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down reunification via the Community’s institutions. I placed some hopes in the framework offered by the ‘Four Powers’ — Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union — which were responsible for the security of Berlin. But with the United States — and soon the Soviets too — ceasing to regard this as anything other than a talking shop for discussion of the details of reunification, this framework too was of limited use. The CSCE — on which I was to develop my ideas the following year — would provide a basis for restricting any unwelcome attempts to change borders in eastern Europe as a whole; but it would not stand in the way of German reunification. So the last and best hope seemed the creation of a solid Anglo-French political axis which would ensure that at each stage of reunification — and in future economic and political developments — the Germans did not have things all their own way.

At the Strasbourg European Council in December 1989 President Mitterrand and I — at his suggestion — had two private meetings to discuss the German problem and our reaction to it. He was still more concerned than I was. He was very critical of Chancellor Kohl’s ‘ten-point’ plan. He observed that in history the Germans were a people in constant movement and flux. At this I produced from my handbag a map showing the various configurations of Germany in the past, which were not altogether reassuring about the future. We talked through what precisely we might do. I said that at the meeting he had chaired in Paris we had come up with the right answer on borders and reunification. But President Mitterrand observed that Chancellor Kohl had already gone far beyond that. He said that at moments of great danger in the past France had always established special relations with Britain and he felt that such a time had come again. We must draw together and stay in touch. It seemed to me that although we had not discovered the means, at least we both had the will to check the German juggernaut. That was a start.

Discussion at the official meetings of the Strasbourg Council was of course very different in tone, although the Dutch Prime Minister Mr Lubbers said at the heads of government dinner that he thought Chancellor Kohl’s ‘ten-point’ plan would encourage reunification, that there were dangers in talking about self-determination and that it was better not to refer to one ‘German people’. This required some courage. But it hardly deflected Chancellor Kohl, who said that Germany had paid for the last war by losing one-third of its territory. He was vague about the question of borders — too vague for my liking — arguing that the Oder-Neisse line, which marked the border with Poland, should not become a legal issue. He did not seem now or later to understand the Polish fears and sensitivities.

I was due to meet President Mitterrand in January 1990 and I asked for papers to be drawn up showing ways in which we could strengthen Anglo-French co-operation. The French President had been to East Berlin shortly before Christmas in order to assert France’s interests in the future of Germany. But his public attitude hardly betrayed his private thoughts and at his press conference there he claimed that he was not ‘one of those who were putting on the brakes’. I hoped that my forthcoming meeting with him might overcome this tendency to schizophrenia.

Almost all the discussion I had with President Mitterrand at the Elysée Palace on Saturday 20 January concerned Germany. Picking up the President’s remarks in the margins of Strasbourg I said that it was very important for Britain and France to work out jointly how to handle what was happening in Germany. East Germany seemed close to collapse and it was by no means impossible that we would be confronted in the course of this year with the decision in principle in favour of reunification. The President was clearly irked by German attitudes and behaviour. He accepted that the Germans had the right to self-determination but they did not have the right to upset the political realities of Europe; nor could