European Diary, 1977-1981 (95 page)

TUESDAY, 9 DECEMBER.
The Hague and Brussels.

An hour's noon meeting with the new Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. It was the first time that I had talked to her. She had a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket, which we consumed, and chatted away agreeably about Holland, and England, and Europe, and the world, and her life. She was, if anything, easier than the Queen of Denmark in spite of the latter's Cambridge degree. She has a mildly left-wing reputation but was at pains to deny this. She was very interested in what might happen in English politics. She looked a bit like Kitty Giles fifteen or twenty years ago. After that to lunch with van Agt and half the Government at the Catshuis, and again a very agreeable atmosphere, with warm speeches of farewell.

WEDNESDAY, 10 DECEMBER.
Brussels.

My last COREPER lunch. Rather less warm farewells from ambassadors than from governments, I thought. At 7.45 we had the Commission's farewell reception at the Palais du Congrès, with a concert by the European Youth Orchestra, conducted partly by Heath. Princess Paola came as the representative of the Belgian Royal Family, and the reception lasted not too long afterwards.

THURSDAY, 11 DECEMBER.
Brussels, London and Brussels.

10.45 plane to London and to Chatham House where, after a buffet lunch, I delivered a carefully prepared speech to a rather good assembled company. It was my case for Britain staying in the Community. Then to Brooks's, where Sir A. Tuke asked me to become a director of Barclay's Bank. I said I thought not owing (i) to Lloyds's prior suggestion, and (ii) to the South African connection, which he very fairly raised himself. Then to the Thames TV studio where I recorded a half-hour's interview with Lew Gardner, mainly about Europe and the case for staying in, but about seven minutes at the end on my political intentions. Inevitably this part of the interview attracted all the press attention.

Then to Sister Agnes's to see Ann Fleming, who had been critically ill in Swindon for some time, and found her better than I expected.

Next back to Brooks's where I had David Marquand and Clive Lindley on ‘new party' matters from 6.00. Bill Rodgers arrived just before 7.30. A very friendly talk with him until I left in a great hurry at 8.05 for the 8.45 plane, which I just caught. Quite a day.

FRIDAY, 12 DECEMBER.
Brussels.

To lunch with Léon Lambert, who provided a good occasion, but inevitably also one of his farewell speeches which meant a reply from me. Dined at home with Jennifer and the Bradleys, who had arrived to stay for the very last weekend.

SUNDAY, 14 DECEMBER.
Brussels.

Began with the last of my many Brussels runs in the Bois de la Cambre. The Bradleys left mid-morning because the house was already somewhat dismantled. Jennifer and I lunched with the Michael Jenkins'. It poured with rain all day, only half right for weather symbolism—two of the autumns had been spectacular. At 7 o'clock Christopher Audland came for his last pre-Council briefing. Dined with Jennifer and bed at 11.45. So, effectively, ends our rue de Praetère existence.

MONDAY, 15 DECEMBER.
Brussels, Rome and Brussels.

Early plane to Rome, and called on Pertini, the President of the Republic, in the Quirinale at 10.45. He was less talkative than on previous occasions, mainly because he received some bad piece of news just as I was arriving, but he quickly regained his animation. Then to the Palazzo Chigi to see Forlani (who has become Prime Minister in the endless Italian excuse-me waltz). Then to the Villa Madama for a ninety-minute meeting with Emilio Colombo, and then a large luncheon party of between sixty and seventy including all the Community ambassadors. A warm, substantial farewell speech from Colombo.

I was slightly irritated that I had had to decline the grandest Italian decoration, as indeed those of Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland, owing to the ridiculous British Government rules—a mixture of Court and Foreign Office protocol—about not accepting foreign decorations. I think it might have been more sensible to cut through it as in Spain, but Crispin for the best of motives was firm against.

We then drove—in a great hurry and with my last motorcycle escort—to Ciampino, where I took my last avion taxi back to Brussels. That evening the Foreign Ministers gave me a dinner at Val Duchesse. Not a bad but somehow not a terribly good occasion either. Home for a last night in the dismantled rue de Praetère.

TUESDAY, 16 DECEMBER.
Brussels and Luxembourg.

I attended the Foreign Ministers' working lunch and unburdened myself to them on a number of subjects. Motored straight from there to Luxembourg for my final visit to the Parliament.

WEDNESDAY, 17 DECEMBER.
Luxembourg.

To the Parliament at 9.00, ready for my farewell speech. However, typically, it was delayed until 10.20. It was quite well received. Lunch given by Mme Veil at the Golf Club. She kept saying that she had to rush off, and therefore we made our speeches before lunch began. Afterwards she seemed to eat a fairly hearty meal before leaving. Although I like her increasingly, she is hardly a calm
hostess. Resumed Commission from 3.00 to 4.30. Then a twenty-minute farewell call upon the Grand Duke, agreeable as usual.

THURSDAY, 18 DECEMBER.
Luxembourg and Brussels.

Woke up to more snow and the realization which had come on me during the night that I ought to have been doing something more about the yearly budget crisis which was proceeding in the Parliament. Therefore summoned a breakfast ‘crisis meeting', people getting through the snow with some difficulty. Vredeling, Cheysson, Natali and Tugendhat came. As a result of this, it was agreed that I would go with Tugendhat to see Mme Veil at 9.30 a.m., put our position clearly, and try to get things back on the rails.

This I think worked tolerably well. It was my last visit to Luxembourg, my last day with the Parliament, and this encounter with Mme Veil my last meeting that could directly influence what went on in the Community. It was 9.50 a.m. when I drove off half-sentimentally in the snow, which was quite difficult as so frequently on that stretch of road to Brussels. Berlaymont at 12.30, and a substantial though slightly late appearance at the party in the
‘cathédrale'
which the Commission was giving for the
huissiers,
interpreters, drivers, and all those who had worked fairly closely to us.

Office after lunch until nearly 8.00, interrupted by a dismal drinks party for the press. To the Amigo Hotel, where I was staying, and then went to dine with the Michael Jenkins' and a large party.

FRIDAY, 19 DECEMBER.
Brussels and East Hendred.

Office at 9.15. A little signing before inner office Christmas drinks at 11.45, and then to London by the 12.45 plane, and on to East Hendred. The effective end of Brussels and the beginning of Christmas and, more significantly, of the return to British politics.

The membership of the Commission of the European Community which held office from 6 January 1977 to 4 January 1981 was as follows.

PRESIDENT

Roy Jenkins

VICE-PRESIDENTS

François-Xavier (Francis) Ortoli,
b. 1925, was first encountered by me when he was French Minister of Finance in November 1968. He had been sent by General de Gaulle to Bonn to arrange an agreed devaluation of the French franc in a meeting of the (IMF) Group of Ten. He began by asking me if I could provide a fig leaf by taking the pound down a little way with the franc. I had to refuse. He nonetheless doggedly and successfully negotiated all per cent depreciation over twenty hours of wearing talks. When he got back to Paris the General called the devaluation off, which made Ortoli look rather exposed and the rest of us feel unnecessarily exhausted.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, and the fact that he as an ex-President of the Commission was serving under me, I like to think that we got on well. He was probably the nicest of all my colleagues. He could occasionally be prickly about his public position, but prickliness usually dissolved quickly in the warmth of his friendliness. He had a very high sense of public duty which made him feel that he was only properly occupied when holding high office in the service of the French state. But I am not sure how much he enjoyed his public service, for he was of a nervous
disposition. What he enjoyed was intellectual conversation on aesthetic subjects, about which he was very well informed.

His Commission experience began in 1958–61 as its youngest Director-General. He returned as President in 1973 and stayed, for the last eight years as a Vice-President, until 1985. He is now head of the Compagnie Française des Pétroles. His portfolio in my Commission was Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Wilhelm Haferkamp,
b. 1923, was a German trades unionist of generous instincts and indulgent tastes who possessed most of the attributes of a good Commissioner except for that of application. He was experienced (a member of the Commission since 1971), of broad internationalist outlook, and an engaging personality. If he did not take his job too seriously, he at least had the advantage of not taking himself so either. He was never pompous. He was sometimes a little difficult to find. He reminded me in this respect only of a now dead friend of mine who was briefly a not very diligent Member of Parliament and replied to a message of rebuke and recall from his Chief Whip by telegraphing from the Ritz Hotel, Madrid: ‘You must take me as you find me–if you can find me.'

Haferkamp's penchant for caravanserai of this sort led to a great deal of difficulty in 1979, but I nonetheless recall ‘the old Willi', as his Director-General (Sir Roy Denman) constantly referred to him, with considerable affection.

Finn-Olav Gundelach,
1925–81, shared with Davignon in the Commission the quality of being
papabile,
that is they were seen by both themselves and others as possible future Presidents. He was a Danish public servant who had previously been their Permanent Representative to the Community as well as deputy Director-General of the GATT and a member of the Ortoli Commission with the portfolio of the Internal Market. In my Commission he held the vital Agricultural portfolio.

On balance I do not think he was quite as effective as Davignon, although his set-piece exposés before both the Commission and the Council of Ministers were more brilliant. The reason why the balance was just against him may have been that his life was bleaker (his wife was a Danish preacher who never appeared in Brussels) and that he was always working at or beyond the edge
of his capacity, while Davignon always kept his reserves. Partly as a result Gundelach was more brooding and more tricky. But he was of very high quality. Unfortunately his overwork killed him. He was reappointed to the 1981 Commission but died suddenly in Strasbourg in its first month.

He was pretty detached from Denmark, visited it little more frequently than I did, and rarely used its language. Yet his English while wholly efficacious was less authentic than that of Davignon or Cheysson or Brunner. He really spoke ‘Gundelachese', a powerful agricultural vernacular which owed something to Old Norse but more to Monetary Compensatory Amounts in which he dealt with equal facility with Green Pounds and breeding ‘soes' (as he always pronounced those porcine animals).

Lorenzo Natali,
b. 1922, was an excellent nominee of Italian Christian Democracy, encapsulating most of its virtues and just enough of its vices to make him a true representative, although not a delegate. He was an Abruzzan from the left of that broad-based party, who had a good Resistance record at the end of the war, who had been Minister, at different times between 1966 and 1973, of the Merchant Marine, Public Works, and Agriculture. He took a little time to settle into the life of Brussels and the Commission, mainly because his very agreeable wife did not at first come and because he spoke no English and very little French. Later, with the arrival both of his wife and of adequate French, he became the
homme moyen sensuel
of the Commission, respected for his amiability and shrewdness. He remained a Commissioner until 1989.

In my Commission his portfolio comprised the rather mixed bag of the Enlargement negotiations, the Environment, and, from 1979, relations with the Parliament. He was the only Commissioner in whose home (at Rocca di Mezzo, near L'Aquila) we ever stayed.

Henk Vredeling,
b. 1924, had been Dutch Socialist Minister of Defence for the four years before he came to the Commission. He had arrived at the pre-Christmas Ditchley weekend full of enthusiastic but slightly truculent left-wing European ideas and accompanied by a uniformed
aide-de-camp
with whom he proceeded
to carouse for most of the night. He remained fairly true to these contradictions throughout his four years in the Commission, although his self-confidence took a sad plunge in 1979. He was not considered a Commission success and there was no question of his being reappointed for 1981. But he was a man of warmth and courage, and as a result of the Vredeling Directive he imprinted his name on the history of the European Community in the late 1970s much more than did the rest of us. The portfolio he held was that of Social Affairs and relations with ‘the Social Partners', i.e. employers and trade unions. He has since played little part in public affairs.

COMMISSIONERS

Vicomte Etienne (Stevy) Davignon,
b. 1932, taken in the round was the best member of my Commission. He was a Belgian career diplomat, whose grandfather had done well out of the Congo and been ennobled by King Leopold II. Stevy Davignon, although a Christian Democrat, had first come into prominence as a collaborator of Paul-Henri Spaak (Socialist). Before coming to the Commission he had been
Directeur Politique
in the Belgian Foreign Ministry and was the author of the Davignon Report on Political Cooperation. He knew the workings of Europe and of the whole Atlantic world inside out.

He spoke French with a determined Belgian accent, and English with a fluency which owed its little words to the nursery and its big ones to the ante-rooms of many a NATO, GATT, OECD or UN conference. He was very self-confident and moved easily in all Belgian (and wider) circles without being bounded by any of them. I would not however describe him as a
grand seigneur.
He was too active a fixer for that. He worked very long hours, rarely I think got nearer to exercise than Sunday lunch at the Ravenstein Royal Golf Club, liked social life but never entertained. He had a very pretty wife who asserted her independence by declining to speak English.