Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [207]
I wanted to ensure that at Athens I was given a proper opportunity to have the budget discussed early on, because the talks would be long and hard. So I wrote to the Council President, the Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, asking that we start the Council by dealing with the budget imbalances and linked issues. My letter, however, crossed with one from him in which he said that he wanted to deal with agriculture first. It was not a good start.
Yet when I left for Athens there did seem grounds for reasonable optimism. The Germans appeared to understand our position and there had even been encouraging signs from the French. It was to be a somewhat longer summit than usual and I hoped the time would be used productively.
The Community heads of government met in the magnificent Zappeion Hall, a classical Greek building adapted to the needs of a modern conference centre. At the first session of the Council that afternoon I was sitting opposite President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl. I noticed that whereas my own table was covered with piles of heavily annotated briefing on different complex agricultural and financial issues, no such encumbrance appeared in front of my French and German counterparts. This doubtless made for an impression of appropriately Olympian detachment, but it also suggested that they had not mastered the detail. And this turned out to be the case. Throughout the meeting Chancellor Kohl seemed unwilling or unable to make much effective contribution. Worse, President Mitterrand appeared not only badly briefed on the issues but strangely — I think genuinely — misinformed about his own Government’ position, as it had previously been set out by French ministers and officials.
The Greek Presidency did not assist much either. Mr Papandreou always proved remarkably effective in gaining Community subsidies for Greece but he was less skilful in his present role as President of the European Council. As his earlier letter to me had proposed, he insisted on trying to reach agreement on agriculture before moving on to the question of finance and the British budget contribution. Obviously, it would have been made better sense to face the Community countries with the financial realities first and then deal with the agricultural issues, from which so much of the financial problem derived and on which different countries had sharply opposing national interests. And we never seemed to get by without a tear-jerking homily on the predicament of Ireland from the Irish Prime Minister, Dr Garret FitzGerald, who was determined if he could to exempt his country from the disciplines on agricultural spending. I made it clear that any preferential treatment for the Republic would have to be matched by similar treatment for Northern Ireland. The first day was more or less a write-off.
I was, therefore, already pessimistic by the time I returned that night to the British Ambassador’ Residence to discuss with my officials how we should conduct ourselves the following day (Monday). But it was only on the Monday that it became obvious that the summit would indeed fail. When the Council met, to my astonishment President Mitterrand made it clear that France’ position on the budget had completely changed. France was no longer prepared to support us in pressing for a long-term settlement of the British budget problem. In repeated interjections, I said that I would not agree to an increase in the