sauter was inevitable.

Then a 2.30 luncheon (though the Portuguese don't in general keep Spanish time), presided over by Constancio, at the Port Wine Inst.i.tute. Next to the Parliament to address the Foreign Affairs Commission and answer questions. Then to the Belgian Emba.s.sy residence for the amba.s.sadors of the Nine. Then a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presided over by Soares.

Next out quite a long way to the presidential palace to call on General Eanes,210 the head of state. Crispin thought he was very nervous of me. I don't think this terribly likely. Once again the interpretation was bad. (We must take our own interpreter on these trips in future.) Eanes is a youngish man, in his forties, hard, rather limited in intellect, but plunged straight into the main issues and gave his explanation of what he thought might or might not happen. Some parts of it, in translation, came through rather horrifyingly, as when he said that the General in the North, whom everybody knew had been recalled because he had been plotting with the doubtfully named Social Democrats and generally making too political an impact, had been recalled to 'pursue his military studies at a higher level', which had a splendid ring of Nigeria, if not of Eastern Europe. However, Soares had a.s.sured me that Eanes was a good democrat and he said nothing else that contradicted this. He was obviously working very closely with Soares, though he complained even more strongly about the IMF terms than the Prime Minister had done. He showed no desire to take over full power himself and hoped that Soares should be able to steer through and carry on.

Then a long drive out to Cintra of Peninsular War Convention fame, where Soares gave a state dinner of 150 in an old castle with a splendid ceiling. I sat between the Minister of State in the Government, who is a sort of deputy Prime Minister, and the Speaker of the a.s.sembly. Both spoke fairly good French. Indeed Lisbon as a whole was remarkably francophone, and amongst the middle-aged and older generation almost equally non-anglophone. Speeches after dinner, then a television interview, and back in thickening mist to Lisbon.

It had been too heavy a day, but worthwhile for getting an impression of the government and the atmosphere in the country. Lisbon has great charm. It is curiously unlike a Mediterranean city. Geographically and almost climatically it is more like a poor San Francisco. It is southern and oceanic, which I suppose is what one would expect it to be. The country is in a mess economically, and there are some elements of post-revolution chaos, but there does seem to be a genuine attachment to democratic and const.i.tutional processes. The Portuguese are a non-violent people and their dedication to coming into the Community also seems pretty strong.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 12 NOVEMBER. Lisbon and Cascais.

To the Jeronimus church with its splendid cloisters and magnificent nave: a late fifteenth-century product of the first flood of Portuguese trading wealth, in an architectural style which is quite separate from that of most of Western Europe. Then on to Cascais to the Tines' flat by lunch. A great sight-seeing tour in the afternoon, round the coast to Cintra, back to Lisbon, and south over the new (still generally called Salazar) bridge with the object of getting on the return the remarkable view of the setting sun on the roofs of Lisbon as they tumble down to the sea. Then around the Alfama part of the old town, which has great attraction and interest. I was very struck by Lisbon and its surroundings. At dinner at a rather smart restaurant I was amazed by the cheapness of the bill, and at first thought there must be a nought missing. It was less than 4 a head, which is unknown elsewhere in Western Europe.

SUNDAY, 13 NOVEMBER. Lisbon and Brussels.

Back to Brussels after an immense detour over the Atlantic owing to a Spanish air controllers' strike. We were greeted at Zaventem by Michael Emerson who had got locked into a great dispute with Ortoli's cabinet about the draft of our monetary union paper.211 MONDAY, 14 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

A rather penible one and a half hours with Ortoli at 9.30, not making much progress. Lunch for John Davies and Donald Maitland, which for some reason or other was conversationally draining.

Ortoli again at 6.00, still making no real progress and parting in an impa.s.se, but on reasonably good terms, with my saying: 'The trouble is, Francis, that you and I have very different approaches. You are much more cautious and you don't believe you can move people's minds by shocking them. I do, sometimes.' I didn't add: 'You believe in boring them rather than shocking them,' but this was the thought in my mind about his style of presentation. A short meeting with Davignon after that who indicated that while friend-lily disposed he thought I should find a solution with Ortoli rather than have a head-on challenge.

TUESDAY, 15 NOVEMBER. Brussels and Strasbourg.

Avion taxi to Strasbourg. A conference at the airport with Michael Emerson, Crispin and Hayden before taking off, when we decided, rightly or wrongly, that we had better try to come to some arrangement with Ortoli rather than presenting two different texts for the Commission to decide between on the following day, as this would have considerable disadvantages. I would have a clear majority in the Commission, none of us was in any doubt about that; but the fact that we were split would leak, leaving Ortoli bruised and having to present to the Economic and Financial Council on the following Monday a paper which had been imposed upon him. Therefore Crispin was instructed to try and arrive at a last-minute compromise which was compatible with my Florence lecture but did not hammer the points too hard. A bridging pa.s.sage was to be inserted in order to show the semi-real compatibility between my more adventurous approach and Ortoli's more cautious, pragmatic and, to judge from past experience, ineffective approach to EMU.

To the Parliament a little late after yet another nasty flight over the Ardennes/Vosges complex, but this did not matter as Simonet had been so shaken by his much worse flight that he had had to ask for a suspension of the session before he could address them. Took George Brown212 to lunch. I had not seen him for a year. He was a good deal changed: old, white, walking with a stick, but, at the same time, curiously sprightly in mind and, to some extent, in body. He had completely given up drink and cigars; he ate a great deal and, despite his unwonted teetotalism, was an immensely stimulating companion. It is curious how very good he can be: he was greatly enthused with the prospect of standing as an independent candidate under direct elections and drafting a great personal manifesto. He left me inspirited by seeing him.

Walked back from the Parliament to the Sofitel by the cathedral: a cold, early winter evening with a pre-Christmas atmosphere in Strasbourg already. Then a large dinner for the Conservative Group, which is almost entirely British. An excellent interchange afterwards. They are a pretty good group. Most of them even wrote appreciative letters.

WEDNESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER. Strasbourg and Brussels.

A special but flat Commission meeting on the EMU paper over lunch. Ortoli opened at some length, and I then endeavoured to go round the table. But Cheysson, typically and mischievously, but maybe legitimately, said that what they all wanted to know was my opinion. So I, having done my deal with Ortoli, had to give a m.u.f.fled reply, which took the heat but also the interest out of the discussion. There was undoubtedly a sense of let-down that there was no great gladiatorial contest between Ortoli and me, with blood on the sand. This would have exacted too heavy a price, but it is never satisfying to produce an anti-climax.

6.07 TEE back to Brussels. Gautier-Sauvagnac, Ortoli's Chef de Cabinet (who always looks as though he were playing Saint-Loup at Doncieres), joined us in the restaurant car in too jaunty a mood. Rue de Praetere at 10.30, and there had a rather dismal discussion with Hayden who was obviously worried about the result of the Commission, though he had been in favour of what we had done.

THURSDAY, 17 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

To the Palais de Bruxelles for half an hour's audience with the King of Spain: a very engaging young man. Even the Spaniards are now immensely less formal than the British Royal Family. At the end of the interview he discovered that there was a crush of cameramen outside the room, and that he had forgotten we were supposed to have photographs taken. Whereupon we went out and stood around shaking hands and talking while the photographs were taken. In the audience he spoke well, but not quite as authoritatively as I would have expected. His Foreign Minister, Oreja, whom I like, was with him and the King left him to do much of the exposition, although never looking bored, being extremely friendly and pressing me hard to go to Madrid.

Dinner party at home for the Nanteuils, Robert Armstrong,213 who was staying with us for the night, Leon Lambert, etc. Luc de Nanteuil held forth to me for some time after dinner, urging me not to get too bogged down in detail and to be as controversial a figure as possible, as that in his view was the way to play the hand of a President of the Commission.

FRIDAY, 18 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

I gave a lunch for British Liberals, Thorpe,214 Steel and Gladwyn.215 Poor Jeremy was looking appallingly haggard, like Soames Forsyte in the last episode of The Forsyte Saga. But this did not affect the flow of his conversation. Even Gladwyn could hardly get a word in, partly because he has got rather deaf and hardly heard what was going on. David Steel was nice but silent.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 19 NOVEMBER. Brussels and Paris.

Motored to Paris on a beautiful morning. One and a half hours with Barre, most of the time on economic and monetary union, where we managed to achieve a considerable ident.i.ty of view. He is a sensible, lucid man and I think if he has anything to do with it we should have a reasonably successful European Council. Alas, of course, he will not be there, but he said he would try to get a reasonably fair though not committing wind for my ideas on EMU.

I asked him whether he thought I should try and see Giscard in the next week or so. He wasn't sure, maybe Giscard would like to see me. 'He has a very high opinion of you,' he added encouragingly but implausibly in view of the rows of last summer.

MONDAY, 21 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

In a Foreign Affairs Council we had a long wrangle over Article 131. It was a typical example of being unable to contain at the same time the British and the French. It is like that pocket game in which you have to get little b.a.l.l.s into holes. As you try to put the second in, the first comes out. The British, represented by Joel Barnett, were towards the end being quite good; if they had been good earlier I think we might have got a solution which would have been accepted by everybody and would have been rather favourable from the British point of view. But by the time they had come round to it, the French had got difficult in a different way. The Council can deal with one recalcitrant major member, but not two.

TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

A rather good session of the Council before lunch, in which, amazingly, we disposed quickly and without difficulty of the question of Community representation at future Summits. It was agreed, without the French dissenting, that the Rome agreement on the Community being represented by the Commission and the presidency should apply indefinitely in the future. Thereby a difficult corner was turned.

THURSDAY, 24 NOVEMBER. Brussels, Strasbourg and London.

A b.u.mpy flight to Strasbourg for the twice-yearly meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which I had been under great pressure to attend. Formal speeches by Forlani, Oreja and me. Simonet failed to turn up. He is suffering from 'Eurofever' to which it is almost impossible not to succ.u.mb at a certain stage in view of our mad calendriers.

In the air again at 1.00, and set myself on the b.u.mpy journey to try to get the last part of the Israel Sieff Memorial Lecture which I was due to deliver in London at 6.00 into some sort of shape. The lecture was at the Royal Inst.i.tution in Albemarle Street in a nice little theatre, with an audience of about 120. Harold Wilson, whom I had certainly not expected, sat huddled in the corner of a row, listening, applauding at the end though my lecture certainly contained no words of comfort for him, and then coming up very agreeably afterwards, saying he had agreed with parts of it. Eric Roll was in the chair.

FRIDAY, 25 NOVEMBER. London.

One and a half hours' Downing Street meeting with Callaghan. He was extremely genial, as he had been on the previous occasion, but quite different from his att.i.tude in the spring, and on a number of issues not bad. Fairly confident, though not foolishly so, both about the economy and the next election. On the way out I said, 'What worries me is that if you win the next election, what do you do after that? How do you control the Labour Party?' He said, 'Well, it worries me a bit too, but I think I've got some thoughts as to how to deal with that.' Whatever they were, he did not disclose them.

The only issue on which we got near to a snarl-up was direct elections, on which he fairly quickly gets emotional; starts thumping away about his difficulties and how he has done as much as he possibly can and how he is much more interested in British elections, etc. But on other issues, even the CAP, certainly 131, certainly regional policy, even EMU, certainly Community loans, he was reasonably forthcoming and helpful.

MONDAY, 28 NOVEMBER. London.

Michael Palliser to lunch at Brooks's. While not on as good a form as he was when dealing so self-confidently and reliably with the problems of my transition to Europe in the summer of 1976, he was more buoyant than when I had last seen him in July. He said that he was undoubtedly getting on better than at the beginning with David Owen; he thought that Owen's relations with the office still had room for improvement but had picked up somewhat. He complained about his unnecessary rudeness and, probably in response to a suggestion of mine, gave enthusiastic endors.e.m.e.nt of the view that David ought now to lengthen his pace a little, as his whole prospect was different from that during his first six months when he might soon have been out of the Foreign Office and even the House of Commons. He said that, while meetings with David were often very difficult, he rarely, in his (Palliser's) view, failed to come out with a sensible policy decision at the end of them.

In the afternoon I went to see Harold Macmillan to fulfil an undertaking I had made to the Liberals to try to get him to use what influence he had in favour of a proportional list (for European elections). He did not seem to have aged a great deal, was friendly and relaxed, a little difficult to get to focus upon the point, as it were playing himself in with a lot of high generalizations which, for once, were not particularly well directed. However, when we got on to the point he was quite good. He was not enthusiastic for proportional representation, though not strongly against it either, open-minded so far as the effect on Britain was concerned. He was therefore quite disposed to go along with it for Europe and maybe to lobby a little in its favour. He put his finger rather well on the weakness of the regional list system, which was that it gave excessive power to the party machines. 'I am not sure', he said, 'that under such a system I would have been elected for Stockton in the thirties.'

THURSDAY, 1 DECEMBER. Brussels.

Gundelach at 10.45. I tried to persuade him to go for a 1 per cent rather than a 2 per cent Common Agricultural price increase, but did not feel I was making much progress, not because there is a great gulf between us, but because his judgement is that 2 per cent might stick and 1 per cent certainly won't. He may easily be right and, in any case, the general thrust of our policies march alongside each other fairly closely. In spite of some attempts to stir up suspicion against him, I think he is a nice, effective, overworked, somewhat 'flying by the seat of his pants' man, whom I enjoy talking with and whom I think is reasonably straightforward.

At 6.30 to the little prime ministerial hotel particulier for a meeting with Tindemans. After half an hour he arrived rather fl.u.s.tered and was as usual not only late but extremely nice and agreeable. However, his mind did not appear to have focused very sharply upon the European Council, and he was very open to every possible piece of advice.

FRIDAY, 2 DECEMBER. Brussels.

At 12 o'clock Mrs Thatcher arrived on a visit. I received her at the top of the lift shaft, Tugendhat having met her at the front door, which it is protocol for me to do only for heads of state or government, of which grave issue Mitterrand's visit made me aware. (I have in fact made exceptions for Mondale and Hallstein.) She brought with her Douglas Hurd, John Davies and a PPS called Stanley. We began in a small meeting in my room with these plus Crispin and Tugendhat. She was anxious to be pleasant and the conversation ran into no great snags over the next hour. I spent a good part of it explaining how the different Councils work and what was the difference in atmosphere and form between a Council of Ministers, a 'Schloss Gymnich'-type meeting, and the European Council. She seemed interested in all this, no doubt hoping that, in the last at any rate, she would be a fairly early partic.i.p.ant. At the end we got on to economic and monetary union for about ten minutes, in which John Davies, nice and well-informed man though he is, showed a certain capacity to get the wrong end of a point. She, if anything, seemed more pro monetary union than he did.

Then seven or eight other Commissioners joined us for lunch. The conversation was partly bilateral with me, which was quite easy, and then general. She was in no way tiresome, but left me with not the faintest sense of having been in the presence of anyone approaching a high quality of statesmanship, or even of someone who was likely to grow into this; she just seemed slightly below the level of events.

She then had meetings with other Commissioners before her press conference. Douglas Hurd was apparently rather worried about this press conference, and he proved to be right, as it seems she handled this fairly badly, both from her point of view and from ours; she sounded confused as to whether she had been visiting NATO or the Commission, and kept on making what were essentially strategic and defence points. But insofar as she let anything emerge it was that while she intended to be more pro-European than Callaghan, she couldn't think of any particular ways in which she was going to be so, and indeed choseor allowed herself to be driven intosubjects of discussion on which she is just as uncooperative as the present British Government.

MONDAY, 5 DECEMBER. Brussels.

The European Council began with the King's lunch at the Palais de Bruxelles. The King as usual was immensely friendly and expressed almost as much pleasure at having received a leather-bound copy of Nine Men of Power as if I had given him a new kingdom. It was a beautiful day with a sparkling sun over the Pare de Bruxelles. The food and drink were obviously specially chosen as a prelude to a hard-working afternoon, the main course a cold marbre de boeuf, which Guiringaud with typical French respect for 'nos amis Belges' disparagingly described as bad pate.

It was also over surprisingly quickly, but, in spite of this, we managed to start the meeting nearly half an hour late. Tindemans, after a brief statement of his own, asked me to introduce the papers on the current economic situation and economic and monetary union. I spoke for just over half an hour, which was longer than I had intended but it seemed to hold people's attention: not only the small ones, but Callaghan and Giscard, who was notably friendly and attentive throughout this Council. Only Schmidt looked as though he was asleep, which he mostly does when anyone other than himself or Giscard is speaking. Then we had a tour de table. Tindemans, Jrgensen (notably and rather surprisingly), Andreotti, den Uyl and Lynch all spoke enthusiastically.

Giscard was a shade cooler in substance, though not bad in manner and saying very precisely that he accepted the Commission's paper. Schmidt then spoke rather reluctantly and not very well and not on any subjects of any great relevance. However, he made no frontal attack or attempt to dismiss our proposals, though it could not possibly be said that he directly endorsed them, despite the fact that he had come up to me at lunch and said that he thought his ministers had been being too negative and that he would try and correct this. Callaghan was more enthusiastic, although a shade less so in the semi-public of the meeting than he had been to me in private after my introduction when, graciously and surprisingly, he had come round the table and said that he thought it was the best opening he had ever heard at a European Council.

However, we got enough of what we wanted for the moment on EMU, and also, by the skin of our teeth, we got our Community loans facility through. This was well supported by nearly all those I have mentioned previously, except for den Uyl. Giscard, however, was the disappointment. We knew that Barre was in favour and hoped that Giscard would speak in the same sense. However, what he did was to say that he himself was unconvinced but that some of his own Government seemed to take a different view and therefore he wasn't going to oppose it. But this didn't in any way amount to applying effective leverage to Schmidt who had expressed himself still more sceptically. However, at the end Schmidt said he was not going to stand out and, rather ungraciously it would seem from most people (though he thought he was being gracious), said, all right, if we wanted it we could have it, provided that other things, like the Regional Fund, were settled on a reasonably satisfactory basis; he was not going to be raped twice.

Dinner at the Palais d'Egmont. The Belgians foolishly applied exactly the same seating arrangements as at lunch, which meant that everybody had the same neighbours, except that the King having been removed, Schmidt and Giscard were next to each other. I had Andreotti and Michael O'Kennedy,216 the Irish Foreign Minister, and we had all had enough of each other. So certainly had Giscard of Andreotti and, it appeared as the meal went on, even of Schmidt, so that towards the end he began some general conversation round the table, surprisingly immediately getting on to my books, announcing to everybody that he had read them all and talking for about ten minutes rather funnily, or at least wittily, about the Dilke book, showing a surprising knowledge, indeed almost an obsession with every detail of that strange story. His command of the subject was only impaired by the fact that throughout he referred to 'Dilkie', talking the whole time in French. Indeed he talked French and hardly any English throughout almost the whole of this European Council, and Schmidt also talked more German than I had known him do before.

TUESDAY, 6 DECEMBER. Brussels.

European Council at 10 o'clock. In the early part of this we got a rather farcical, but nonetheless quite satisfactory and surprisingly easy solution to the Article 131 dispute. Then we went on to the Regional Fund. This was less satisfactory and was indeed the worst aspect of this European Council.

We looked at one stage as though we might get a settlement at 620 million units of account. Probably I then made a considerable tactical error. I thought this was a bit on the low side, and by arguing for more got involved in a considerable dispute with Schmidt about the basis on which we calculated inflation. He thought we were doing it in regard to the high-inflation countries, which we were not: we were doing a weighted average. But in the course of this argument it emerged that I was calculating it, as I thought was eminently reasonable, from the beginning of 1974, which was when the last programme came into operation, but he totally refused to do this and would only accept a recalculation from the beginning of 1977.

So this issue having suddenly exploded, not in a particularly ill-tempered way, but having taken a surprising turn, he went back to a much harder position in which it looked as though we might get only a very small amount indeed out of him. As his agreement to the Community loans facility was dependent on a satisfactory (for him) solution to the Regional Fund, we were in considerable difficulty and really had no alternative but to accept, and indeed accept somewhat gratefully, Giscard's proposal of 1850 million European units of account over a three-year period, split on a basis which started with 580 million for 1978. The Italians and the Irish were surprisingly unrigorous in fighting for a higher figure, as indeed were the British, but this was partlyto an extent I had not fully realized, but ought to have donebecause the recipient countries were gaining enormously from the transfer to the European unit of account, which followed from the settlement of the Article 131 dispute, and very substantially put up their receipts in their own currencies.