Uncommon Authority

Continental Europe's ailing steel industry, already plagued by overcapacity, has been seriously jarred by a recent invasion of cut-rate steel from Japan, Austria, Britain and the Iron Curtain countries. Since the Common Market's steel producers have the right to align their prices to the lowest import offer, they have cut them to unprofitable levels to meet the new competition.

Last week, in a protectionist move that contrasts with recent tariff-cutting efforts, the tariffs on steel imports into the Common Market were raised to a standard 9% (they now range from 4.5% in The Netherlands to 9% in Italy). What made the hike all the more remarkable was that members of the Common Market had disagreed so long and so furiously about it that the supranational European Coal and Steel Community, which is made up of the same six nations but has remained autonomous, stepped in and imposed its own decision on them.

In several meetings over the last two months, France, Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg have argued strongly for the hike--though the French and Germans disagreed over whether it should be subject to change in the upcoming round of tariff negotiations with the U.S. But Italy and The Netherlands wanted none of it. High-tariff Italy sees no reason to expose its steelmakers to the same competition as the others face. With very little steel of its own, The Netherlands naturally wants to keep prices low. The Dutch-Italian intransigence completely deadlocked last week's meeting of the national ministers, and French Minister of Industry Michel Maurice-Bokanowski left the Brussels conference room with the other ministers exclaiming: "This means a death knell for the whole European steel industry."

Not quite. While the Dutch and Italians exulted, the Coal and Steel Community's High Authority, which has the power to overrule its member nations, hastily met. It took only 15 minutes before High Authority President Rinaldo Del Bo, himself an Italian, emerged to announce that "with deepest regret" the High Authority had found it "indispensable" to raise the tariff on steel. That gave the higher-tariff backers the right to put the new rates into effect immediately, although those that oppose them can still appeal for a judgment by the Common Market's Court of Justice. The court could overrule the High Authority's decision only if it found that the Authority had violated the mandate set down in its founding treaty, but has no power to rule on the decision's merits.

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