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Address by the Right Hon Roy Jenkins, President of the Commission of the European Communities, to the Confederation of British Industry annual dinner. London, 16 May 1979

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ADDRESS BY THE RIGHT HON ROY JENKINS, PRESIDENT OF THE CO~~IISSION

OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, TO THE CONFEDERATION OF BRITISH INDUSTRY ANNUAL DINNER

London, 16th May 1979

. .

I am grateful to you, Mr President, for proposing that

the theme for the CBI Annual Dinner should be· Europe. Both

the choice and the timing are particularly a~t. The theme of Europe

is the more appropriate as a new ~ritish Government gets dolvn to the.

. .

basic task of charting the course of Britai~'s relations with the

Community, not just· the tactiCJ of monthly meetings of the Council

of Ministers, but ~he strategic way ahead.

I

.

Changes of Governme~t~ while taking place almost with the

smoothness of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, have nonetheless over the past two decades presaged reversals and

re-reversals of policies which have been most damaging for our economic

performance. I have for some time ·thought that a good test of the

{inherent value of any

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2'-inhere~t value of any major legislative measure is whether it is

likely to survive the next political tilt. This does not mean that we must always go for soggy compromises and that no difficult

·or contentio~s measure~ shoulft ever be undertaken. A sharp change

of direction

may

sometimes be'necessary. Some of the major and most permanent changes in our history have been bitterly

controversial at the time: the first Reform.Bill or the Repeal of

t~Corn Laws in t~ last century; the first approaches to the

Welfare State or the curbing of the absolute powe:rs of the House of · Lords ·at the beginn.ing of this century; the start of commercial television in the fifties.. rhey were all deeply controversial at the time, but they were all irreversible in the properly democratic sense, irreversibi~ because they were sufficiently in tune with the needs of peopl~ and country ~hat no sensible party could successfully seek votes on the basis of a reversal. How different this has been for many of the unwanted, irrelevant, too easily reversible measures of the previous decade or so: various national superannuation schemes in the sixties and early seventies: the nationalisation, denationali-sation or renationalidenationali-sation of this or that industry; whether a

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board called X or called Y should attem?t to deal with prices or fncomes or both,

Inaustry and the economy ~s a whole need in my vi~w a greater stability of policy. ·we· could avoid a lot of unnecessary upheaval, a lot of useless ove~-legislation, if Ministers would ask

themselves the simple question: has any measure a good chance of lasting? If·so, and you believe in it, do it. If not, spare us from to.o many queasy rides on the ideological big, dipper •

But I must return ·to my European last, Your theme this evening is partic~larly appropriate in the run-up to an historic event, direct elect1ons to t~e European Parliament~ when in three weeks' time over 180 million-European electors from Greenland to Sicily will have the ~pportu~ity to vote in perhaps the first internAtional election of its kind ever held.

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:. ·At times in the recent past it seemed to many in Europe that the brave venture of the 1950s and 1960s was beginning to stagnate ·politically as well as economically, that it had lost the will and

spiri~ to cope with the many ~hallenges facing us or to make the

necessary p:ro .. gress towards longstanding objectives. Let me offer

. you three re.aso!ls why I believe tha't such a picture - a picture of

the European coach shunted off the mainline into some quiet siding

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- is not true of 1979, if indeed it was ever true, First there was

the decision to put in place the new European

.

Mon~tary System •

The EMS is, of course, a new instrument. it has only just been

forged and perhaps its time ~f testing is yet to come. Nevertheless.

I am convinced that it is an instrument of potentially vital

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importance capable of transforming the prevailing economic climate .

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Second, there are direct elections themselves. Third, there is the

fact that three newly re-born democ'racies in Southern Europe are clamouring both to symbolise and to underpin their return to demo-cracy by urgently seeking entry to the family of the European

Community. Greece will be a member·at the beginning of 1981,

/We are already

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-We are already in negotiation with Spain and Portugal, . That, whatever else it is, is not a picture of a stagnant Community,

Against this backgr~und of movement and action, where

should we in Britain be ·putting the. emphasis ? We must be clear on

one essential issue: that we are trying to achieve results for

ourselves within the Community, and for the Community in the world~

and not, consciously or unconsciously, skilfully or frivolously, trying to create either the reality or the illusi?n of a break scenario, in which we might try to ·reverse the referendum, or at least retire growling into some largely non-participating semi-overt half-membership?

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The British people·showed no desire to contradict this month what they said so clearly and.with such overwhelming force at

the referendum in 1975. They want a positive, not a negative role

in Europe; they want a constructive, not a destructive approach;

they want skill in the presentation and handling of British interests allied to a vision about the relationship of those

/interests to the

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interests to the interest of Europe as a whole. Above all they

want sensible cooperation not desperate confrontation in Europe.

And I welcome t.he way in which the new British Government has begun

its task underlining its es.sential commitment to the principles of the

. .

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Community without s.aerificing ·its concern for issues of concern to

Britain. That is the only way ahead. Of that I am absolutely

convinced,

Let us be i.n no doubt about what would be involved if we

were tempted by t.he other choice. · It would show· an almost

incredible inconstancy of purpose, We would be reversing within a

few years the whole carefully built, democratically decided

orientation of our· ~conomic and foreign policy. In the process we

would irrecoverably damage ottr national influence and reputation.

Traditionally we were rich and pow~rful, qualities which nearly

always earn respect, sometimes esteem and occasionally affection.

Then a generation ago we were remarkably steadfast. When the

other attributes were going, that sustained us for half of the

post-war period, If we lost all three we are nothing.

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As a ha:rgaining card the· 'lint .of the. tliieat of wi:.tfidrawal,

or of sullen non-cooperation, is useless. We do have a good deal to

bargain for in the Community. The CAP is in urgent need of being

saved £rom rt~ own dist~rtion~.

A

rigorous price policy, a price

freeze for this year at least in surplus products is essential if we

are to rebalance the markets. That is the Commission's view. It

is also, I believe, the view that most other·Governments, even if ~

little reluctantly know in their hearts is right. But British

speakers and commentators do not help to advance this view

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by pretending that without the CAP all problems of agricultural support would disappear and we would all

liv~ happily in a free trade world of chea~food imports

If we had continued outside with our own deficiency

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payments system it_would probably have cost the British budget around !1,100 million in 1978;

by·standing out for long from the central mechanism of the EMS, now intimately linked with the agricultural

problem, oblivious of the lessons of our two previous /late arrivals, into the

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in.to the Coal and Steel Community S.t:td into the

Eeon.omic Community itself.

T))ere i.s a,!SO' of course a general budgetary problem for

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Britain. I:t· should no·t be seen out of proportion, but it certainly

exists,. O.ur total c.OliLtribwtion to the Community budget last year

was about £10 a bead,. compa.red with the total cost to government

in Britain of nearly £.1000 a head. Even if we were so unfairly

treated that. we-· g:o't nothing back directly, which is of course far

.

from the cas,e ,. we· waulld still be better off. than ·outside on our own·,

in the cold. But it is nonetheless very much better that we should

be fairly treat.ed... And that· I believe will be the case. The

Community could not .

.

have survived and strengthened over 22 years

without dealing with justifi~d grievances. The British case needs

however to be played with particul~r skill and in a framework of

sympathy and goodwill. Why ? For the very simple reason that

the financial arran·gements of which we complain were negotiated

or renegotiated by Britain in 1974/75 (when the last thing anyone

else wanted at that stage was a renegotiation).

/All this the CBI

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"All this the CBI knows and understands. And I have long

valued the support and interest that you have shown in European

matters. You have provided

a

firm voice, the voice of clear

sighted comm~nsense wh~ch pe~ceives and argues that only as an

active and involved member of th~ European Community can Britain

make its own distinctive contribution in the world, economically and politically.

But there is still much to be done, no~ least to improve .

the internal market which is of tWe essence- of the Community system. I am conscious before this audience that at present the formalities which you encounter in your efforts to take advantage of the larger

European Market can pe severe. The. Commission wants to reduce

these technical and non-tariff bartiers to trade. There are many

areas where we want progress and·will work to achieve progress: differing national standards, and licensing arrangements, public purchasing contracts, the creation of a European company statute, a

European trade mark system, the harmonisation of company law. These

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-are .all fields where much can be done, where much should be done,

where l hope much will be done.

Let me simply emphasise two points about our policies

affecting tr~de .and in4ustry .in the common aarket.

Pi~st., we do not want in our industrial policies to

intervene for :the sake of intervening at the European level, or to upset the balance of the mixed economy by ever-increasing government

involvement.. But with the sombr~ facts of unemployment and

overcapacity, with the crisis that has hit ~everal industries, it is

obvious that public intervent.ion has been and will be needed. Since

unemployment has no religion, and respects no boundaries, it cannot

b~·

cured by

actio~

at the purely national level. Likewise with the

older industries, whether textiles, shipbuilding, steel, or heavy engineering, uncoordinated national intervention can be ineffective or even counterproductive.

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.Second, we do not want to impose a standardised

,uniformity on all goods and practices. Since I have been at the

Commission, we have acted to undercut the mistaken impression that

we opex:ate under a slogan "if it moves, harmonise it". Here I go

back t6 my earlier remarks about. l~gislation and over legislation.

They apply as much to the work of ~he Commission as to that of any

member government. It must be clear that proposals are really

necessary; that they will promote trade within the Community; that

they can be justified in terms of the staff required; that the job

is better done at Community level,;. and tha~ the ~results will last.

In short, our priority is an~ will continue to be that proposals for

harmonisation should be in recognition and in response to a real and demonstrable need for the strengthening of the market,

Europe is sometimes accused of having lost its way, the

grand lines have petered out in a morass of detail. I half agree.

We do a lot of quibbling, Vision sometimes perishes, and

Europe's united policy impact on the world does not always prosper.

/Great enterprises

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-'Great en.terprises involve a combination of detail and

vision .. · This has atw•ys been true of good Governments. It is

true in the Euy·opean context. . .

.

Jean Monnet, the great father of

the Comaunity: and whose. death. we mourned in March, did not forget

his detail,.,

·we

S·houtct·Bat tlirow out the baby with the bathwater.

We should be sele.ctive in our detail, but we should neither abandon

our determination to remove the remaining and substantial imperfectior:

of the Common Market (which can be of great value to British industry) nor let the Treaties, in a Community which must be a

Community of law, be blatantly ignbred.

,.

But, t:his said,: there is a deeper truth. The Common

Market is only p·ar't ~f the idea of the European Community. That

idea has always been fundamentally political, to give Europe back at least part of the place in the world which it so wantonly

threw away over tw·o generations of civil war. Perhaps occasionally

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the momentum flags,. the inspiration is occasionally lacking. But if

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we in Britain feel that, for God's sake, let us not complain too much

from the sidelines. Let us get in·and do something about it. The

oppo~tunity is still there •

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