European Diary, 1977-1981 Read online

  I was wrong, as clearly emerged when I saw him on 6 April. He was evasive at the time, but his memoirs1 put his position with convincing frankness: ‘The post of Foreign Secretary had to be filled and in other times Roy Jenkins would have been a natural successor.... But the wounds had not healed since his resignation as deputy leader during the European Community battles, and as he had been the leading protagonist on one side, every action he would have taken as Foreign Secretary would have been regarded with deep suspicion by the anti-Marketeers on our benches.... In any case there was another suitable candidate, in the person of Tony Crosland.’

  This had the perverse effect of temporarily upsetting my preference between courses two and three. That however was both short-lived and irrelevant, as the new Prime Minister knew his mind on this issue. His alternative offer of a reversion to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer after ‘six months or so’ did not tempt me. It was, to mix the metaphor, the offer of another réchauffé helping which remained very much in the bush.

  In late April the bird in the hand also showed some faint signs of fluttering. Giscard indicated that he was against any early announcement of my presidency. His mind was firm on the substance, he said, but there must be no premature publicity: it might prejudice the position of François-Xavier Ortoli, the incumbent French President. This was strange, in view both of Giscard’s urgent pressure of February and of the fact that he had never previously shown much consideration for Ortoli—nor did he subsequently. It was balanced however by enthusiastic support given publicly from the Italian Government and more privately by Chancellor Schmidt, who did not wish to seem publicly out of step with President Giscard. Thus I had an early taste of a pattern of European attitudes which was to become only too familiar to me over the next few years.

  The explanation of Giscard’s wobble, I retrospectively think, is that my candidature, launched by him and Schmidt, was being too enthusiastically received by the small countries of the Community. This was because they wanted a politician and not a bureaucrat and found a Briton with European conviction a heady combination. When I visited two or three of them that spring I was treated very much as a President-elect. Giscard’s response was not to change his mind but to try to demonstrate that I was becoming President not by the acclaim of the little ones but by the nomination of France. Up to a point he succeeded.

  The issue was however safely out of the way by the end of June, when the European Council, meeting in Luxembourg, conveyed to me an informal (legal formality followed only in December) but public and unanimous invitation to assume the presidency at the beginning of January. Thereafter the majority of my time and the overwhelming part of my interest was devoted to the affairs of Europe. I remained Home Secretary until 10 September, when I left a British Government for the last time, but this was only because it suited the Prime Minister better that way, and a large part of this twilight period was in any event taken up by holiday.

  During July a number of Commissioners who were candidates for staying on came to see me in London, and I also began a series of visits to the governments of the member states. Rightly or wrongly, I kept away from Brussels. I decided that if I was to make any impact both upon the bureaucracy (which I thought of as being dedicated but rigid) and upon the tone of Europe, I must arrive only with full powers and not become a familiar figure hanging about in the corridors in the preceding months. I went there only once, in mid-November, mainly to see the house which we had taken, and to visit the Belgian Prime Minister, although we were in no dispute about the excellent Commissioner, Etienne Davignon, whom the Belgians had chosen in consultation with me. This abstinence from Belgium may or may not have given drama to my arrival, but it certainly had the effect, when I eventually plunged into the murk of a Brabant January, of making the ambience of the Berlaymont (the Community office building), the ways of those who lived in and around it, and indeed the whole atmosphere of Brussels, seem almost gothically strange to me.

  It was only Belgium as the areopagitica of the Community (and Luxembourg, its subsidiary in this respect) that I eschewed. The other six countries I went to frequently. Over the summer and autumn of 1976 I made twenty visits to their capitals. I also went twice to the United States, mainly on preparatory Community business. And there was a fairly constant procession of visitors -future Commissioners, senior officials, politicians—to see me in London. After I left the Home Office I was established in a modest suite of rooms in the Cabinet Office. Crispin Tickell, whom I chose from a list of strong candidates, came to me as Chef de Cabinet from the Foreign Office in October. Hayden Phillips left the Home Office with me to become Chef Adjoint but disappeared fairly soon on a month’s ‘immersion’ language course in the South of France. I devoted a good deal of time, both over the summer holidays and during the autumn, to improving my French by less baptismal methods. I also spent many hours on the history of the Community and on the structure of the Commission, playing with a variety of plans for its improvement.

  The main purpose of my European visits was to discuss who would be my future Commission colleagues with the nominating heads of government. The Tindemans Report on European Union, drawn up by the Belgian Prime Minister at the request of the other governments in 1975, had suggested, inter alia, that the incoming President of the Commission should have a considerable voice in this. Many of the Tindemans proposals wasted on the desert air, but it was difficult for the heads of government to deny this one so quickly after it had been put forward; no firm precedent was established, however, for I believe that neither of my successors, Gaston Thorn and Jacques Delors, has attempted to play much part in this process.

  Nor did the relative enthusiasm with which different governments embraced this obligation follow any predictable pattern. The three governments in the Community most opposed to supra-nationalism were the British, the French and the Danish. With the small one of these three there was no issue. The Danish Government and I were both equally eager to renew the appointment of Finn-Olav Gundelach, and quite right we were from every point of view except that of his own health—he died in early 1981. He was one of my two best Commissioners. The British Government was equally but more controversially (with Mrs Thatcher) willing for me to nominate Christopher Tugendhat as the second and Conservative British Commissioner. He turned out to be a very good choice.

  What was most surprising was the willingness of the French Government to parley at considerable length and the highest level about their choice. I had two long Elysée meetings with President Giscard, as well as several exchanges of messages, about the issue, which in the French case was tangled. At that stage I was determined to keep Claude Cheysson, the existing and Socialist Development Aid Commissioner, in that portfolio. The French were determined to keep the portfolio but would have preferred it to go to some other Frenchman, perhaps to Ortoli, the retiring President. I was for a time uncertain whether I wanted my predecessor in my Commission. Conventional wisdom advised against. Nor was Ortoli pressing his claims. He was as uncertain as I was. But if he was to be there, I wanted him to have Economic and Monetary Affairs, as did he. So Giscard and I danced around, he occasionally concentrating my mind by suggesting a highly unacceptable candidate, but always stressing that he would not impose Ortoli upon me. Eventually we settled for Ortoli.

  By contrast, the governments of the Little Five, other than Denmark, were traditionally the most in favour of supranational-ism and the powers of the Commission. Belgium I have already dealt with. Luxembourg was in a special position in that they had appointed a new Commissioner, Raymond Vouël, to fill a vacancy only a few months previously. He would not have been my choice, but they wanted him to stay on, which he did. There was no argument. Both the Dutch and Irish engaged in lengthy and agreeable discussion and ended up by nominating Commissioners who, while they both had considerable qualities, were not by any stretch of imagination my choice. Nor were their Commission careers entirely successful.

  That left the two big traditionally ‘
federalist’ European countries, Italy and Germany. The Italian Government was immensely forthcoming. They wanted two new Commissioners, as did I. They wanted them to strike a political balance, one Christian Democrat and one Socialist, and they therefore steered me gently away from one or two non-politicians I had in mind. Eventually they appointed the two they had probably wanted from the beginning, but not before they had brought me also to feel that they were the best choices. And in the course of leading me to their conclusion they gave me a very good familiarization course in Italian politics, encouraging me to discussions with all political parties, Communists included. It was a very elegant performance, and in my view not at all cynical.

  The Germans handled matters less happily. It is one of the paradoxes of Europe that while the Federal Republic has always been a massive and crucial supporter of the European ideal, and indeed of the policies necessary to achieve it, it has never since the end of Hallstein’s day adequately sustained the European institutions. This has shown itself in two ways: first in a German governmental habit, epitomized by Chancellor Schmidt towards the end of the Ortoli presidency, of complaining at large about the Commission; and second, insofar as there was any force in the first point, doing their best to prevent its being corrected by resolutely refusing to appoint first-rate people to Brussels. This applied not merely to their Commissioners (although Ralf Dahrendorf, 1970–4, had been an exception) but also to their Permanent Representatives to the Community. In my experience Germany never exercised an intellectual weight in COREPER (the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the member states) commensurate with either its pre-eminent economic position or with that of the lesser economies of France, Britain or Italy. Nor was its position in the Commission any better.

  In part, but only in part, this stemmed from the deep-seated reluctance of post-1945 Germany to play a strong political hand. Much of the stage of modern Europe has been occupied with, on one side, the British and the French, each in their different way, trying to exercise a power somewhat beyond their capacity, and on the other, the Germans trying to push it away like a magnet trying to reject metal. On the reverse side of this coin were the strenuous but unavailing attempts of the Bundesbank to prevent the D-mark becoming a reserve currency—in complete contrast with the British clinging on to the Sterling Area into the 1960s.

  Nevertheless there was something more to this German attitude than a simple nolo episcopari. There was an unease with, leading to a certain distaste for, the complicated dance of international hauts fonctionnaires. It was utterly unlike the French attitude, close though the Franco-German partnership was becoming in those years. Whatever its causes, however, this almost shoulder-shrugging indifference on the part of the Germans created a weakening semi-vacuum in the heart of Europe.

  It exhibited itself strongly during my consultations with the Bonn Government, and marked the first real setback of that autumn of preparation. This must be seen against the background of my very high expectations of the Germans. I regarded Schmidt (as indeed I still do) as the most constructive statesman of that period, and the one with whom I had the easiest personal relations. I regarded their Government as a model of centre-left internationalist good sense, and likely to be my strongest champions in any battles that lay ahead.

  As late as 2 November I was still being encouraged by Schmidt to seek two new German Commissioners. I should have noticed on that visit that a very much more reserved attitude was being taken by other ministers, most notably by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the Foreign Minister and leader of the Free Democrats.

  I overestimated the power of the Chancellor. As soon afterwards as 15 November he told me that he could not do it. The political pressures were too great. The FDP insisted on their existing Commissioner being renominated and the trade unions were equally adamant about the long-serving SPD one from their ranks. It was an early lesson to me of the dangers of putting too much ‘trust in princes’, i.e. leaders of governments faced with domestic political difficulties. It was also a classic example of how to get the worst of both worlds. The two German Commissioners (both of whom had considerable and engaging qualities, although the one in my view did not have energy and the other did not have weight) knew that I had tried to replace them and had failed.

  Furthermore, it presented me with a severe practical problem. It was my firm view that, with Ortoli in Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Germans must have the other obviously major portfolio of External Relations. This was so both for reasons of balance and because a German was more likely than most to conduct relations with the Americans and the Japanese on the liberal lines which I desired. But I did not believe either of them to be up to the job which Christopher Soames had done with conspicuous success in the Ortoli Commission. I was therefore faced with the dismal prospect that the new Commission, so far from having a new authority with which to relaunch Europe, would look less convincing to the outside world than the previous one had done.

  This produced a sharp change of mood six weeks before I was due to go to Brussels. During the preceding four or five months I had been in a higher state of morale than at any time since 1971, if not earlier. Once the decision to go to Brussels had been finally made, I felt both liberated and exhilarated. I realized how ill the shoe of British politics had been fitting me for some years past. I also exaggerated, encouraged by the enthusiasm with which they had greeted my appointment, the extent to which I could persuade the governments to do what I wanted. During the summer and the first half of the autumn most things seemed possible and difficult decisions did not oppress.

  No doubt the period of semi-euphoria would in any event have corrected itself as the happy prospect of preparing for an exciting new job gave way to the harsher reality of having within a few weeks to plunge into the complexities of actually doing it. The German experience therefore probably did little more than tear along a perforation which was already there. But that it certainly did. I remember that on 11 November, my birthday as it happened, the Prime Minister, walking through the division lobby with me, had lightly enquired (but not I think as a birthday greeting) whether I was still available to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sterling was crashing, the Government’s economic policy appeared in disarray, and there was a good deal of press and parliamentary speculation about a change from Denis Healey. I would at least have been buying at the bottom of the market. However my mind was fixed on Brussels and I took Callaghan’s suggestion even less seriously than he had made it. The following week after my next visit to Bonn, I might have been tempted to give him a more forthcoming reply.

  In reality, of course, I could not possibly have changed direction at that stage. The juddering would have been appalling: my assembled cabinet to be stood down, the Brussels house to be un-rented, my constituency farewells to be unsaid, not to mention the governments of Europe whose every suspicion about the insularity of the British would be confirmed. So I settled down to the last stages of preparation, and in particular to the untying of the knot of portfolio allocation. But it was never quite ‘glad confident morning again’.

  The portfolio issue was perplexing. It was crucial to the effective functioning and repute of the new Commission. It also involved relations with twelve individuals, several of them of potential prickliness, with whom I was going to have to spend the next four years; and with the governments of the nine member states, without considerable goodwill from which nothing could be done. Obviously some governments were more important than others, as were some portfolios, of which in any event there were not enough satisfactorily to occupy twelve Commissioners (other than the President). And I did not have anything approaching prime ministerial powers: once appointed, Commissioners had to be lived with as though they were members of a college of cardinals. They certainly could not be sacked by the President. Nor could solutions be imposed upon one without the almost unanimous support of all the others. In practice dispositions had to be negotiated.

  The central difficulty was that I could not put Ortol
i into Economic and Monetary Affairs unless I could first get Wilhelm Haferkamp out of this portfolio which he held in the existing Commission. And if I could not put Ortoli there, where could I put him? Nowhere to his pleasure, except perhaps for External Affairs (and I did not think he was the right man or the right nationality for relations with the Americans), and nowhere at all of any significance except at the price of disrupting one of my other cherished plans: Gundelach for Agriculture, Davignon for Industry and the Internal Market, Cheysson to stay with Development Aid.

  Haferkamp was stubbornly resistant to going to Social Affairs. I did not see how I could possibly impose this upon him as the senior Commissioner of the most important country without at least acceding to the wish of the German Government that his junior, Guido Brunner, should have External Affairs. But I thought (and several of those who had been in the Ortoli Commission agreed with me) that Haferkamp was the bigger man of the two. I therefore decided that the only thing to do was a sudden switch of expectation: take the risk of putting Haferkamp into External Affairs, which was only a risk that he would not do much, and all the other major dispositions would fall into place.

  This was the position when I assembled the new Commission for twenty-four hours of familiarization and discussion at Ditchley Park in north Oxfordshire on 22 and 23 December. I am not sure that excursion was a total success. It was inconveniently close to Christmas, but there was no other time we could find. It was a summoning of the metropolitan Europeans to the periphery of the empire. The weather was raw and misty, and some at least of the visitors were more struck by the coldness of the bathrooms than by the splendours of Ditchley. Perhaps the most memorable outcome was a Financial Times fantasy by David Watt in which a murder à la Christie (Orient Express) was apparently committed: all twelve had separate but convergent motives for committing the crime. The victim was obviously me.