Bernard Ginns: Visitor finds cause for optimism – and need for discipline

We call them diplomats. And we tend to think of them as being exceptionally good at not giving a straight answer. In other words, the complete opposite to your typical straight-talking, no-nonsense Yorkshire businessman.

For example, if a diplomat says "yes," he means "maybe". If a diplomat says "maybe," he means "no". And if a diplomat says "no," he's no diplomat.

According to the poet Robert Frost, a diplomat always remembers your birthday but never remembers your age. Isaac Goldberg, the journalist, said diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way. As humorist Oliver Herford had it, diplomacy is lying in state, while for Henry Wotton, the English diplomat and poet, an ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.

Last week Yorkshire played host to Georg Boomgaarden, the German Ambassador, who was visiting York and Hull at the invitation of the Company of Merchant Adventurers.

I caught up with him the morning after a dinner at the historic Merchant Adventurers' Hall in York and, as you'd expect, Mr Boomgaarden was very diplomatic with his answers.

I asked him about the event, which was attended by leading figures from across the region, including four vice chancellors, three high sheriffs, a lord lieutenant, the Dean of York, the chairman of Yorkshire Forward, the governor of the Merchant Adventurers of York, numerous business people and, in a rare public appearance, the artist David Hockney.

"We had a wonderful evening," Mr Boomgaarden told me. "To be standing in a place where for more than 600 years people were talking, eating and socialising is a gorgeous feeling."

It is always important for an ambassador to leave the capital, he added. "The capital can eat you up; it important to know what is happening all over the country."

During his two-day trip to the region, Mr Boomgaarden, a former state secretary of the ministry for foreign affairs, spoke to business leaders and visited the Port of Hull.

"Everybody at this moment is talking about the crisis. I feel there is some optimism. I felt there was a lot of optimism about the future of the port and plans coming in the green economy. Planning for wind farm engines, Hull is in a very good position for anything that may be planned in the North Sea."

He described the link between Britain and Germany as a real relationship, citing the daily movement of steel between the two countries. "It's working," he said. "If somebody buys a BMW all over the world, the engine is mainly from Birmingham."

Asked how the German economy was performing, Mr Boomgaarden said: "We had some recovery. Out of recession after three quarters. It's going very slowly because as you know you need clients who are well off. Some of our clients, in particular the US, are going slowly.

"We got a good boost in Asia. The internal economy is also recovering. This will take some time as banks mainly have subsidiaries in London who were in the casino. They were part of it and also had their problems.

"We have similar problems as your Chancellor in facing deficits. It's much smaller because the base we started on was smaller but still it is a big problem. A lot of debate on that. People feel that if there's a sector that brought the crisis, why should the other sectors pay?"

He said the situation facing Greece and the Eurozone would not cause long-term damage to the monetary union.

A monetary union should have better coordinated fiscal and economic policy, he added.

I saved the big question until last. Should Britain join the euro?

"It's not for me to give advice. It would be a big advantage. It's up to the British to decide. You need a budget deficit of below three per cent to enter.

"It's really not an actual question at the moment. There needs to be fiscal discipline for that."

Some might view that as a less than diplomatic answer, but he's dead right about the lack of fiscal discipline.