Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [493]
However, instead of seeking to rein back expectations, Chancellor Kohl was soon busily raising them. In a statement to the Bundestag he said that the core of the German question was freedom and that the people of East Germany must be given the chance to decide their own future and needed no advice from others. That went for the ‘question of reunification and for German unity too’. The tone had already begun to change and it would change further — though in private Foreign minister Genscher was still assuring Douglas Hurd that the Germans wanted to avoid talk of reunification.
This was the background to President Mitterrand’s calling a special meeting of Community heads of government in Paris* to consider what was happening in Germany — where Egon Krenz, the new East German leader who was, the Soviets had told me, a protégé of Mr Gorbachev, was looking precarious. Before I went I sent a message to President Bush reiterating my view that the priority should be to see genuine democracy established in East Germany and that German reunification was not something to be addressed at present. The President later telephoned me to thank me for my message with which he agreed and to say how much he was looking forward to the two of us ‘putting our feet up at Camp David for a really good talk’.
Almost equally amiable was the Paris meeting on the evening of Saturday 18 November. President Mitterrand opened by posing a number of questions, including whether the issue of borders in Europe should be open for discussion. Then Chancellor Kohl began. He said that people wanted ‘to hear Europe’s voice’. He then obliged by speaking for forty minutes. He concluded by saying that there should be no discussion of borders but that the people of Germany must be allowed to decide their future for themselves and that self-determination was paramount. After Sr. Gonzalez had intervened to no great effect, I spoke.
I said that though the changes taking place were historic we must not succumb to euphoria. The changes were only just beginning and it would take several years to get genuine democracy and economic reform in eastern Europe. There must be no question of changing borders. The Helsinki Final Act must apply.* Any attempt to talk about either border changes or German reunification would undermine Mr Gorbachev and also open up a Pandora’s box of border claims right through central Europe. I said that we must keep both NATO and the Warsaw Pact intact to create a background of stability. Whatever reservations Chancellor Kohl may have had were not voiced. Whether he had already decided on his next move to accelerate the process of reunification I do not know.
The following Friday — 24 November — I was discussing the same issues at Camp David with President Bush — though not exactly ‘with my feet up’. Although friendly enough, the President seemed distracted and uneasy. I was very keen to persuade him of the Tightness of my approach to what was happening in the crumbling communist bloc. I reiterated much of what I had said in Paris about borders and reunification and of the need to support the Soviet leader on whose continuance in power so much depended. The President did not challenge what I said directly but he asked me pointedly whether my line had given rise to difficulties with Chancellor Kohl and about my attitude to the European Community. It was also clear that we differed on the priority which still needed to be given to defence spending. The President told me about the budgetary difficulties