Sir Michael Franklin

Unflappable civil servant who championed French culture and helped to negotiate Britain’s entry to the Common Market

fr Michael Franklin was a good man to have in an emergency. When at various stages in budget renegotiations with the European Economic Community # (EEC) Margaret Thatcher grew inf censed, it was Franklin who calmed ^ her. When the Chernobyl disaster ^ struck in 1986, contaminating food across Europe, it was Franklin who skilfully steered deadlocked member states, along with various “barmy ” British representatives (and a particularly ^ stubborn Germany), to a trade solution. ™ The quintessential civil servant, urbane and understated, Franklin was n of a generation that had seen Europe at T *war and wanted to help to keep it at M peace. His entire career was spent in the $ civil service, where he played an impor£ tant part in negotiations that led to Britain joining the EEC, which later became the European Union. Michael David Milroy Franklin was ,bom in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, in 1927, g the son of Milroy Franklin, an account8 ant, and his wife, Mabel (n6e Andrews), who also...