Europe: A Rival or an Also-Ran

AH cher ami, at last you are here," said French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann as he spotted his British counterpart, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, in Luxembourg's glass-sheathed Centre Europeen. "I'm glad to see you!" Did Schumann's government share that feeling? That was the critical question last week as the foreign ministers of Europe's six Common Market nations greeted the delegates from the four hopeful applicants--Ireland, Norway and Denmark as well as Britain.

Formidable Rival. The hard negotiations to determine whether the Six will become the Ten are to be conducted at the European Economic Community's headquarters in Brussels. Nonetheless, it seemed fitting that the historic talks formally began in Luxembourg, where the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner of the Common Market, established its first headquarters in 1952 under the tutelage of Robert Schuman, France's pioneering Pan-European, and his compatriot Jean Monnet. Since then, the hopes of creating a United States of Europe have faded amidst charges that the Six add up to little more than a self-serving customs union. Enlargement would help to clear away some of the inertia that has set in at Brussels. At the very least, the inclusion of Britain and its three fellow applicants in the Market would make it a more formidable rival of the superpowers in terms of population (more than 250 million) and gross national product (see map opposite). At best, their admission could impart fresh momentum to the old dream of Monnet, who was sure that "once a common market interest has been created, then political union will come naturally."

When the detailed negotiations get under way in the fall, the Six will bargain directly with the four applicants through the EEC Council of Ministers. Little of the dickering will be entrusted to the EEC Executive Commission, the Brussels-based body of Eurocrats that was once expected to become a sort of European supergovernment. When Belgium's astute Jean Rey stepped down as commission president last week, it was somehow not surprising that he was succeeded by a relative unknown: Italy's Franco Maria Malfatti, 43, a second-ranking Italian government minister (post and telecommunications).

There are enough pesky details to be settled to keep the talks going for at least 18 months, and perhaps much longer. And success is by no means guaranteed. Before they get to haggling over such questions as Denmark's special relationships with Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, the negotiators will deal with the main issue: Britain. It is widely assumed that London's third bid for Common Market membership will probably be its last. With the pound in reasonably robust shape, Britain is nowhere near as desperate as it was in 1967 when, hat in hand, it made its last previous bid.

This time, to be sure, one formidable personal obstacle to British entry is absent: Charles de Gaulle, whose conviction that London would only be a Trojan horse for American interests kept the British on the outside looking in for nearly a decade.

Deeply Pessimistic. There is wide disagreement, however, on just how much more agreeable France's present management will be to British entry than De Gaulle was. Rome is deeply pessimistic. "No matter how polite they may be," says an Italian close to the Market talks, "it's still the French against the Five. They haven't changed a bit from Gaullist days in their attitude toward sovereignty."

Those less gloomy than the Italians note that France is likely to think hard about blackballing Britain a third time, which might forever scuttle chances for a united Europe. This time, moreover, the French may see some pluses in British entry--particularly as a counterweight to Bonn's rising power in Common Market councils. "The French have many qualities," observes Dutch Foreign Minister Joseph Luns, "one of them being realism. They realize they will have to play the game--or, as the English say, they'll have to play cricket."

The stakes will be high. Because of wide differences in agricultural productivity, the Common Market has evolved a subsidy system that in effect supports the inefficient farms of France and Italy at the expense of the other countries. As a highly efficient grower and also a heavy importer of food, Britain will have to pay dearly to join the Market. Estimates are that Britain might have to shell out cash subsidies totaling as much as $2.6 billion a year. The average Briton would foot the bill in the form of a rise in food prices on the order of 18% to 26%.

Prime Minister Edward Heath has made it clear that Britain is not willing to pay any price to join the Market. Anthony Barber, Tory Party chairman and Heath's man at the Common Market talks, warned last week that if the Six insisted on Britain's paying too much or too fast, "no British government could contemplate joining." Recent polls show that up to 75% of Britons are opposed to entry. A "horror corner" at a National Farmers' Union exhibit in Surrey showed why: it featured a grocery-filled market basket with comparative current prices--$5.16 for Britain, $8.16 for France and $10.56 for Italy.

No Bacon. Ex-Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson has been an advocate of the Market himself, but critics suggest that he might seize on the issue as a means of harming the Tories. One of the calmest voices in the whole Market hassle is that of George Brown, one of Wilson's old Labor Party sidemen, who was upset in Britain's recent election and denied a seat in the House of Commons for the first time in 25 years. "When we of this generation go," Brown wrote in London's Sunday Times last week, "our children and grandchildren will respect our memory much less by the price of bacon in the year 1970 than they will by reference to the kind of political environment we have bequeathed them." Europe's long-range prospect of becoming a real rival to the superpowers or merely an also-ran may depend on whether that spirit --which was notably lacking in Luxembourg last week--will prevail in Brussels over the next several months.

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