European Diary, 1977-1981 (9 page)

Then on to a three-quarters-of-an-hour meeting in the Palazzo Montecitorio, the Parliament building, with Stammati,
⁴⁷
the rather elderly Finance Minister. But this unfortunately made me late for the press conference which followed in the Commission's Rome office and was packed, though partly I think with the Commission staff. It looked as though it was going to be a rather formidable occasion but turned out better than might have been expected and we got quite a good press out of it.

Then on to the Quirinale for a 12.45 interview with Leone,
⁴⁸
the pocket-sized President of the Republic, conducted in quite a stately form as had been the case in August, in other words a gathering of about sixteen or eighteen people sitting round and he and I talking in periods. He is an agreeable, cultivated Neapolitan lawyer, said to be benignly corrupt. Then a very splendid lunch given at the top of the Quirinale with a magnificent view from the sea to the Apennines including the whole of the city of Rome. It was apparently the old games or sports room of the immensely tall Quirinale guards. What they now do for exercise was not clear.

What, however, was remarkable about the lunch was that it was clearly intended to be a great Italian mark of respect for the Commission, for no fewer than eleven ministers turned up, including Andreotti, Forlani, Stammati, Marcora, almost everyone one
could think of, plus a number of other state dignitaries like the President of the Constitutional Court (Rossi). There was supposed to be no speeches other than informal toasts, but when we arrived there was a three-and-a-half-page, foolscap, English translation of Leone's speech, so Crispin had to work hard during lunch in order to patch together something for me, upon which I improvised and made what turned out to be a successful fifteen-minute speech.

Straight from there to the airport, Brussels at 6.30, and into the office for a preparatory meeting for the next day's Commission.

WEDNESDAY, 23 FEBRUARY.
Brussels.

I lunched at Comme Chez Soi, the first time since 1962 when Eric Roll
⁴⁹
took me there with Jean-François Deniau,
⁵⁰
and found it just as good as I had remembered, although the size of the bill had increased about tenfold.

FRIDAY, 25 FEBRUARY.
Brussels.

Presided over a lunch at Val Duchesse for about forty or fifty principal information officers in the member governments. Then an interview with the
Figaro.
Then a series of discussions, including one by telephone with Gundelach in Washington about suspending the export subsidy on cheap butter sales to third countries, which had caused a considerable press outcry that morning.

Then to Liège, where I had arranged to have dinner alone with Willy Brandt.
⁵¹
Consultation between our offices led us to believe that he was going to be in Aachen. I therefore said that I would happily come down, but that it would be easier for me, as I had not paid my official visit to Germany, if he could possibly come over the frontier and meet me just in Belgium. He was twenty-five minutes
late and came in very apologetically, saying that he had got lost on the way in. I said, ‘It is very good of you to have come from Aachen at all.' ‘Aachen?' he said. ‘I haven't been to Aachen for years.' ‘Where have you come from then?' I asked. ‘Bonn,' he said, which made it even more agreeable of him to have come.

He was more relaxed and talked better, I think, than I had ever heard him: a good deal about the European Parliament, of which he still intends to be a member, although seeing some conflict with his presidency of the Socialist International, a good deal about German politics, on which he was surprisingly loyal to Schmidt, although with a modicum of criticism. He believed the Bonn Coalition would hold. Also a certain amount about Europe, though I had the impression that he was getting more interested in Third World issues.

SATURDAY, 26 FEBRUARY.
Brussels and Paris.

A quick visit to Crispin, who was in hospital, then to the Gare du Midi for the 11.43 TEE to Paris. From the Gare du Nord to the Embassy, where David Owen was staying, though just about to leave, and from 3.00 to 4.00 I had a talk in the little upstairs sitting room with him and Debbie. There was undoubtedly a slight problem of adjustment, perhaps more on my part than on theirs. When somebody has been a loyal, young, junior supporter for a long time, it is a little difficult to get used to his suddenly being Foreign Secretary. He had made a very good impression in Paris. He was forthcoming and friendly and I think the meeting went well. Not unnaturally he was very pleased with himself, very full of himself, so was Debbie, because he had after all just had a most remarkable political breakthrough.

He talked sensibly about the position of the Government, though he told Nicko Henderson
⁵²
on the way to the airport that he saw himself as standing in the centre of the Labour Party, neither on one wing nor the other; but maybe that is a sensible thing for him to
say.

SUNDAY, 27 FEBRUARY.
Paris.

Drove with Nicko and Mary to lunch with the Ganays
⁵³
at the Château de Courances near Fontainebleau. Very handsome 1630 house, with a horse-shoe perron, a copy of that at Fontainebleau, added a great deal later. Moved in the evening for reasons of protocol from the Embassy to the Crillon for the beginning of my official visit to the French Government. Installed by them in a magnificent suite, looking over the Place de la Concorde. Rather typically, they paid for this for one night only, though I clearly had to stay there for two!

MONDAY, 28 FEBRUARY.
Paris.

Another most beautiful day. My first appointment was with Giscard at the Elysée. I walked there, which rather confused protocol arrangements, and indeed made it mildly difficult for me, for there was a guard of honour, to my surprise, lined up in the courtyard, and I was not quite clear whether I ought to walk over to them and see if their hair was short enough, etc. or just walk straight to the steps where people were waiting to receive me. Michael Jenkins firmly and rightly advised doing the latter, saying that had we come by car we would have just swept up and there would have been no question.

I saw Giscard absolutely on the dot, and had eighty minutes with him. On this occasion, unlike the last two on which I had seen him, he spoke English, and spoke it very well. The only crunch was relating to my presence at the Western Summit meeting. He raised it himself, in a glancing way, saying that as I might be aware, the French Government were not in favour of this, not of course at all for personal reasons, etc. but because in their view the Summit should be a meeting of sovereign governments. I hope I left him in no doubt about the strength of my contrary view. I avoided getting substantially drawn into detailed arguments and merely said that I thought it was an enormous waste of time to cause difficulties about this issue, rather than the substance of the European line at the Summit. He took this reasonably well.

At the end, when I was about to leave, I said, ‘Thank you very
much. It has been a great pleasure to talk to you and I much look forward to seeing you again in Rome, and after that in London.'
⁵⁴
‘Don't say it,' he said, ‘don't say it. Just say, “Certainly on many occasions after that”.' So on this reasonably agreeable but inconclusive note, we parted, and I drove across to Hôtel Matignon for lunch and subsequent talks with Barre.

After lunch I had about twenty minutes alone with Barre in which we discussed the Summit. I forget who raised it, probably me, for he immediately said: Oh, yes, he had had a telephone call from Giscard after my meeting there informing him about this. He then put his case, which was a remarkably weak one, as I made fairly clear to him. One advantage or disadvantage of both Barre and Giscard is that their lucidity is such that it becomes a positive disadvantage when they have to put a very bad case, and Barre I think at least had the grace to recognize that his case was bad. Then nearly an hour's good conversation with him with others present, mainly about the state of the French economy, but also international monetary affairs.

A series of meetings in the afternoon, and then a Quai d'Orsay dinner of about fifty, with speeches, in a very grand upstairs room.

TUESDAY,1 MARCH.
Paris and Brussels.

Rue de Varenne for a meeting with Lecanuet.
⁵⁵
I had met him once before, as he recalled, in London, in about 1968. Then he seemed much younger and was regarded at the time of his presidential candidature as a sort of French Kennedy. He still has a faintly American look about him, though he now reminds me more of Nelson Rockefeller, despite the fact that he speaks no English; very agreeable smile, but in a curious way rather difficult to talk to, so that we had some difficulty in spinning out the conversation for forty-five minutes. It was mainly about regional policy, in which he seemed to announce a complete change of French line. Previously they had been against the Regional Fund.
⁵⁶
He now expressed great
interest in it, said that the French very much wanted to participate in it, but wanted a much larger quota for themselves; a move, in other words, from being indifferent to being slightly grasping.

After that, I moved across the road for a meeting with Christian Bonnet,
⁵⁷
the Minister of Agriculture. This went much more fluently, as he poured out words almost on the scale of Marcora, his Italian
vis-à-vis.
This quality seems to be a feature of European Ministers of Agriculture. However, perfectly friendly conversation in which rather notably he did not mention the butter sales problem, though saying a great deal about a range of other issues, including their dispute with the Italians about wine. After this, on to the offices of the Commission, just off the Avenue Foch, for a very crowded press conference.

Lunch Au Petit Riche, a nice old-style Paris restaurant which seemed hardly to have changed since Alexander Werth was constantly writing about it in the thirties. 3.20 train to Brussels in pouring rain, across the sodden Somme countryside. I also have the impression it has hardly stopped raining on these battlefields since 1916.

WEDNESDAY, 2 MARCH.
Brussels.

A meeting with Gundelach at 9.30. Difficulties clearly blowing up about the handling of butter sales to Russia. Our statement suspending so-called prefixation had been welcomed by the British press, though with a good deal of implication that we were closing the stable door after the horse had gone (though as only one horse had gone, while there were several still there, this was not wholly valid). However, this had been followed by much contrary criticism, building up in the early part of the week, from the French press in particular, but to some extent in one or two other countries too.
Le Monde
had distinguished itself by a violent attack on me for interfering with the working of the agricultural
acquis,
which had come out on the Tuesday evening. Gundelach at first seemed to be weakening, but on investigation it appeared that what he was proposing was thoroughly sensible. Into the Commission at 10.00
and disposed of this item without too much difficulty, within about half an hour. The Commission until 1.00 and then again for two hours in the afternoon.

THURSDAY, 3 MARCH.
Brussels.

Berlaymont fairly early for a meeting with Ruggiero, concerned both with a briefing on the previous day's Commission and with the general press blow-up, particularly in
Le Monde,
about our butter activities. Special Commission meeting from 10.00 to 12.30 on Ortoli's general economic papers, which were fairly negative and into which I tried hard to inject a strategy for mobilizing all the borrowing funds that we could, as an alternative to a rather tiresome and probably ineffective line about the Germans reflating, in the hope that this would give us some room for manoeuvre and for coordination on the whole complex of Regional Fund, Social Fund, Sectional Intervention, FEOGA Guidance etc. Only about four Commissioners understood the significance of this; one or two of whom—Davignon, Tugendhat—liked it, and one or two others -Ortoli at any rate—probably did not, though he did not react violently against it.

Then across to the Charlemagne building for a brief meeting with COREPER before lunching with them. I was amazed to discover that they met in the great ‘football pitch' of a room which the Council of Ministers use, and find it difficult to understand how in these circumstances they can get any intimate discussion. We then adjourned for lunch, which was long and interesting; two hours with a lot of discussion about the Rome European Council. The Belgians put round a letter which they had addressed to everybody, taking a very strong line in favour of Commission representation at the Western Economic Summit, but, partly because I did not wish it to be done, it was not discussed at lunch.

Later to the Cinquantenaire for our rather belated New Year reception for the diplomatic corps. As we have approximately 110 ambassadors accredited, and as they nearly all turned up, there was a considerable receiving-line job to do, in which Haferkamp assisted manfully.

FRIDAY, 4 MARCH.
Brussels and East Hendred.

9.35 plane to London. Read in the
Figaro
that the Gaullist/Fianna Fáil Group in the Parliament had decided to put down a vote of censure on the Commission about the butter affair, but hoped that this need not be too serious. It is very difficult to see who they can get to coalesce with them on their criticism of what we have done. Plenty of other people would be willing to join in criticism, but it would be from the opposite direction.

MONDAY, 7 MARCH.
East Hendred, London and Brussels.

Motored from East Hendred to London with Jennifer for Tony's memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Sat in the front row of the north transept, surrounded by Foreign Ministers and other European representatives. The Cabinet and the ambassadors were in the choir stalls and Susan and her daughters opposite us and a little nearer to the altar. The service, which was a mixture of a traditional Westminster Abbey ‘Church and State' occasion and some unorthodox, more personal elements, was on the whole successful and moving. Jack Donaldson's address was excellent, assisted by some obvious Frankie touches.
⁵⁸
Derek Gladwin
⁵⁹
read the lesson well. Dick Leonard's
⁶⁰
reading from
The Future of Socialism,
although in my view not at all badly done by him, did not quite come off, and at the end the Welsh Male Voice Choir from Caerphilly, who had been specially brought and performed from high up in the roof between the choir and the nave, seemed to me to get slightly lost in the rafters and not to produce as emotionally swelling a rendering of ‘Cwm Rhondda' and one other Welsh hymn as I would have expected. But it was an impressive and harrowing occasion.