European Diary, 1977-1981 (38 page)

MONDAY, I MAY.
Madrid and Brussels.

Made to leave Toledo for Madrid airport much too early, which I hate doing. We were there over an hour before the plane was even due to take off. We hung about in the VIP lounge, with various members of the send-off party trickling in, and it was therefore not possible even to get down to any useful work or reading. Calvo Sotelo wisely left his arrival (to say goodbye) until the last possible moment, saying he had been held up by the traffic—a very sensible man in my view. Brussels at 1.15.. To lunch a little late with the Danes: Foreign Minister, Permanent Secretary, Permanent Representative.

TUESDAY, 2 MAY.
Brussels.

Foreign Affairs Council at 9.30 and all day including lunch until 5.30, when I left. There was a slightly obscure debate about protectionism, mainly between Lambsdorff and Owen, in which Owen uttered some of the most protectionist sentiments -unprepared, I think—that I have ever heard.

Then, towards the latter part of the morning, I introduced the ‘fresco' on enlargement, which was surprisingly politely received by all the ministers. I rather feared that they would think we had been a mountain in labour and had produced a mouse, but although there were some points of disagreement about the transitional periods and some desire for more detail on economic matters, they all accepted the document as a good beginning and welcomed the fact that we kept it to twenty pages. Genscher was particularly forthcoming.

Dined with the Nanteuils in their new large suburban villa at Tervuren, with which they seemed very pleased compared with their previous less convenient but more distinguished town house in Ixelles. After dinner I was given an interesting little lecture by Huré, the French Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium, about the difference between the state and the nation in French political thought. Giscard, he thought, was too concerned with the nation, whereas the French desperately needed the state to hold them together as they were inherently febrile and undisciplined. Hence
the need for Napoleon, de Gaulle, etc. Debré,
⁶²
from the death of whose father the conversation started, exaggerated appallingly but nonetheless such exaggeration was necessary for the balance of French politics. It ended up by Huré saying that Pompidou—partly because he had more humble origins—understood the state as opposed to the nation much more than did Giscard, i.e. was much more of a Napoleon, whereas poor Giscard was left to be a Louis Philippe!

WEDNESDAY, 3 MAY.
Brussels.

Five and a half hours of Commission. The long item in the morning was on the agricultural price position, with a report from Gundelach as to the result he saw being arrived at the following week. Everything seemed reasonably satisfactory except for wine, on which he had gone substantially further than authorized in the Commission a few weeks before. A slightly acrimonious exchange with him, but the Italians and the French being of course solid with him, and not much fight in anybody else, there was no chance of doing more than pulling him back very marginally. In the afternoon a moderately good discussion on the draft of the first part of the ‘opinion' on Portugal's application for membership.

A monetary affairs lunch with four
cabinet
members, rue de Praetère. A drive and walk in the Forêt de Soignes for an hour before dinner; a beautiful evening, the weather having changed at lunchtime, and for the first time this year we saw the sun slanting through the light green beech leaves which are the best feature of Brussels in May.

THURSDAY, 4 MAY.
Brussels and London.

Having decided not to go to Aachen for the Karlspreis Ceremony, and it being a Commission holiday, I went to London in mid-morning with Jennifer, and there worked on my speech for the Reform Club banquet that evening, which was to mark their having made me one of their few honorary members. It was a gathering of about a hundred and fifty, including I think six of the Nine
ambassadors, Michael Palliser, etc. I had prepared a speech for the occasion with a lot of Reform Club references, with only a little serious stuff at the end. However they indicated during the day and on arrival that they hoped I would give them a full-scale serious European talk. I therefore had to do a combination of the two and, as a result, took forty-five minutes.

FRIDAY, 5 MAY.
London and Oxford.

Another filthy day, pouring with rain from morning till night. In the afternoon I motored to Oxford to deliver the Cyril Foster Memorial Lecture. Tea in Michael Howard's
⁶³
room in All Souls and then across to the South School of the Examination Schools, where to my amazement there were about five hundred people, including one or two surprising figures like Ann Fleming and the Michael Astors, and also the Hayters
⁶⁴
and a lot of undergraduates. The lecture seemed to be curiously and jointly presided over by Raymond Carr, Warden of St Antony's, and Robert Blake, Provost of Queen's, he in his capacity as one of the pro-Vice-Chancellors. It was a solid lecture, lasting fifty-seven minutes, about relations with the Third World. There was some quite interesting material in it and it was well listened to by the audience, but it was certainly not sparkling. An early dinner at St Antony's for about forty.

MONDAY, 8 MAY.
London and Manchester.

Peter Preston, editor of the
Guardian,
to lunch at Brooks's. I found him remarkably agreeable: not difficult to talk to as I half-expected, very European, well-informed, and sensible on practically everything.

5.20 train to Manchester. Installed in the same suite in the Midland Hotel in which John Harris, Irwin Ross
⁶⁵
and I had sat gloomily sipping whisky and sweating prodigiously on the hottest English evening I can remember after a bad meeting (Manchester meetings mostly are) in the Albert Hall in June 1970, and where I
had begun to wonder whether that election really was in the bag after all.

On this occasion there was a dinner for about thirty people, given by the
Sun
⁶⁶
with brief speeches. I sat between Larry Lamb
⁶⁷
and a Tate and Lyle director called, surprisingly, Tate. Lamb and all the
Sun
people were in very buoyant mood, as they had just got news that they had decisively passed the
Mirror
and become the largest circulation newspaper—a considerable feat in such a short time -meaning, as I indicated in my speech, that the decision of the old
Mirror
Group to put the
Sun
on to the market was one of the most ill-judged acts in the history of British journalism. To have kept it there like Hemingway's fish, fastened to their boat, gnawed at but protective, would have been much wiser.

TUESDAY, 9 MAY.
Manchester and Strasbourg.

A brilliant morning with spectacular Manchester sunshine, but I saw little of it as we were incarcerated in the Midland Hotel for the
Sun-organized
seminar on the Common Agricultural Policy. A rather good and worthwhile gathering. I spoke for thirty-five or forty minutes at the beginning, then we had ‘the assessors', Neil Marten MP,
⁶⁸
plus a rather good farmer from Cheshire, plus Professor John Marsh from Aberdeen plus a Co-operative Wholesale Society manager. I replied to them for twenty minutes and then left by avion taxi for Strasbourg. I arrived in the Parliament just after 4 o'clock, where I received the news of the death of Aldo Moro
⁶⁹
at the hands of his Italian kidnappers. Recorded a brief television statement on this shattering event for the Italian state and government, and therefore, indirectly, for the Community.

WEDNESDAY, 10 MAY.
Strasbourg.

An easy Commission meeting from 9.00 to 10.00. Then into the Chamber, luckily, as little Fellermaier without any notice got up on
a complicated point of order which turned out to be a justified complaint about the very poor attendance and performance of the Commission at question period the previous day. Only Burke and Vredeling had been there. We had discussed this at the Commission meeting that morning, deciding that we must strengthen the team for Thursday and in future. I therefore had an answer, but felt I had to change my plans, stay in Strasbourg and do Thursday questions myself. I also settled down to a Wednesday in the
hémicycle,
making a series of brief speeches up to 7.30 p.m.

In one interval I took David Wood of
The Times
to lunch, mainly gossiping about British politics of the past. And in another interval I had a useful drink with Dohnanyi and discovered that he was keen to present some paper to the German Government about a very substantial increase in European Investment Bank funds to be used as a sort of mini-Marshall Plan for the applicant countries. Good as far as it goes, which may be quite a long way.

My change of plan had defeated the Sofitel (though this was not entirely a bad thing in view of our opinion of it) who could not have us for another night. We therefore went to Illhaeusern.

THURSDAY, 11 MAY.
Strasbourg and Brussels.

Left Illhaeusern at 7.45, though not quite early enough, to drive hectically to Strasbourg Cathedral for a memorial Mass for Moro. Just squeezed into the front row between Colombo and Natali. It was a longer service than I had expected, nearly a full hour, good music, splendid setting, high Mass and communion service for everybody; a fairly good attendance. And then a quick breakfast in the Place de la Cathédrale before spending the morning in the Parliament. In my afternoon question hour I answered five out of six questions, all going reasonably smoothly, and, as in December, quite enjoying the occasion.

FRIDAY, 12 MAY.
Brussels.

Hilda and George Canning (my Stechford chairman) arrived to stay. John Harris and Jennifer were also due to arrive, but they were diverted by a strike and indeed had a ghastly journey as the driver missed them at Lille.

SATURDAY, 13 MAY.
Brussels, Rome and Brussels.

Jennifer took the Cannings to Walcheren, Middelburg and Vlis-sengen in order to see some of the scenes of George's exploits in the Navy during the war. I left for Rome by avion taxi just after 1.00 for the grand Moro memorial Mass. Two in a week was perhaps rather much, but the Italian Government had made it fairly clear that they would greatly appreciate my presence. John Harris and Hayden came with me for the ride. Met by Forlani, the Foreign Minister, and Natali, as well as by the rather typical news that the ceremony had been put back by half an hour on security grounds. (It was not clear why keeping the congregation waiting for a longer time in St John Lateran was going to help security.)

We arrived at the basilica, which is of course magnificent, at 3.45. The Mass started late even for the postponed time of 4.30. The Pope (Paul VI) made an exceptional appearance outside the Vatican
⁷⁰
and was borne in on his ceremonial chair carried by ten men who, although presumably practised, were a little unsteady. This did not impair the dignity of his blessing as he swayed around six feet above the ground; no doubt he is used to that. His presence and demeanour were impressive. The service was beautiful, with haunting music, though, to me, cold, but perhaps that was because I did not know Moro. It took a long time and it was 5.45 before we left the church. Not many heads of government—Thorn and Tindemans I think were the only ones—but there was a fairly substantial representation nonetheless. Elwyn-Jones (Lord Chancellor) for the British, Peyrefitte (Minister of Justice) for the French. There was also a remarkable turn-out of Italian politicians. All the Christian Democrats, apart from poor Cossiga
⁷¹
who had resigned as Minister of the Interior and was not there, but also Berlinguer as well as most of the Socialists.

Rather a jam of the planes of various governments at Ciampino so that we did not get into the air until just after 7 o'clock Italian time (8 o'clock Brussels time). Nonetheless we got to rue de Praetère in time for dinner with the Cannings and Phillips' at 10.15.

TUESDAY, 16 MAY.
Brussels.

Henri Simonet to lunch. As usual it was a pleasure to talk to him. He seemed at that stage on perfectly good form and not unduly apprehensive of what was happening in Zaïre, although taking the mistaken view that while the Belgians might have to do something, the French were unlikely to move.
⁷²

WEDNESDAY, 17 MAY.
Brussels.

Seven hours of Commission, with a COREPER lunch, which is by no means a relaxation, in the middle. I gave the Commission a great lecture in the morning about inadequate attendance at the European Parliament.

Arrived late with Jennifer to dine with the Australian Ambassador for the Whitlams, who were visiting. A curiously mixed party, with the Papal Nuncio apparently substituting for the Ambassador's non-existent wife. The Whitlams in buoyant form as usual. I enjoyed talking to Mrs Whitlam, who really is a rather splendid figure. He is going to give up politics and become a professor at the National University at Canberra. Also present were Roy Denmans and Marquands. David Marquand is now finally going, having got his chair at Salford. He has written two or three extremely good speeches for me, but I do not think that he has found quite enough worthwhile to do.

THURSDAY, 18 MAY.
Brussels.

I gave a lunch for the
Daily Telegraph
- William Deedes (the editor) plus the foreign editor, plus a leader writer. I enjoyed the occasion. Deedes is not a scintillating man (although he has other virtues), nor were the other two, but they seemed favourable and friendly and therefore it was worthwhile. Then a two-hour session with the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliament about enlargement.

At 6 o'clock I saw John Palmer of the
Guardian,
who asked
curiously desultory questions, but we got on in a reasonably friendly way, which is at least an improvement on a year ago. I had in fact been extremely nice about him (although I have no idea whether he knew that) to Peter Preston ten days before, saying, which is indeed the truth, that he was much the best informed of the British correspondents in Brussels.