page_title: Roy Jenkins
section_title: President of the European Commission (1977–1981)
hierarchical_section_title: Roy Jenkins / President of the European Commission (1977–1981)
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Collectie / Archief&#160;: Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie&#160;: Koningin Juliana ontvangt Roy Jenkins (voorzitter Europese Commissie) op Paleis Soestdijk Beschrijving&#160;: koningin Juliana en Roy Jenkins Datum&#160;: 22 maart 1977 Locatie&#160;: Den Haag, Zuid-Holland Trefwoorden&#160;: bezoeken, koninginnen, voorzitters Persoonsnaam&#160;: Jenkins, Roy, Juliana (koningin Nederland) Instellingsnaam&#160;: Paleis Soestdijk Fotograaf&#160;: Verhoeff, Bert / Anefo Auteursrechthebbende&#160;: Nationaal Archief Materiaalsoort&#160;: Negatief (zwart/wit) Nummer archiefinventaris&#160;: bekijk toegang 2.24.01.05 Bestanddeelnummer&#160;: 929-0833
context_page_description: Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, OM, PC was a British politician who served as President of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981. He was at various times a member of the Labour Party, Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Democrats.
  The son of a Welsh coal-miner and trade unionist, himself later a Labour MP, Jenkins was educated at the University of Oxford and served as an intelligence officer during the Second World War. Elected to Parliament as a Labour MP in 1948, he went on to serve as both Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary under the Labour Governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. In his first period as Home Secretary he sought to build what he described as "a civilised society", with measures such as the effective abolition in Britain of both capital punishment and theatre censorship, the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality, relaxing of divorce law, suspension of birching and the liberalisation of abortion law. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he pursued a tight fiscal policy.
context_section_description: In an interview with The Times in January 1977, Jenkins said that: "My wish is to build an effective united Europe. ... I want to move towards a more effectively organized Europe politically and economically and as far as I am concerned I want to go faster, not slower". The main development overseen by the Jenkins Commission was the development of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union from 1977, which began in 1979 as the European Monetary System, a forerunner of the Single Currency or Euro. His biographer calls Jenkins "the godfather of the euro" and claims that among his successors only Jacques Delors has made more impact.
  In speech in Florence in October 1977, Jenkins argued that monetary union would facilitate "a more efficient and developed rationalisation of industry and commerce than is possible under a Customs Union alone". He added that "a major new international currency" would form "a joint and alternative pillar of the world monetary system" which would lead to greater international stability. Monetary union would also combat inflation by controlling the money supply. Jenkins conceded that this would involve the diminution of national sovereignty but he pointed out that "governments which do not discipline themselves already find themselves accepting very sharp surveillance" from the IMF. Monetary union would also promote employment and diminish regional differences. Jenkins ended the speech by quoting Jean Monnet's statement that politics was "not only the art of the possible, but...the art of making possible tomorrow what may seem impossible today".
  President Jenkins was the first President to attend a G8 summit on behalf of the Community. He received an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Laws) from the University of Bath in 1978.
  In October 1978 Tribune reported (falsely) that Jenkins and his wife had not paid their Labour Party subscription for several years. After this was repeated in the national press, Jenkins' drafted his wife's letter to The Times that refuted the allegation. Jenkins blamed the story on a "malicious Trot in the North Kensington Labour Party". Jenkins was disillusioned with the Labour Party and he was almost certain that he could not stand again as a Labour candidate; in January 1979 he told Shirley Williams that the "big mistake we had made was not to go and support Dick Taverne in 1973; everything had got worse since then".
  He did not vote in the 1979 election. After the Conservatives won the election Margaret Thatcher contemplated appointing Jenkins Chancellor of the Exchequer on the strength of his success at cutting public expenditure when he was Chancellor. However, his friend Woodrow Wyatt claimed that Jenkins "had other and fresh fish to fry".
  The Director-General of the BBC, Ian Trethowan, invited Jenkins to deliver the Richard Dimbleby Lecture for 1979, which he did on 22 November. The title Jenkins gave to his lecture, "Home Thoughts from Abroad", derived from a Robert Browning poem. He delivered it in the Royal Society of Arts and it was broadcast live on television. Jenkins analysed the decline of the two-party system since 1951 and criticised the excessive partisanship of British politics, which he claimed alienated the bulk of voters, who were more centrist. He advocated proportional representation and the acceptance of "the broad line of division between the public and private sectors", a middle way between Thatcherism and Bennism. Jenkins said that the private sector should be encouraged without too much interference to create as much wealth as possible "but use the wealth so created both to give a return for enterprise and to spread the benefits throughout society in a way that avoids the disfigurements of poverty, gives a full priority to public education and health services, and encourages co-operation and not conflict in industry and throughout society". He then reiterated his long-standing commitment to libertarianism:
  You also make sure that the state knows its place...in relation to the citizen. You are in favour of the right of dissent and the liberty 
caption: Jenkins (left) as President of the European Commission with Juliana of the Netherlands (right) in 1977
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