European Diary, 1977-1981 Part 15

Saw Gundelach on the difficult issue of whether we were going to take the British to court on several fish conservation measures. I was sceptical on the major one, not because I was against taking the British to court but because I feared that on the legal opinion we would not win. Gundelach was clearly under considerable pressure from the Danish Government and also believed it might strengthen his negotiating hand with the British. Eventually we agreed to set in train the legal process in all four cases, but not to get ourselves into a position from which we could not draw back from any one of them.43 A short-notice dinner party, rue de Praetere, for Maitlands, Denmans, Tines and Laura. Donald Maitland was far more relaxed than I had seen him before. It was obviously rather a good idea to have him to a 'scratch' party. He has become a new man in the last few months: (i) he is much more courageous vis-a-vis London, (ii) he is more communautaire, and (iii) he is much funnier. Jacques Tine as agreeable and funny as ever. As a result they stayed much later than I had intended.

THURSDAY, 19 OCTOBER. Brussels and London.

11.15 plane to London. I arrived to discover Jennifer in (for her) a considerable state about the ludicrous build-up of the story which had begun as a trickle in Tribune and then, the British press feeding off itself as usual, became a flood, announcing that we had not paid our Labour Party subscriptions for several years. It was wholly untrue, the subscriptions had been paid by banker's order, and the whole thing had obviously been motivated by a malicious Trot. in the North Kensington Labour Party. By this time we had had about five separate, quite prominent newspaper stories and two (rather funny) cartoons, and our attempts at denials had been quite unable to stem the flood. We eventually sent off a rather good, non-portentous letter to The Times, which gradually achieved the staunching operation.44 A dinner speech at Grosvenor House to the Council of British s.h.i.+pping. This turned out to be almost the biggest dinner I have ever addressed, with about 1100 people. Agreeable neighbours in the shape of Ronald Swayne, the chairman, and John Ropner, whom I hadn't seen since we crossed the Atlantic together on the Queen Mary on my first visit to the United States in 1953.

SUNDAY, 22 OCTOBER. Rome.

Dressed in the extraordinary costume of white tie, evening tailcoat, black waistcoat, decorations, which was required for the Papal installation,45 I set off for St Peter's just after 9 o'clock. The Ma.s.s (in the open air) began at 10 o'clock and went on until 1.15 in steadily improving weather, so that the umbrella I had cautiously taken manifestly became unnecessary by about 11 o'clock. Most of the first hour was taken up by the homage of all the cardinals, and I wished that I had a key to them. Emilio Colombo (next to me) wasn't bad and pointed out about fourteen, but even his knowledge seemed far from perfect. The Duke of Norfolk, in the next row, offered pungent comments about one or two of them. The second hour was taken up by introductory parts of the service and by a half-hour sermon, delivered seated but with great force by the new Pope, who has a remarkable linguistic ability. There were pa.s.sages in French, Spanish, German, English, Serbo-Croat, Polish obviously, Russian, Czech I think, and Portuguese, all thrown in on the Italian base and all rather convincingly done.

In the third part of the service, the Ma.s.s itself, communion was distributed by an immense fleet of priests to everyone in the reserved area, and so far as I could make out also to vast numbers of people in the crowd below the bottom of the steps, which was said to number 250,000. The music was on the whole good, though not quite so memorable as it had been in San Giovanni in Laterano at the Aldo Moro service. It is more difficult to get the peculiarly haunting lilt of the Roman Ma.s.s music in the open air.

The ceremony over, we got away with quite remarkable speed. I walked out with Andreotti and Forlani and was in my car and moving off within ten minutes. Lunch (changed) soon after 2 o'clock with Laura and Crispin and Delli Paoli (our protocol man) in the most beautiful weather. Delli Paoli succeeded in getting the restaurant to move one table outside for the sun-wors.h.i.+pping English. Then a very good expedition for one and a half hours to two basilicas, San Giovanni and Santa Maria Maggiore, plus the Janiculum Hill (for the view) and the Campidoglio.

The British Amba.s.sador (Alan Campbell), Leslie Benson46 and Milton Gendel,47 amongst others, to dinner at the Bolognese in the Piazza del Popolo. Raymond Barre was also dining at the restaurant.

MONDAY, 23 OCTOBER. Rome and Brussels.

A half-hour interview on general subjects for Italian television on the balcony of the Ha.s.sler. I then dressed again in the elaborate costume of the day before, improved slightly on this occasion by my wearing one of Laura's black silk scarves as a c.u.mmerbund to cover the gap between my hired black waistcoat and my semi-stiff s.h.i.+rt. The audience ceremony (at 11.30) turned out to be much too long and rather a bore. The Pope was late arriving, having given private audiences to the King of Spain and one or two other heads of state. He made a quite good but, in the circ.u.mstances, rather too long speech in French, and then started on his list of individuals who were each taken up to the throne and had perhaps two minutes with him. The European Community counted as an international organization, so came towards the end with NATO, the United Nations, etc. at about 2 o'clock. By then I was anxious to have it over, and so I suspect was the Pope though he showed no signs of boredom. When I mounted the steps of his dais he paused to see what language I would talk in, and as he had sounded equally good in English and French I started in English, but found him more halting than I expected, although still a forceful personality at close quarters as at more distant ones.

I then bolted, before the end of the ceremony, and was escorted by motards to Ciampino. Brussels by 5.00.

WEDNESDAY, 25 OCTOBER. Brussels.

Commission for seven hours. A substantial discussion on EMS which Ortoli opened with a speech lasting sixty-five minutes which reduced everything to the level of a very flat plain and greatly underestimated the importance of concurrent studies. I decided to adjourn and go back to it in the afternoon, when I made a short intervention putting a slightly different emphasis on where we were, the dangers of the position and the importance of concurrent studies.

THURSDAY, 26 OCTOBER. Brussels.

The first morning of rain for weeks. I saw in succession the President of IBM, then Signora Badua Glorioso, the new Italian Trade Union Chairman of the Social and Economic Committee (very good indeed) and then Robert Stephens, the now elderly diplomatic correspondent of the Observer. I took Christopher Tugendhat to lunch, Chez Christopher appropriately enough, and had an agreeable talk with him. Back for the presentation of six hundred Community medals to those who had served twenty years. An enormous ceremony, it being twenty years after the Treaty of Rome.

It was also the twentieth anniversary dinner of the European Investment Bank, which sounded rather a ghastly occasion and to which I had reluctantly agreed to go, but which turned out to be agreeable and worthwhile except for, as usual in Belgium, there being too many courses and the service too slow.

FRIDAY, 27 OCTOBER. Brussels, Bonn and Brussels.

Avion taxi to Bonn. I did not want to drive three times along the autobahn in twenty-four hours. I regretted the decision as soon as we got to the airport and were told that Bonn was in thick fog. However, we persuaded them to take off. When we got near we could see a thin layer of dense mist just over the Rhine Valley. Until Cologne we were in full suns.h.i.+ne and could see the tops of the hills and even of the spires. However, the pilots went in (the advantages of a small plane) and we suddenly saw the runway about ten feet below us. They flew above it for a bit (presumably to make sure it wasn't an autobahn) and then came down quite safely. On the ground there was practically no visibility at all, less than 100 metres I would guess, and aeroplanes parked alongside us on the ap.r.o.n were just dim shadows.

We drove to the Bundeskanzlerei and I saw Schmidt from 10.00 to 11.20. Peripheral matters for fifteen minutes: MTNs, fisheries, free movement of labour in relation to the Greek negotiations, and then had an hour on the EMS. He said the meeting with Callaghan had produced remarkably little; it had been a non-discussion. His a.s.sumption now was that the British were not coming in. However, he thought we would certainly get Ireland in and probably Italy too, the latter with wider margins. He was quite forthcoming about what he could do for them on concurrent studies, provided he didn't have to do it for the non-partic.i.p.ant British as well.

Giscard, he said, was quite firm, the determination on his part very strong. There were difficulties with the Bundesbank and this put a sharp limit on the extent to which he (Schmidt) could move on the basket as opposed to the parity grid; he couldn't move either on automaticity of intra-marginal intervention. He could win over the Bundesbank he thought, on the question of the back-up resources available (he agreed it must be 25 billion to start with) and on what he might do in the way of concurrent studies, where he was primarily thinking in terms of loans at subsidized rates of interest, mainly through the EIB.

It was a precise, worthwhile discussion. We also touched on the CAP, on which he thought he could accept a price freeze for German farmers but not an actual reduction in income such as might be involved with a combination of price freeze and reductions of MCAs. Back by avion taxi and into the Berlaymont at 12.45.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 28 OCTOBER. Brussels and Bonn.

By car with Crispin to Schloss Gymnich. A full turn-up of Foreign Ministers, except for Simonet who didn't arrive until 4.30. A good lunch, but horrible little rooms. Schloss Gymnich is basically a nice place, but it is furnished in such a way as to create maximum inconvenience-absolutely nowhere to put anything, no writing table, only one tiny table covered with flowers and bowls of fruit, which I firmly put outside the door. Equally, the only shelf in the bathroom was covered with costly toilet preparations. Despite the fact that the place is done up in the utmost luxury, with gold taps, etc., it is neither convenient nor elegant.

A fairly desultory discussion (though some useful business was done) during the afternoon on the Giscard letter, in which there was no tendency to turn it down out of hand, but a substantial desire to get it under control. Several countries were anxious that the Three Wise Men should be Four, and should be the four presidents, i.e., me, Colombo (Parliament), Kutscher (Court) and the President in office of the Council of Ministers. This was supported by Italy, Luxembourg and, more surprisingly, Germany. I was unenthusiastic48 An inconclusive outcome on this. The Dutch, and indeed the Danes for almost opposite reasons, were insistent that the Wise Men should be precluded from recommending an upset in the balance of Community inst.i.tutions, which was helpful from the point of view of safeguarding the Commission position.

Then we succeeded in getting a fairly satisfactory compromise solution for a weighted voting formula when the Greeks come in. We got away from the principle of eighteen votes continuing to be a blocking minority, on which the British, the French and the Danes had been trying to insist.49 Boring conversation at dinner: a sort of review of the world done without any sinews of logic or originality of thought. It would have been regarded as a disgrace in intellectual or journalistic circles in most major capitals. Each Foreign Minister just chipped in with some t.i.tbit of information he had picked up about some country, and the whole thing became almost like a shop-girls' exchange of gossip. 'And then there's Iraq. They are carrying on with the Russians. And, Afghanistan, shocking behaviour there too.' Perhaps such a ba.n.a.l exchange of views has something to be said for it, but not much.

SUNDAY, 29 OCTOBER. Bonn and East Hendred.

Session from 9.30 until 11.20, mainly on Africa, but also a long report from Guiringaud on his recent discussions with Gromyko in Paris. Also a return to the Giscard letter. As soon as the meeting was over we helicopted to Wahn, from where I got a lift with David Owen to Northolt. I had a tolerably interesting conversation with him during the journey. He was much better on EMS than the night before, and was generally being extremely friendly. Almost for the first time he asked my advice on something, but, alas, on Africa, on which I am singularly ill-equipped to give him any. East Hendred for lunch, where I started a week's Toussaints holiday.

WEDNESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER. East Hendred.

I spent the whole morning and afternoon writing an Observer article on the EMS, the first article (as opposed to a book review) I had written myself for a long time. Perhaps as a result of unfamiliarity I thought it was better than it was.

To Oxford to dine in Worcester hall with the Briggs'. A talk with Richard Cobb, remarkable writer on French eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, before dinner. I was much struck by the change in the undergraduates (perhaps Worcester is traditionally exceptional in this respect) who had an extremely conventional appearance, now looking much more like undergraduates of the thirties than those of the sixties. But they are much less political, or if political more right-wing, than then. The proportion from independent schools is rising quite substantially, owing I fear to the end of the grammar schools and the comprehensive schools not mostly trying for Oxford.

THURSDAY, 2 NOVEMBER. East Hendred, London and East Hendred.

To London for a one-and-a-half-hour meeting with Callaghan in Downing Street. On EMS I got the impression that he was not coming in, though I was by no means certain of this. He was genuinely engaged with the subject, genuinely torn in his mind. When I said I appreciated his political difficulties, he rejected this firmly, saying: 'No, no, if I was convinced it was right I would do it. It isn't a question of politics.' But I thought he protested a little too much on this. Perhaps the most interesting thing he said was to ask at the end why I thought that Giscard, without a tremendously strong economy, was very willing to do it. I said, 'Because France is much more self-confident than Britain. They believe they can make a success of things, whereas we don't.' He rather sadly said that perhaps that was right and perhaps he agreed. We covered a few peripheral subjects, with him not unnaturally showing great interest in the CAP and also in budgetary contributions.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 4 NOVEMBER. East Hendred.

Drove to Oxford where I voted (unsuccessfully) for John Sparrow in the Professors.h.i.+p of Poetry election. An unexpectedly large turn-out. I was surprised to meet Anne and Mickey Barnes queuing to vote, also, on the way out, Douglas Jay and Patrick Reilly arriving from All Souls. Douglas was remarkably cool and unfriendly. It is astonis.h.i.+ng how his mind is dominated by the one question of Europe which prevents his being friendly even in a casual encounter, the first for nearly two years, despite old friends.h.i.+p.50 MONDAY, 6 NOVEMBER. East Hendred and Brussels.

Morning plane (late) to Brussels. EMS lunch speech to a Brussels establishment gathering at the Cercle Gaulois. In the afternoon I recorded a ninetieth birthday television tribute to Monnet.

That evening I had Finn Gundelach to dine alone, rue de Praetere. He seems less tense than a few months ago. We agreed satisfactorily on the sort of paper we should put in to the European Council. He wants it to be short and firm, and he is quite hard on a price freeze. He had two other points of interest. The first was personalities within the Council of Agricultural Ministers. The one he dislikes most is Ertl,51 with Silkin a strong second. The one he has the highest regard for is van der Stee, the Dutch Minister, and after him the Luxembourgeois and the Italian, Marcora.

His second interesting point was what the pattern of European agriculture would be if we had no CAP and allowed production to find its own level. Our imports, in his view, from most countries would not be much greater. The North Americans would do all right, the Canadians very well indeed because of hard wheat. n.o.body else would achieve much, certainly not the New Zealanders and the Australians. Our level of production would be lower, but this wouldn't very adversely affect agriculture down to, say, Rome. Southern Italy would do very badly. So would the Celtic fringes. I rather encouraged him to work this out in more detail and put it down on paper.

THURSDAY, 9 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

It being the most exquisite, sun-drenched autumn day, I drove myself to the Bois de la Cambre and sat reading and looking at the leaves and the lake for most of the morning. I then went into the office only at 12.30 to see Paul Loby of Agence France Presse. I then joined at short notice a lunch party of Hayden's at the Cercle Gaulois (my second visit that week) in a rather nice garden room with the sun streaming in. Hayden apparently thought that he was a member of the Cercle Gaulois by virtue of his being a member of Brooks's, but discovered after inviting his guests that this was not so. However, he managed to get the table by talking about the President's cabinet. That goes better at a Brussels club than it would in St James's Street.

At 7.00, we had Bob Strauss, accompanied by four other Americans, including Amba.s.sadors Alonzo McDonald and Hinton, in for a talk about the waiver dispute.52 A rather successful hour's talk. We didn't quarrel but were very firm and kept them on the defensive throughout. Jennifer arrived in Brussels for the first time for a month.

FRIDAY, 10 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

The weather still being spectacular, I went for a walk with Jennifer at Groenendaal, and then lunched with her and Crispin at the Chalet de la Foret.

Shortly before leaving the office at 7.00, I got ensnarled with Tugendhat who rang up making, as I thought, the most ridiculous fuss about his not being treated properly for the Prince of Wales's visit. The point was that the subjects which the Prince had asked to be discussed in his meeting with the Commission did not include one which Christopher could naturally introduce. I got rather impatient with him, I think rightly so. It is extraordinary the unbalancing effect which royalty has even on the most normally sensible people. Unfortunately during my testiness I rather forgot that we were dining with the Tugendhats that evening. However, Christopher rose splendidly above the issue at dinner and both he and Julia were totally agreeable and had other interesting people there as they mostly do.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 11 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

My fifty-eighth birthday. Drove to Auvillers-les-Forges just over the French frontier to meet the Beaumarchais' at the good restaurant there. Unfortunately the weather had changed into cold, freezing mist and the Beaumarchais' had a dreadful fog-bound drive from Paris. They came back to Brussels with us and the four of us dined alone, rue de Praetere.

SUNDAY, 12 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

Took the Beaumarchais' to Groenendaal for a pre-lunch walk, again in spectacular weather, very cold now, but with perfect suns.h.i.+ne again and the leaves at their very best. This first fortnight in November the leaves have been better than I ever remember them on this side of the Atlantic.

MONDAY, 13 NOVEMBER. Brussels, Basle and Berne.

Early train to Basle for lunch with the Central Bank governors and then my Swiss official visit. The train collapsed between Luxembourg and Metz, and we had to get into another extremely cold one before chugging into Basle at 2.35 instead of 1.00. The governors were just finis.h.i.+ng lunch but they waited while I ate hurriedly and I had a good discussion with them until about 4.20. Zijlstra,53 the Dutchman in the chair, was very good I thought. Gordon Richardson helpful, as one would expect him to be. Clappier said not a word, a rather useless and ineffective performance for Giscard's vicar at a rather crucial EMS discussion. The sceptics (predictably) were Baffi54 and Emminger. The Americans, Volcker55 and one other, were quite helpful. It was worthwhile and not as technically formidable as I feared it might be.

In the afternoon, a beautiful day again in Basle, I went to the Drei Konige Hotel before my lecture at the university at 6.15. This went surprisingly well, although it was not a brilliant lecture, but the large audience received it friendlily. Then a long reception, and then dinner at the Schutzenhaus which was where we had lunched. There were brief speeches after dinner, mine willingly given as it was in response to the presentation to me of a spectacular little book-a 1520 edition of the Latin epigrams of Sir Thomas More with a Victorian binding.

We then drove to Berne, where we were installed in the excellent Bellevue Palais Hotel. Grand Swiss hotels of the first third of this century have a remarkable quality. They are built with the solidity of the Drake in Chicago and furnished with the elegance of the Paris Ritz.

TUESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER. Berne and Strasbourg.

An early meeting with Fritz Honegger (effectively Economic Minister) and various members of his staff, including Central Bank people. A quite intense discussion, they showing considerable interest in the EMS and a desire to enter in the future,56 though not to rush it, partly because they suspected, probably rightly, that the French might veto them as they had once vetoed their entry into the Snake.

Then a joint meeting with the President, Ritschard, and the Foreign Minister. The presidency rotates on I think a two-year basis amongst the Federal Councillors, and Ritschard continues to discharge his normal responsibilities, which in his case are fairly mundane ones, public works, etc. However, he is a rather impressive man. I had quite an interesting discussion with them both. It is extraordinary how they manage linguistically: the President talked in German and was interpreted, the Foreign Minister talked in French and was not. I talked in a mixture of English and French, which the President understood, and indeed he understood some English too, but not completely. Most of the other meetings, however, were satisfactorily conducted in English.

Two other less pointful meetings and then a lunch given by the President in a seventeenth-century house with a good view. We had drinks on the terraceit would indeed have been warm enough to have lunched outside in full suns.h.i.+ne; quite extraordinary for 14 November. I much liked all those I spoke to and indeed found Switzerland surprisingly agreeable, and Berne a particularly attractive town. I had never been there before. Then a press conference, a drive to Basle and a train to Strasbourg.

THURSDAY, 16 NOVEMBER. Strasbourg and Brussels.

The weather seems to have broken at last (after six weeks) and I sat and worked in the hotel on a rainy morning until 12.30. Then I took Donald Bruce to lunch. He has a staccato mind, works hard, but there is some curious deficiency. However, he is an effective member of the European Parliament, and having been anti-European says he is now anxious to cooperate. I did an hour's quite enjoyable question session in the Parliament, and then took an avion taxi back to Brussels, where I arrived in time (i) to go home, (ii) to see the Lancas.h.i.+re Mayors who had come over about textile problems and who were extremely protectionist (but who would not be in their position?), and (iii) to have a 7 o'clock meeting with the new President of Kenya, arap Moi, and then give him dinner. He was more agreeable than interesting. The more memorable man in his team was the very flas.h.i.+ly dressed Attorney-General, Njonja, whom I remembered from my visit to Nairobi five years before, who tries to be a sort of black Elwyn-Jonesindeed he had been a pupil of histhough a good deal more flashy.

FRIDAY, 17 NOVEMBER. Brussels and East Hendred.

An hour with Dirk Spierenburg, former Dutch diplomat, ex-member of the Coal and Steel Commission, an experienced, urbane, firm figure, whom I have got to be chairman of the external review body for the Commission. 12.30 plane to London. East Hendred at 5.30, where we had the Simonets coming for the weekend. Despite the great efforts of Peter Halsey (my driver) to show them how VIP treatment should really be done at airports, with the hope this might encourage Henri to make Zaventem better, they did not arrive until 9 o'clock.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 18 NOVEMBER. East Hendred.

Took the Simonets into Oxford for a brief tour, including a visit to the lantern at the top of the Sheldonian. Henri bought a lot of books at Blackwell's, which made us late for lunch at Sevenhampton with Ann (Fleming) who had the Bonham Carters, Derek Hill, whom Ann wants to paint my portrait but who is very expensive, and Stuart Hamps.h.i.+re who arrived even later than we did. We returned on a dismal afternoon by way of Buscot. I had to work before dinner and could not get Henri to settle. As he is Foreign Minister, why does he not have a lot of despatch boxes from the Belgian Foreign Office? Perhaps they don't have them. Enjoyable dinner with them alone.

SUNDAY, 19 NOVEMBER. East Hendred and Brussels.

Saw the Simonets off at 11.15. The weather had been awful but the brief weekend was otherwise very successful. Gilmours, Wyatts, plus John Harris to a rather hilarious lunch. Woodrow, John Harris and I played croquet in the twilight until Jennifer and I left for the 7 o'clock plane to Brussels.

MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

To the Ecofin Council, mainly listening to Ortoli doing well in a general EMS discussion, which however failed in its main purpose of eliciting what the British were going to do. In the afternoon to the Palais d'Egmont for the great conference with the ASEAN (a.s.sociation of South East Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers which Genscher has been so keen to organize. I made an opening speech, as did he, and then went back to the Ecofin Council. Val d.u.c.h.esse dinner for the ASEAN ministers. I sat next to General Carlos Pena Romulo, the Philippine Foreign Minister, aged nearly eighty, one of the San Francisco signatories of the UN Charter, President of the General a.s.sembly in the early 1950s, and the longest serving Foreign Minister in the world after Gromyko. He made a rather good speech after dinner. His oratorical style might be described as early Stevenson, though with a much harder line and without the jokes.

After dinner Genscher insisted on organizing a discussion which I thought was going to be a disaster, but wasn't, mainly because two or three of the ASEAN ministers spoke extremely well. All of them were notably more anti-Russian (though rather pro-Chinese) than were the European Foreign Ministers. So the discussion turned into Genscher and others excusing themselves to these Third World gentlemen for being relatively soft with the Russians because of the problems over Berlin, etc. A curious evening.

TUESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

A meeting with Abela, Secretary-General of the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is said to be the most sensible of the Maltese. However, he was by normal standards quite remarkably foolish (and tiresome), complaining about everything, at once aggressive and boring, so that eventually I said to him, 'Do you think that Malta gets a worse deal from the Community than do other countries?' He predictably answered, 'Yes.' So I then said, 'Well, why don't you change your tactics, which are well known to be the most objectionable in Europe, since you think they do you so little good?' No coherent reply emerged.

FRIDAY, 24 NOVEMBER. Brussels.

Spierenburg for another talk about the various members for his review body. I sold him Victor Rothschild and accepted one or two of his. Then, I had a meeting with the Gambian President followed by a Berlaymont lunch for him. It was not a particularly interesting or purposeful occasion, but no doubt necessary.

SUNDAY, 26 NOVEMBER. Brussels and Paris.

Drove on a cold misty day, it having quickly reverted to the high pressure freezing weather, to a village about twenty miles beyond Huy in the near Ardennes where the Jonquieres have Fernand Spaak's country house temporarily at their disposal. They had a large luncheon party for Roderic Braithwaite, a departing British diplomat.

5.17 TEE with Crispin to Paris, and installed ourselves in the Emba.s.sy. It was a beautiful clear cold night.

MONDAY, 27 NOVEMBER. Paris and Brussels.

A talk with van Lennep57 at OECD, and then to the Elysee for a meeting with Giscard. This followed the normal pattern: a guard of honour in the courtyard, a fairly punctual ushering in, though not as absolutely so as usual, and an hour's discussion. Francois-Poncet, whom everybody knew was about to be appointed Foreign Minister, was still present and still 'avec la tete dans ses blocnotes', but was supplemented on this occasion by Wahl, the new Secretary-General of the Elysee, so that we were five altogether, with Crispin on my side.

The conversation was perfectly friendly, though, as is always the case with Giscard, without warmth. Not a great deal about the EMS. He said it was all satisfactorily fixed: he didn't think the British would come in, but maybe from their point of view they were wise. This was done rather dismissively (indeed he was rather lofty throughout) and was in contrast with the Emba.s.sy impression that the Callaghan visit had been a great success. So in a sense it had been, but mainly because Giscard didn't want to argue with Callaghan and was perfectly willing for him to stay out. Giscard's clear a.s.sumption that the System would come into operation on 1 January. He a.s.sumed too that the Italians would come in, although the wider margins for them were a mistake, but if they wanted it, so be it. And so far as a.s.sistance to them and the Irish was concerned, he thought that subsidized loans through the European Investment Bank should be the main mechanism. I ought probably to have contested this elliptical dismissal of the Regional Fund, but I wasn't too anxious to get into a detailed argument with him about this and other budgetary questions, and, perhaps mistakenly, I rather let that go.

We had a certain amount of conversation, but obviously not very deep, about agriculture, about fisheries, and about MTNs, on which he appeared to be taking a rather milder line than Deniau and not objecting to any particular timetable, but merely saying the quality of the package was what mattered. Then we talked about his 'Three Wise Men', in which he was forthcoming about names, saying that for a Frenchman he had in mind Marjolin, about which I knew, of course, or, as a second choice, Soutou, retiring General Secretary of the Quai d'Orsay, which I did not know. He also mentioned Brinkhorst58 (he wasn't quite sure of his name but we got to him by a roundabout route) as a possible Dutchman, leaving the third slot probably for an Englishman, as to whose ident.i.ty he expressed no particular preferences.

We also discussed my 'Five Wise Men' for the external inquiry, in which he showed some interest, but was firmly against Spieren-burg's first choice (and therefore at that stage mine also), of Fontanet, French ex-minister, on the ground that he had received so many recent setbacks, electoral and otherwise, that he was a used-up man. On the other hand he was firmly for Delouvrier,59 the second man on Spierenburg's and my list, currently head of Electricite de France. So, having put the issue to him, whether wisely or not, I clearly have to go for Delouvrier.

I returned hurriedly from my Elysee meeting to the Chateau de la Muette for a large OECD lunch with all their many amba.s.sadors. I had a good talk with van Lennep at lunch, who, throughout the day, I liked rather more than I had previously. After lunch but at the table there was a fairly intensive discussion, with an opening statement by me and a lot of questions from amba.s.sadors which I wound up with a general answer at the end.

5.44 TEE to Brussels. Dined with Michael Jenkins, whom I am very glad to have back in Brussels.

TUESDAY, 28 NOVEMBER. Brussels, Rome and Brussels.

Avion taxi to Rome accompanied by Crispin and Plaja, the Italian Permanent Representative, for lunch with Andreotti. We arrived in dismal weather and drove straight to the Palazzo Chigi where we started with Andreotti and two or three officials, Ruggiero, who seems to be coming up in the hierarchy, La Rocca60 as usual, and Plaja of course; Pandolfi (Minister of Finance) was with us for part of the time.

The Italians, both Andreotti and Pandolfi, sounded extremely positive about EMS and gave the impression that while they had previously been somewhat influenced by British hesitations they were now moving away from them and were on the brink of a favourable decision. I got them on to some detailed discussion about concurrent studies. They were less interested in agriculture than they had been when I had last seen Andreotti in September. They were not even overwhelmingly interested in the Regional Fund. Their clear first interest was in subsidized loans. They wanted the subsidy to be 4 per cent off the normal interest rate and they wanted a good deal of money (although they weren't anxious to say exactly how much), which was to be specifically directed to infrastructure projects in the Mezzogiorno. They implied they had had helpful conversations not only with Schmidt but also with Giscard about all this.

Immediately after lunch we left for Ciampino, from where we took off on a nasty rainy day just after 3.30. After several hours in the office, I went to Tervuren to a fas.h.i.+onable dinner party of the Ullens de Schootens, she Swedish and Prince Bernadotte's daughter. After dinner I had about half an hour's talk with the Chinese Amba.s.sador, who was a rather incongruous guest, and I suppose that was quite useful, though not exactly relaxing after my long Roman day.

THURSDAY, 30 NOVEMBER. Brussels, Bonn and Brussels.

Received Al Ullman, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, a curious figure, in his sixties, though looking younger with a somewhat trendy hairstyle, though rugged face. I found him friendly and intelligent and thought it well worthwhile having seen him.

Then at 11 o'clock, I went downstairs on a bitter, freezing day, to receive the Prince of Wales. I brought him up to my room and had half an hour's easy private talk with him. He was anxious to be informed about what life in the Berlaymont and the Community was like and showed interest in the details of operation, which I found sensible and agreeable. He gave me a photograph of himself in a rather nice self-deprecating way, saying, 'I am told I ought to give you this. I don't suppose you want it, but I hope you won't do the same as Trudeau, who immediately stuffed it into a drawer which was crammed full already of ones of most other members of my family.' So I said I would not do exactly that and gave him a leather-bound copy of Asquith in return, with which he seemed pleased.

Then I took him into the Commission room for a meeting lasting about fifty minutes. I made a little speech of welcome, to which he responded nicely, and then several of the Commissioners performed, with him being given an opportunity to ask questions at the end of each. First, Ortoli, who kept saying, 'Donc, Monseigneur, deuxieme [or troisieme or quatrieme] hypothese,' but on the whole did well and wasn't too long. Then Gundelach, then Tugendhat, who got in not because I changed my mind but because the question of the budgetary contribution had become of immediate relevance and was an appropriate subject to have; then Stevy Davignon, who performed brilliantly, the best of the four, whereas Gundelach rather surprisingly was the worst. Davignon gave a four-minute thumbnail sketch of industrial policy and what we were trying to do. The Prince asked a few questions. And then at the end he asked one or two more general questions not directly relating to what had been said, including one to Cheysson, to whom I thought it was misdirected but it shrewdly wasn't, about the Atlantic Colleges of which he has become chairman following his Uncle d.i.c.kie.

Then I conducted him into the 'cathedrale' 61 where we had a reception for a selection of the British staffthey had all been chosen by lot so it ought to have been fairwhich he did well for forty or forty-five minutes. Then we went on into lunch with the Commission where he was placed en face to me and had Ortoli on one side and Gundelach on the other. The lunch went perfectly easily, though without any tremendously penetrating discussion. Afterwards I saw him off, just before 3 o'clock, walking most of the way to the Charlemagne with him, where he was about to see COREPER. There were a lot of people about, mainly photographers I think.

I immediately went to Zaventem to take an avion taxi to Bonn, and got into the Chancellery for a meeting with Schmidt at 4.30. This went on until 6.00 and was a good, useful, optimistic meeting.62 He thought and hoped that everything would be all right with the Irish and Italians, though not with the British. He said he had had a lot of very difficult negotiations with the Bundesbank, and that indeed a lot of opinion in Germany was against him on the issue, which considerably restricted what he could do in making concessions on the operation of the exchange rate mechanism in the new system. He indicated clearly what were his limits, which were certainly not intolerable. He had just come back from a long and exceptional session with the Board of the Bundesbank at Frankfurt, the first time for years a Chancellor had attended. He was however prepared to be pretty forthcoming on concurrent studies, although he was much more reserved on our tough agriculture paper, which I left with him. He said firmly, what I think he had said to me before, that his position vis-a-vis Ertl was such that while he could agree to a freeze he couldn't agree to a combination of a freeze and the dismantling of positive MCAs, which he interpreted as meaning an actual reduction in German farmers' incomes (it would not necessarily).

On concurrent studies, however, he was willing to contemplate two windows: one on the Regional Fund, in which he mentioned an increase of 200 or 250 million units of account, to be shared among the less prosperous partic.i.p.ating countries, although if necessary letting this be distributed according to the established key if that got over a particular difficulty with the British; and, second, he was willing to do a significant sum in subsidized loans, with interest rate subsidies of the annual order of 400 million for a few years. He didn't like a 4 per cent subsidy, would have preferred 2 per cent, but thought one might settle at 3 per cent. So everything seemed in reasonably good shape from this point of view. He was rather more forthcoming than were Schulmann and Lahnstein, who were there, but I a.s.sumed that he could get his way with Federal Government officials.

The question was would he get his way with Giscard? I said, 'What about the Regional Fund? Are you going to be able to move Giscard on that?' 'I don't know, I think so,' he said. 'I am going to telephone him now.' And, indeed, at the end of the interview I left the room with the call to Giscard starting and my a.s.suming that, on the basis of their relations.h.i.+p, Schmidt, apparently firm on this, would prevail.

Back, reasonably satisfied, to Wahn and a quick return to Brussels, where I got into the office at 7.10 and did an hour's work before dining at home with Jennifer who had arrived from London. On balance I was pleased with the day.

SAt.u.r.dAY, 2 DECEMBER. Brussels.

After breakfast I went to see Vanden Boeynants, the new Belgian Prime Minister. I found him quite impressive and incisive, much more so than Tindemans, his only disadvantage being that he cannot speak English.63 Nonetheless I had a good hour's talk with him in French, which he speaks very clearly in a Flemish sort of way. He gives the impression of being more on the ball about the European Council than Tindemans did, even when he, Tindemans, was in the chair. Vanden Boeynants was anxious to be helpful, but was reserved on agriculture (not unnaturally with Belgian elections coming up) and also a little more reserved than the Germans on the Regional Fund. But in general he was quite forthcoming, though expecting difficulty with the French, particularly in view of the adverse vote on the sixth VAT directive which had taken place in the French Chamber the night before, which was a dangerous defeat brought about by an unusual alliance of Communists and Gaullists.

A lunch party, rue de Praetere, for Averell and Pamela Harriman, plus Andre de Staercke, the old Belgian diplomat. The Luns' were also supposed to come, but didn't turn up. A telephone call at 1.30 elicited great confusion and abject apology from himhe thought it was Monday. 'Never have I done such a thing in my life before,' he said. But I subsequently discovered from Jacques Tine at dinner that evening that he had done almost exactly the same thing in Paris ten days before, so perhaps elderly absent-mindedness is beginning to affect the mind of even that Great Dane of a Dutchman.

Averell, who was off to Russia the next day, was on remarkable form for eighty-seven. He had had an endless programme of dinners in Brussels but seemed thoroughly fit on them. He was wearing a large pair of very new expensive shoes which is surprising if you have been a multi-millionaire all your life and therefore presumably acc.u.mulated quite a lot of good old shoes. Such a purchase at the age of eighty-seven seemed to point to an unusual combination of confidence in the future and meanness in the past.

SUNDAY, 3 DECEMBER. Brussels.

I had a long pre-dinner meeting with Ortoli and his Director-General, and Crispin and Michel Vanden Abeele from my cabinet. It was not particularly useful or well structured. Francis, as he does sometimes but not often, talked too much and not very purposefully. His only good remark was: 'Everything is too well set up for this Summit. It is too well prepared. I think it will go wrong. They generally do in these circ.u.mstances.' I went to bed with a distinct sense of apprehension about the following day.

MONDAY, 4 DECEMBER. Brussels.