European Diary, 1977-1981 Part 14

SUNDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER. East Hendred and Dublin.

The end of the long holiday and, alas, almost the brightest and best morning we had had. Crispin arrived to take me to the 12.50 plane to Dublin. He appeared vigorous after his Himalayan and Tibetan holiday in spite of having been bitten by a dog in some remote Asian country and consequently having to have a series of rabies injections.

On arrival in Dublin we drove to the hurling ground where, at the pressing invitation of the Taoiseach, we were to watch the all-Ireland champions.h.i.+p finals. When asked to this event I had imagined that it was a sort of rustic occasion, with some traditional game being played on a village green. (I am not sure that I was absolutely clear of the distinction between hurling and curling.) Instead of this there was a ground the size of Twickenham or Cardiff Arms Park and a crowd of seventy thousand. It was obviously a great Irish state occasion, with not only the Taoiseach (Jack Lynch) but his predecessor Liam Cosgrave, Burke (my Commission colleague) and all sorts of Irish dignitaries present in the boxes. I found the game highly enjoyable, a curious mixture of hockey, lacrosse and rugger. I got a sufficiently clear view of the form by half-time to bet Colley, the Minister of Finance, that Cork would be the victors over Kilkenny, and this was not just a wild guess. I would gladly have invested more than 5, which was what I won. However, it was a well worthwhile bet for it became much publicized, as did my part in the whole occasion, which was, I suppose, good for the Commission profile in Ireland.

MONDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER. Dublin and London.

Left the hotel about 10.00 to go and see the Taoiseach in his normal rather dismal offices. He did not seem on his brightest form. I think that, an old Cork hurling player himself, he was exhausted from his celebrations both at the match and in the evening with the team. He is definitely in favour of coming into the European Monetary System, but not very precise about what he wants out of it, although attaching more importance, as did his ministers subsequently, to Irish growth not being cut back than to any immediate transfer of resources or increase in the Regional Fund.

Then a meeting with three or four of the other main ministers: mainly Monetary System but some slightly more detailed issues as well. The Irish were much less inclined to grumble than the last time I saw them, and indeed went out of their way to say that their relations with the Commission and the Community were now excellent. After a lunch given by the Taoiseach in Iveagh House, we went for a drive and a walk round Phoenix Park on a most beautiful afternoon. Then a plane to London, and Kensington Park Gardens just before 6 o'clock.

David and Debbie Owen came for a drink. They were both thoroughly agreeable. David, although he had been rather in favour of a spring election, obviously thought that one for early October was now definitely fixed. Equally obviously he thought that he would not be Foreign Secretary after the election whatever happened, because if Labour won Healey would take over. He was rather disappointed at the thought of the election cancelling the Labour Party Conference, at which he believed he might have got a very good vote for the National Executive Committee.

Jennifer and I then went to the Capitol Hotel for dinner with the Soames's, at which were present, amongst others, Carringtons, Gordon Richardsons and John Harris's. Soames very tough and firm on Europe and on the Monetary System, Gordon reticent, a bit wobbly, but not in my view too bad, Carrington rather hopeless about his ability to deal with Mrs Thatcher and indeed very depressed about the prospects, saying quite firmly that he thought she would be against and that there would not be enough pro-European strength in a Tory Cabinet to carry her along.

TUESDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER. London and Brussels.

To the National Westminster Bank in the City where I addressed their main board and their various regional boards (a total of about fifty people) on the EMS. 3.30 plane to Brussels and the new term.

THURSDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER. Brussels, Rome and Bussento.

8.40 plane to Rome. Drove to the Eden Hotel where the Italian Government had reserved a suite for us, and worked there from 11.00 until 12.30. Then to the Palazzo Chigi for a meeting with Andreotti and Forlani and three or four other people. Andreotti was on typical form, looking tired, pasty, unhealthy, but agreeable and on the ball; he hadn't had much holiday, but I don't think he likes holidays; and he was talking in a more clearly focused way than at our last meeting. He is eager on economic grounds, and determined on political grounds, to come into the European Monetary System, but he not unnaturally wants to get as much out of it as possible. The Italians are more specifically demanding than the Irish. The thrust of his demand, to an extent which surprised me, was on changes in the Common Agricultural Policy rather than on the transfer of resources as conventionally defined. The discussion continued over lunch with about four ministers, including Pandolfi,24 the Minister of the Treasury, whom I had met once or twice before and of whom I think very highly, until about 3 o'clock. There was an informal 'on the hoof' press and TV conference as we left the Palazzo Chigi.

Hayden, Laura and I left by self-drive hired car, but with police escort, and made good progress south in deteriorating weather. As usual there were heavy downpours around the Bay of Naples. We then drove on down a very crowded and wet motorway until we turned off and began a difficult twenty-six-mile drive over the hills to arrive at Bussento (and the Bonham Carters) at 9.15.

SUNDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER. Bussento and Rome.

The third very good day of weather. Left after lunch for Naples (a two-and-a-half-hour drive), deposited our car at the Excelsior Hotel and were then rushed through the streets with a quite unnecessary screaming police escort to the Mergellina Station where we caught the rapido to Rome. To the Ha.s.sler Hotel and to dinner in the roof restaurant, where we were joined, at his urgent request, by Emilio Colombo. Laura feared that he was coming to complain about something-apparently we hadn't replied to some point which he had raised in a letter. But this (as I suspected) could hardly have been less accurate. What he wanted us to do was to provide him with some facts and preferably even a draft speech for the Jean Monnet Lecture at Florence, the successor to mine of the previous year, which he was going to give and which he wanted to be as helpful as possible.

MONDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER. Rome and Brussels.

Breakfasted on my balcony at 7.45, looking over a slightly misty and autumnal but very warm and sunny Rome: a spectacular view. 9.45 plane. Flew in beautiful weather to about Coblenz and then b.u.mped for twenty minutes into Brussels on as nasty a day as one could easily imagine.

Peter Carrington to lunch. Rather a good talk with him, perhaps because he is a particularly good listener. However, he obviously thinks that if they win in the spring there is a 6070 per cent chance of his becoming Foreign Secretary. He doesn't totally exclude the Heath possibility but thinks it unlikely; doesn't wholly by any means exclude the John Davies possibility either, but hopes that won't happen. Does clearly exclude the Soames possibility, and is also unenthusiastic about the view which I canva.s.sed to him, which I had previously canva.s.sed to Soames the week before (where it was greeted with more enthusiasm), that Soames might become Minister of Agriculture for eighteen months or so. Carrington says this is because he thinks there couldn't be two ministers -particularly two ministers concerned with Europe-in the Lords. (He may feel a bit that he couldn't control Soames.) However, he was very anxious to discuss what he could most usefully do, as Foreign Secretary in a future government, in the Council of Ministers, etc., and anxious to know how he could make a favourable European impact. At the same time he was not at all confident how effectively he could direct a Conservative Cabinet in such a direction. As always he was gloomy and critical about Mrs Thatcher, and surprisingly pro David Owen.

WEDNESDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER. Luxembourg and Brussels.

An easy Commission meeting between 9.00 and 10.00, then into the Parliament for Genscher's long-delayed statement on Bremen and Bonn (no previous opportunity); quite well done, not too long. I followed with twelve minutes on the same subject. I then listened to the debate both morning and afternoon, which was almost entirely devoted to the EMS. Sixteen speakers out of nineteen were in favour, and to some considerable extent seized the real issues. It was a great contrast with our December attempt to get the Parliament to debate it, when they weren't taking it seriously.

I took Christopher Tugendhat to lunch and found him half attracted by the idea of an outside inquiry into the Commission25 but half worried for his own portfolio responsibilities.

I wound up the Bremen/Bonn debate with an impromptu speech of ten minutes, and then returned to Brussels by avion taxi at 7 o'clock. It was a most beautiful day in Luxembourg, not very warm but absolutely clear sky, extremely low humidity, the first perfect day of autumn. At rue de Praetere I found Robert Marjolin whom I had asked to dine and stay the night. I had a three-hour dinner with him alone. He is an extremely nice man, looks fifty-five and is now nearly sixty-eight, on the board of a number of very high-cla.s.s companies, Royal Dutch, Chase Manhattan, General Motors, American Express. He is a bit cynical, both about Europe and about French politics, but well worth talking to; I got him on to the subject of what one should do with the Commission and found him favourable to what I had in mind about an outside inquiry. He was willing to make some suggestions about names, but would not undertake it himself. 'Like you,' he said, 'I am interested in policy, not in organization.' He first suggested Pierre Dreyfus, ex-head of Renault, as a possible chairman, but then withdrew his name in favour of Witteveen, ex-Managing Director of the IMF.

THURSDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

Lunch with Crispin for Calvo Sotelo, the Spanish Minister for European Affairs, and Ba.s.sols,26 their Amba.s.sador; two and a quarter hours' detailed conversation in French. However, Calvo Sotelo, as I thought in Madrid in April, is a solid, considerable, sensible man with whom to deal. We talked about a wide range of things, including not least the Giscard letter to heads of government and to me, which had arrived the previous day, proposing that 'Three Wise Men' look at the future of European inst.i.tutions. I had known this was around for some time, and of course it was all part of the subject he had broached with me in our June talk. However, I regret the exact timing because it coincides with my idea of an outside inquiry into the Commission. However, I don't intend to be put off because of that; his inquiry and mine have different terms of reference, and indeed a different subject.

As I told Calvo Sotelo, I am not too agitated about the letter, although I know some members of the Commission, notably Natali and Davignon-both of whom wanted to issue denunciatory statements-are excited against it. Vredeling, whom I would have expected to be most agitated, is not so. No doubt there is a desire in Giscard's mind to cut down the power of the Commission, to reduce or eliminate our political role, our connection with Parliament, and half to amalgamate us with the Council secretariat and with COREPER, and thus to make us all into servants of the European Council. This must clearly be resisted and some others will no doubt resist the other thought at the back of his mind, which is to revert to the old Directoire idea and to reform the Council of Ministers so as, after enlargement, to give greater power to the major countries, particularly France and Germany, maybe Britain. However, I don't believe in taking the rigid defensive view that everything is perfect (it is certainly far from that) and that therefore we should resist any change. I am sure it would be foolish for the Commission to take up this position. Altogether the Giscard initiative requires delicate playing.

I talked also with Calvo Sotelo about his worries that the Greeks might try to veto Spanish entry, or might be put up by the French to do this, and tried to rea.s.sure him.

After a long meeting with Davignon, partly about the Giscard letter but mainly to disclose my ideas to him before our Commission strategy weekend, I had an hour with Siad Barre, the President of Somalia, before the small dinner we were giving him in the Berlaymont. He is one of the few Africans who is neither francophone nor anglophone, though he speaks both, but Italian better than either. Although a good linguist, he is not a vastly intelligent man, an old Marxist, who has quarrelled bitterly with the Russians in the course of the past year. I had a desultory conversation with him at first, but he got better over dinner. I made a brief three-minute speech of welcome, to which he said that owing to his English not being perfect he was not sure that he could manage an adequate reply, and then produced a spate of more or less coherent words for thirty-two minutes.

FRIDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER. Brussels and Comblain La Tour.

A meeting with Gundelach, mainly about agriculture but also about the agenda for the weekend, and found him, too, pretty good and firm. Then I saw his new Director-General, Vilain, a Frenchman of course as is regrettably 'obligatory' in DG6, but was surprised, expecting to see an elegant Inspecteur de Finance, to discover a rather young, stolid-looking man who might be a policeman. Gundelach had told me that he seemed rather 'square' but I wasn't quite sure of his use of the word in English; however it seemed a good description. Vilain seemed agreeable enough to get on with: unable to speak English.

At 12.15 I received Warren Burger, the Chief Justice of the United States. He being the Third Citizen, it was held that I should go down and meet him, which I did, and then had three-quarters of an hour's conversation before taking him in to lunch. Conversation is perhaps not exactly the right word. I thought vaguely of what I might talk to him about, perhaps telling him a little about how Community inst.i.tutions work, but found this happily totally unnecessary, as he talked the whole time-but well-about Supreme Court affairs. He looked rather like Asquith approaching his dotage but was quite a personality.

At 3.30 I saw Ortoli for the last of my conversations with Commissioners and found him more or less all right, perhaps a little less enthusiastic about reform (of the Commission) than the others, but certainly not proposing to have a row about it. Drove with Jennifer to the Hostellerie Saint Roch at Comblain La Tour in the valley of the Ourthe.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 16 SEPTEMBER. Comblain La Tour.

The morning session opened with Tugendhat's paper on budget balance and future resources, a paper of Giolitti's, some contributions from Ortoli, moderately good this first half. Then Gundelach gave a very long but really rather brilliant expose of the agricultural position. We got almost complete agreement on no fundamental upheaval but a very tough anti-surplus price policy, particularly on milk products. Afternoon and early evening sessions on direct elections, the part the Commission should play in them, whether Commissioners should stand, etc., and the organization of the work of the Commission.

SUNDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER. Comblain La Tour and Brussels.

A final session for three and a half hours, almost exclusively on personnel policy and the outside inquiry. We drove back to Brussels via Villers-le-Temple. A dinner party, rue de Praetere, for Christopher Soames who was staying with us, and Simonets amongst others. Christopher on boisterous form and the evening was easy and agreeable. His arrival caused great excitement in Marie-Jeanne, our excellent but not young Belgian cook, who had worked for him. She not only produced even better food than usual, but had her hair done specially.

MONDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

To the Ecofin Council hoping to discover, as we all were, exactly what had happened at the Franco-German meeting at Aachen. The ministers of both countries were reticent. Healey made a fairly effective row about this, but eventually it emerged that nothing too hard had been settled and the slight morosite evaporated. The eight (i.e. less Healey) were then prepared to agree upon the Belgian compromise with the parity grid system for intervention, but with the 'basket', as it were in reserve behind it, providing the basis on which it could be decided who was responsible for an imbalance and who should act to correct it.

WEDNESDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

Haferkamp at 7 p.m. to tell him that Tugendhat had referred to me the question of Madame van Hoof's27 visit to China as one of his party, and that I thought he would be unwise to press ahead with it. However, I said that I would not veto it in the last resort28 At first he seemed rather inclined to give way but said he would talk about it with her and with Denman (his Director-General). I don't believe he wants her to go but I have little doubt he will be frightened by her into agreeing.

THURSDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

Lunch at home for Georges Berthoin, the previous representative of the Community in London and the new Chairman of the European Movement. Berthoin was surprisingly interesting, though slightly disturbing. He is very worried about the Giscard initiative. If they got rid of the political role of the Commission, the overall European interest would go by default, he said. It is essential this should be the starting point, even if national governments subsequently whittle it away somewhat. If it is all left to national governments, nothing will emerge except for a series of horse-trading deals. He is also worried that no government (certainly no major one) is inclined to fight hard for the Commission. He is of course a great defender of the previous system, but still there is a good deal of sense in what he says and he put it very well.

It also emerged from this conversation that the great Commissions of the past were not all that powerful. Hallstein, he thought, started the rot by having an extremely ill-judged joust with de Gaulle which led to his defeat and decline; and that indeed way back in the traditionally great days of the Coal and Steel Community, Monnet had resigned because he felt he had lost control of the Commission.

Then for yet another session with a committee of the Parliament, this time the Legal Affairs Committee, presided over rather fruitily by Sir Derek Walker-Smith;29 quite an enjoyable encounter. Home at 6.30 where Jennifer had Ken Galbraith for a drink. I had not seen him for eighteen months and he looked very well in spite of his approaching seventieth birthday and seemed as buoyant as ever.

FRIDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER. Brussels and East Hendred.

An early meeting with Haferkamp, who said he had had many long discussions with Denman and Renee van Hoof, particularly with Renee, and had decided she ought to go. So I reluctantly approved this. Jennifer and I then proceeded to miss the 12.35 plane to London. They had forgotten to put my suitcase in the car and I made the disastrous decision to go back to rue de Praetere and get it, believing that we always caught a plane in Brussels. It was a ludicrous attempt: leaving the Berlaymont at 12.10, even with an extremely lucky journey, we only got to the airport at 12.32 and they refused to take us. It was the first time30 I missed a plane in Brussels. We eventually got away in rather bad order at 4.30, no first-cla.s.s seats, no protocol -1 think they were rather fed up with us for being so late-and then had a very good journey, beautiful weather at London Airport, and we arrived at East Hendred less than two hours later. I played croquet with Edward in a magnificent sunset.

MONDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER. London and Brussels.

To the Dorchester Hotel at 9.00 to address the opening session of the World Planning Conference. It was quite a good, slightly futuristic speech, written partly by Stanley Johnson,31 about oil dependence and the possibilities of escaping from it, relations with the Developing World, etc. Some rather anti-motor car remarks which had been put into it attracted a good deal of attention, particularly on the BBC, and led to an exaggerated report that I had urged the abolition of the motor car, which however didn't do any great harm, though it reverberated on for a bit.

3.35 plane to Brussels and one and a half hour's interview there with Nick Stuart, Department of Education and Science and ex-Number 10 Private Secretary, as a possible replacement for Hayden. I found him, as I expected, bright and quick, although knowing practically no French, but eager to come, and I think on balance that he is the better candidate.32 Rue de Praetere dinner party for the Lee Kuan Yews, with Tickells, Brunners and the Singapore Amba.s.sador and wife. As often with Lee, a slightly sticky beginning but then a highly enjoyable evening; we had mostly general conversation with a lot of anecdotes about world politics.

TUESDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER. Brussels.

One and a half hours' more serious conversation than the previous evening with Lee Kuan Yew before giving lunch to the President of Cyprus and then having a meeting with him from 3.00 to 4.00.1 am afraid that Mr Kyprianou and I rather bored each other. Crispin thought that in the afternoon meeting we were both liable to fall asleep with our heads meeting and cracking in the middle. However, we just kept apart and the conversation going.

THURSDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER. Brussels and Athens.

Plane to Zurich and on to Athens. It was pretty cold in Brussels, and incredibly cold in Zurich. Athens at about 4.45 Greek time, where it was an absolutely perfect day, temperature 75, no wind, which I regard as the bane of Greece, and a general atmosphere of balm. I was met at the airport by Karamanlis himself, as well as a great horde of other people, and there did a very brief press conference with him before driving to the Hotel Grande Bretagne. I was then able to pay a quick visit to the Acropolis in wonderful light and with not many people about. Athens appeared more agreeable than I remembered it.

A serious meeting with Karamanlis from 7.45 to 9.15. There was a friendly atmosphere and I think a reasonably good relations.h.i.+p was established. I find him an impressive and agreeable man, although we had a fair amount of argument, particularly in relation to the length of the transitional period for bringing Greek agriculture into the Community system. They had been unofficially talking about requesting no transitional period at all, which would be disastrous, as it would drive the French and the Italians into demanding an excessively long one, which would bog down the whole negotiations.

I explained this to him very carefully and I think moved him on it. His main approach to all questions of Greek members.h.i.+p is essentially political, one of prestige, though not in a petty sense. He has devoted nearly twenty years of his career to Greek Europeanism and does not want this to be dissipated by Greece being treated in a second-rate category, i.e. given less favourable treatment than he thinks was extended to the previous three enlargement candidates. He is also very anxious to differentiate the Greek position from that of Spain and Portugal, and included in this conversation some slightly uncalled-for barbed remarks about the stability of Portuguese and Spanish democracy, with Italy thrown in for good measure, and even a few side-swipes about the difficulties of getting governments together in the Netherlands and Belgium!

However, we were broadly able to agree on the further timetable-break the back by Christmas, leave a few things over, get the accords ready for signature by the summer holidays-but all this depending on the negotiations going well over the next phase, which he recognized could be difficult, and during which he agreed to strengthen his official contacts with Brussels and keep in closer personal touch with us.

Then after this on to a largish (fifty or so) mixed dinner party at the Prime Minister's official residence. Fairly formal speeches, with television (there was heavy television and newspaper coverage of the whole visit). The conversation with Karamanlis at dinner was all right, but not terribly easy linguistically. (At the serious meeting he had talked Greek and I had talked English and we had been interpreted by his Chef de Cabinet -very well done for a nonprofessional.) Karamanlis is indeed linguistically very odd. He has lived for ten years in France. He left Greece in 1963 before the Colonels came and did not return until 1974, when he immediately became Prime Minister again. He had close and influential French friends, Debre particularly, Couve de Murville to some substantial extent too, and even a quite close and useful acquaintances.h.i.+p with the General himself. Yet he can hardly speak French at all. At one stage during dinner I thought I would try him in French to give him some slight relief from his halting English. So far from being a relief to him, it was absolute agony, and a look of total puzzlement came over his face as I addressed to him the most simple questions. This caused me some collapse of linguistic morale as I think my French, while not elegant, ought to be comprehensible. I was therefore greatly relieved when on the drive home that night Roland de Kergorlay, the chief official dealing with enlargement who, whatever else he can or cannot do, can certainly speak French, suddenly said to me, 'Karamanlis can hardly understand a word of French, you know. I found I had to talk English with him because he was just not understanding anything I said in French.' I have never felt more pro-Kergorlay!

FRIDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER. Athens.

9.45 call on the President of the Republic,33 a little intellectual who was very agreeable to talk to. He gave me the amazing news that the Pope had died:34 so amazing that at first I misunderstood him. 'The Pope has died,' he said rather inconsequentially. 'Oh, yes,' I said, 'yes, indeed I would like to have gone to his funeral, but unfortunately it was not possible.' 'No, no,' he said, 'the new Pope is dead.' 'Good G.o.d, you can't mean it?' I said. But of course he did.

Then a meeting of ministers, about six of them, presided over by the large Cretan, Konstantinos Mitsotakis,35 the other most notable ones there being the Minister of Agriculture, Boutos, of whom I thought rather well, and Kontogeorgis, the minister in charge now of relations with Europe, who is nice but not impressive. This lasted two hours and was quite a serious meeting, with a lot of points-particularly the agriculture transition points-being gone into in considerable detail, and quite complicated arguments having to be deployed. I hope I s.h.i.+fted their minds a bit.

Then a luncheon at the hotel of sixty to seventy people -ministers who had been at the morning meeting, plus a collection of industrialists, bankers, trade unionists, heads of agricultural federations, etc. I made a short speech to them afterwards which led into a discussion.

Press conference at 4.00. This was expected to be formidable, as there are a lot of Greek newspapers (with very tiny circulations) and a high reputation for 'yellowness'. However, I found it reasonable, although long and crowded. It produced some fine misquotations the next day, which I hope did not do too much harm.

After a routine debriefing of the amba.s.sadors of the Nine in the scruffy little German Chancellery, there was a reception in the rather grand Parliament building given by the President of the Chamber. Mavros36 and indeed Karamanlis came, but not, slightly to my disappointment, Papandreou.37 I had declined the offer of an official dinner and had intended to go off quietly with my Brussels team, but it became obvious that Karamanlis was free, so I asked him if he would come and dine with us, which he accepted with alacrity, but then not unreasonably turned the dinner party into one of his own. We all went off to some taverna below the Acropolis, where we dined in a party of about fourteen from 9.30 to midnight.

I had an agreeable conversation with him, his English seemed to have improved, and the evening went along buoyantly; the fact that he had wanted to do it was obviously a sign that the visit had gone rather well. He expressed great disappointment that I was going back the next morning, which indeed in view of the perfection of the weather I was beginning to feel myself, accentuated by the fact that he made it clear that the cruise on which he had wished to take Jennifer and me was to be on the old Ona.s.sis yacht, Christina, which now apparently is the official property of the Greek Prime Minister.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 30 SEPTEMBER. Athens and Brussels.

Another perfect morning. I returned alone by the 8.50 plane (forty-five minutes late), leaving the others to the pleasures of the cruise. We had the most beautiful flight, with the sea absolutely still and a very faint haze, but otherwise a spectacular day, over the Peloponnese and Corfu to Brindisi, up the east coast of Italy where we ran into wisps of cloud about Ancona and over Venice. There was dappled sunlight over Germany before the usual wall of thick cloud settled in somewhere between Bonn and Liege. Brussels at 11.30, and home in cold rain. Afternoon expedition to Louvain with the Beaumarchais', who were in Brussels for a conference. Jacques somewhat better, although having got much worse after we left Sare. They and Hayden and Laura to dinner, rue de Praetere, and we had an enjoyable time compensating for Athens suns.h.i.+ne with very good wine.

MONDAY, 2 OCTOBER. Brussels.

Received s...o...b.., the Governing Mayor of Berlin, for a meeting and lunch. I like him and think he is a very impressive young man. He is only about forty and has rather a stolid appearance, but is bright and quick. At 3.30 a meeting with about fifty representatives of the Berlaymont unions to explain to their somewhat suspicious minds what we were planning to do about the review body as a result of Comblain La Tour. Not sure to what extent I persuaded them; certainly they were not enthusiastic for change, but they could hardly be expected to be, as they know how inefficiently some of them are sitting on golden eggs, if that is not a mixed metaphor.

An hour's talk with Sam Brittan38 which was quite satisfactory though he is more pro full monetary union than he is pro the EMS. Then, as an act of courtesy, I went to listen to s...o...b..'s lecture to the Inst.i.tut Royal, where he had a good audience. He gave a dullish short lecture in English, which left time for lots of questions, which he answered brilliantly, with a great delicacy of touch and some emotional force, on quite difficult subjects.

TUESDAY, 3 OCTOBER. Brussels, The Hague and Brussels.

Train to The Hague. A meeting from 12.30 to 1.30 with a lot of ministers, presided over by van der Klaauw, the Foreign Minister. That went very well. The Dutch are nice and sensible, and also I had an agreeable feeling, which I certainly would not have had a year ago, that I have a greater command of the various issues of Community business than any of them-although that obviously should be the case. Van der Stee, the Minister of Agriculture, I liked very much as on previous occasions. Van Agt, the Prime Minister, joined us just before the end of this meeting, and between it and lunch I had a quarter of an hour alone with him and van der Klaauw, during which we talked a bit about the Giscard letter, with a fairly good common approach, and I also tried out the idea of Witteveen on them, about which they were enthusiastic. Back to Brussels by the afternoon train.

THURSDAY, 5 OCTOBER. Brussels and Manchester.

Five amba.s.sadors with credentials. Then a meeting with fifteen British agricultural journalists, and then over to the Charlemagne, very reluctantly, for a COREPER lunch. The lunch was one of the most dreary of the series. We spent the time discussing pointless detailed issues about the agenda for the Council of Ministers.

Home, cutting it rather fine, to change into a dinner jacket, before catching the 6.10 plane to Manchester. It was the only sensible way of arranging things, although it seemed an odd dress for an air journey (almost unknown since the days of Imperial Airways, although I believe pa.s.sengers then mostly dined on the ground). To the Midland Hotel and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce dinner. It was a large gathering of about three hundred packed into the room, and was generally a good occasion. My speech, although a bit long, was about the Community's industrial policy and the best I had delivered for some time.

I started by replying to the comments on my wis.h.i.+ng to abolish the motor car, accompanied as it had been in some papers by suggestions that, in that case, I might start by giving up either the Mercedes or the Rover. The point was use not possession. I was a devoted train traveller. When I had been on an official visit to The Hague two days before, and they had very kindly brought a motor car on to the station platform in order to drive me the short distance to the Catshuis, I said, 'Do you always do this for official visitors?' And they replied, 'We don't know. No official visitor, except you, has arrived by train for twenty years.'

I was joined after dinner by Jennifer, who had been addressing the Victorian Society in Manchester.

THURSDAY, 6 OCTOBER. Manchester and Paris.

A rather beautiful morning. The weather in my experience is always good in Manchester. Plane to Paris, to the Emba.s.sy at noon, and then to the Paris Hilton for a luncheon speech to the Cercle de l'Opinion. Oddly it was the first public speech I had made in France (apart from to the Parliament in Strasbourg), and was therefore of some importance. There was a large audience of over five hundred, including a lot of notables-Poher, President of the Senate, Maurice Faure, Couve de Murville, Lecanuet, Pontillon, Olivier Giscard d'Estaing (Giscard's brother, who is Chairman of ELEC which is a.s.sociated with the Cercle).

It was an exhausting occasion. They kept on having speeches all through lunch; fortunately they suspended service for mine, although it was before the main course, and there was good attention for thirty minutes. The question period afterwards was chaotic and unsatisfactory. On balance the occasion was worthwhile.

Back to the Emba.s.sy and worked in the garden before a short walk around the Concorde and the Rond Point. We dined with the Hendersons and Marie-Alice de Beaumarchais (Jacques being ill again, although only with 'flu).

SUNDAY, 8 OCTOBER. Paris and Brussels.

The weather as perfect as ever. This October is the most exquisite month imaginable at any season of the year. Jennifer and I did a pre-lunch drive through south-east Paris, Boulevard de Montparna.s.se, Boulevard de Port Royal (where I stayed in the two summers before the war), Avenue de Gobelins, Place d'ltalie, Bois de Vincennes, and then up to the heights of Bellevue and Menilmontant near Pere-Lachaise and back through the Place de la Republique. It is a segment of Paris redolent of 18701939, yet largely hidden from foreigners today. Another lunch in the Emba.s.sy garden with the Hendersons alone. 5.44 TEE from the Gare du Nord. A splendid sunset on the way out of Paris but dark for most of the journey. A very satisfactory weekend in Paris. The Hendersons were extremely welcoming, and I thought more reconciled to retirement than when we last saw them there in June, and therefore talking much more (and with enthusiasm) about returning to England.

THURSDAY, 12 OCTOBER. Brussels and Milan.

Plane to Milan for an official visit. Three hours late because of fog there, which is only too usual in that distinguished city I fear; it was a beautiful day in Brussels. Got to the Savini Restaurant very late for my lunch with eight or ten Italian editors and the Lombardy industrialists who were organizing the visit. Most of the editors had waited, and we had a rather good discussion with sensible questions. Then to the Hotel Principe e Savoia before a call on the Prefect, a bouncy Sicilian of conversational verve (an interesting appointment to Milan). And then on from there to the Municipio for a meeting with the Syndico, a little right-wing socialist. Last there was a dinner with a not frightfully good speech from me on monetary union and a few questions.

FRIDAY, 13 OCTOBER. Milan and East Hendred.

A quite testing round of meetings (regional council, Lombardian industrialists), little speeches, press conference, TV interviews, etc. from 10.00 until 4.00, including a Confindustria lunch.

Then on the most beautiful afternoon I squeezed in a visit to Santa Maria delle Grazie to see the Last Supper, which I had not done for about fifteen years. It is noticeably deteriorating, the balance of the composition is still absolutely spectacular, but the colour and the line and the detail and the clarity have almost totally gone.

My plane for London took off at 6.30, only an hour late. Then we were stacked over Kent for nearly one and a half hours, because London Airport was only half open. East Hendred after a misty drive at 10.30.

SUNDAY, 15 OCTOBER. East Hendred and Brussels.

Donaldsons, Harlechs, Dougla.s.s Cater, Caroline and Jane Gilmour to lunch. I left with the Harlechs, who dropped me at London Airport for a Brussels plane which yet again was over an hour late. Rue de Praetere just after 9 o'clock for a postponed three-hour dinner alone with Pandolfithe fairly new Italian Minister of the Treasury. He is very much a Lombardian, from Bergamo, I think. He speaks good English and we had a satisfactory talk about Community affairs in general, but obviously and particularly the EMS. His will to come in is very strong, and, whatever Italian hesitations there may be, I believe he will try and overcome them. The Italian main interest in the 'concurrent studies'39 field seems to have switched from a s.h.i.+ft in the balance of European agriculture (although they still attach some importance to that) to a large programme of loans with subsidized interest rates for major infrastructure projects. He talked about a nationwide environmental improvement scheme, which sounds a little airy-fairy, but I don't think, as conceived in his mind, it is so. Indeed he took exactly this view himself about a Messina Straits bridge, which he thought was far too ill-defined a project at the moment for vast sums of public money to be committed to it.

MONDAY, 16 OCTOBER. Brussels and Luxembourg.

Motored to Luxembourg to attend the Ecofin Council all morning and again for an hour after lunch. It was a depressing and disturbing meeting. I listened but didn't speak at all in the morning and only briefly in the afternoon to warn them that they were all drifting away from the objectives of the Bremen communique. In contrast with the September Ecofin meeting, when there was a solid front of eight countries, with the British isolated but not too intransigent, at this meeting there were about three floating groups with different positions on a whole range of issues and, if anything, it was the Germans who were becoming isolated on an excessively hard line, put forward in particular by Emminger, the President of the Bundesbank.

At the September meeting, mainly as a result of the Aachen arrangement between Giscard and Schmidt, there were eight countries for moving from the 'basket' to the 'grid' so far as the system of intervention was concerned. This had been subsequently modified by the so-called 'Belgian compromise', which was more favourable to German 'hardline-ism'. Having won this victory, the Germans ought to have been content. Instead, they tried to use it as a jumping-off ground for a further retreat (from Bremen), and also produced an extremely unconvincing scheme for, in effect, getting away from the 25 billion ecus (European Currency Units) of credit, although pretending that they were not in fact doing so.

As a result of all this Healey was able to recover a good deal of the initiative, which he exploited skilfully to get support from Pandolfi and from Colley (Irish Finance Minister) and also on some issues from Monory40 (French Finance Minister), and even, occasionally, from the Belgians and the Luxembourgeois. Only the Dutch and the Danes were solid with the Germans. Matters improved a little, but not much, in the afternoon, when Lahnstein rather than Emminger was leading for the Germans. Emminger is, I fear, anxious if he can to block the EMS and, if he cannot, to be dragged into it only by his hair, screaming, and with as puny a scheme as possible.

I then moved into the Foreign Affairs Council, which met for five hours and did a certain amount of routine business. As a result the three-a-side dinner that Dohnanyi was giving me at the Hostellerie Gastronome did not start until 10.30. However, he was as agreeable as ever and so indeed were those with him, even Sigrist being almost sparkling. Unfortunately they had ordered an elaborate dinner of five courses, which we were forced to sit through until about 12.30.

TUESDAY, 17 OCTOBER. Luxembourg and Brussels.

I attended a Concertation Meeting41 on the Regional Fund between representatives of the Parliament and of the Council. The Council were giving remarkably little to the Parliament, although the previous evening, to my surprise, the Danes had proposed a significant move forward which the Germans had been willing to accept, which we had supported strongly, but which had been blocked by the French and the British. At this Tuesday morning meeting Dohnanyi presented the Council position softly and rather well, and was then replied to by a combination of the Irish Senator Yeats and Donald Bruce,42 who did his piece well without being too bad-tempered, but pointed a finger firmly at the British and the French. I think he was more concerned to have the British in his sights, but the French took it as a tremendous attack on them and lese majeste against Giscard.

Luc de Nanteuil in response put on a peevish performance, first ostentatiously putting Le Figaro up in front of his face and then, getting bored with that journal, throwing it on the table, crossing and recrossing his legs, and generally miming a man in a bad temper. However, when I saw him in the afternoon he seemed to have completely recovered his good humour. He is a strange man; in most ways I like him very much, but he is not good at translating the sometimes extreme instructions of his government into firmness without petulance.

I later spoke to Johannes Witteveen on the telephone in Houston, Texas, and tried, I fear unsuccessfully, to persuade him to accept the chairmans.h.i.+p of my outside review body for the Commission.

At 6 o'clock we had the formal opening of the Portuguese negotiations for about an hour, at which Dohnanyi and I made speeches, followed by the new Portuguese Foreign Minister (Correia Gago) who seemed a bright and agreeable man. The questions at the press conference were, as nearly always, asked by the British more than anybody else, the inevitable Chateau Palmer starting off, and rather to my surprise they were mostly directed at me. Avion taxi to Brussels.

WEDNESDAY, 18 OCTOBER. Brussels.