Common Market: A Great Day for Europe

SO important was Britain's decision to the Continent last week that West German television carried live coverage from London, repeatedly flashing the word YES on screens after the vote was in. Two minutes later, Chancellor Willy Brandt was on TV to declare it "a great day for Europe." NATO's Secretary-General Joseph Luns glowed to reporters: "The sun shines all over Europe today." Queen Juliana of The Netherlands, informed of the result at a gala banquet in Hamburg, immediately raised her glass and told the 360 dinner guests, who broke into applause. Jean Monnet, 82, justly known as "the Father of the Common Market," watched the vote from the gallery in the House of Commons. Afterward he beamed: "This is what I have been waiting for during the last 25 years. Now it's the turn of the youth of Europe." On the cliffs of Dover, the European Movement, a pro-Market pressure group, built a bonfire to signal France that Britain was rejoining Europe. It was lit by former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and burned so fiercely that nearby grass was set afire and firemen had to be called.

There was an answering bonfire from Cap Blanc-Nez near Calais, and French President Georges Pompidou warmly avowed that the vote was "proof that this time the Common Market is truly irreversible." But not many Frenchmen were that fervent. While the rest of Europe watched an hour-long special program on the Commons vote, France's state-run television disposed of the news in 30 seconds. The Belgians were probably most enthusiastic, as they had been all along. When they built the EEC headquarters in Brussels three years ago, they planted not six flagstaff's in front but seven--the extra one, as a spokesman explained at the time, "for the Union Jack."

Wide Margin. In London, the debate had gone on day after day, sometimes until dawn broke over the misty Thames and the crowds were already queuing for seats in the galleries. If at times there seemed to be little eloquence in those torrents of words, it may have been because, as one M.P. observed, "this is not just a six-day debate but a peroration to a debate which has lasted 20 years." The real drama lay in the approaching vote. In the end, 69 opposition Labor members voted with the Conservative government, while 39 Tories switched the other way. By an unexpectedly wide margin of 356 votes to 244, Britain agreed in principle to join the European Economic Community effective Jan. 1, 1973. The decision may not have been quite on a par with the signing of Magna Carta, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or Waterloo, as some claimed, but it did promise to change the shape and character of Europe--and Europe's role in the world.

The vote was a considerable personal triumph for Prime Minister Edward Heath, the most European of Britain's leaders since Winston Churchill. As Lord Privy Seal in Macmillan's Cabinet, he was in charge of negotiations for entry between 1961 and 1963, when the effort was ended by the first of De Gaulle's two vetoes. As Heath put it, winding up last week's debate: "I do not think any Prime Minister has stood in this box in time of peace and asked the House to take a positive decision of such importance as I am asking it to take tonight." By the clever parliamen tary maneuver of allowing a free vote by Tory M.P.s--thereby making it harder for the Labor Party to impose discipline on its own pro-Marketeers--he assured a majority and also brightened his image in Britain and on the Continent. Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson, by contrast, emerged from the long struggle with the derisive nickname "Flip Flop." He had renewed Britain's entry bid in 1967, only to have it again vetoed by De Gaulle. Now, heeding polls over principles, he denounced the terms of entry, though several of his own former Cabinet ministers admitted that his government would have been delighted to accept such terms.

Save Our Soles. Pain and personal cost were in store for those Labor M.P.s who voted with the government. Their local parties threatened to withdraw support, and their constituents flooded them with letters and telegrams. One read:

"Your vote will not be forgotten or forgiven." Deputy Labor Leader Roy Jenkins, the staunch pro-Marketeer who led his party's rebels, put his job on the line; he must stand for re-election to his post this week and could well be dumped by vengeful colleagues. As Jenkins left the Commons, a Labor backbencher chanted: "Traitor, traitor."

The vote did not reflect the mood of the country, either. Only 30% of Britons favored joining the Common Market, according to the latest Louis Harris poll, while 49% were opposed. Some anti-Marketeers were fearful of what Wilson called "blackleg labor" from the Continent at a time of 3.9% unemployment, high by British standards. Housewives were worried that the Common Market's steep agricultural tariffs would send food prices soaring. British fishermen, distressed by rules that open the waters of one nation to the trawlers of all, recently held a sail-in off Brighton, displaying banners that read SAVE OUR SOLES.

Over the debate, as well, hovered the Briton's traditional insular distrust of things Continental, of losing his national sovereignty, and of seeing his way of life transformed. It is a fear that, as Anthony Burgess put it, "England is to be absorbed, her own distinctive character sordined, and the end of a great Empire be completed in the bastardisation of a great empire-building nation."

Trying Time. The depth of the opposition presages a trying time for Heath before Britain actually becomes a member of the Common Market. Over the next 14 months, his government must push through the Commons detailed enabling legislation bringing Britain's laws into line with those of the Community. Wilson has vowed to fight that legislation "clause by clause and line by line," and Heath has no guarantee that the Labor members who deserted their party to support the principle of joining Europe will do so again on the particulars. In any major vote of confidence, however, the Prime Minister could probably bring his own rebels into line and carry the day.

The cold fact is that both economic and political realities have been driving Britain inexorably toward Europe. Since France, West Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the world has become a less comfortable place for a country that does not belong to one trading bloc or another. Britain's once prized "special relationship" with the U.S. has all but dissolved. The Commonwealth has proved no substitute for the industrialized Continent as a trading partner. Over the past ten years, the combined gross national product of the Six has increased by 95%, the U.S.'s by 61%, Britain's by only 42%. Discounting inflation, the real wages of British workers, which were among the highest in Europe in 1958, are now lower than in any region of the Common Market except southern Italy. That trend would probably become more pronounced if Britain remained outside of Europe, with little bargaining power to help shape the economic institutions of the future.

Equator to the Pole. In practical terms, the effects of Britain's entry will be felt gradually over a period of five or six years. The rules of membership commit London to lowering its tariffs against other EEC members by 20% as of April 1973, and by a like amount on each subsequent Jan. 1 until 1977, when the tariffs will be abolished. The Continental countries will do the same with their generally lower tariffs against British goods. The result will be to expose Britain's sometimes lackluster businessmen to competition from makers of Italian refrigerators and woolens, West German heavy electrical equipment and chemicals, and French tires.

British entrepreneurs, however, see a like opportunity in Europe-wide marketing. One survey of 1,000 firms found 95% in favor of joining the Common Market. Big companies like British Leyland Motors and Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. are already firmly implanted on the Continent. Even without the tariff advantages of the Common Market, some British firms have been doing very well indeed. West Germans pay a duty premium to buy Perkins industrial machinery; Schweppes is popular in the French soft-drink market.

Given the spur of fresh competition, the Europeans are plainly hoping to repeat their early burst of economic growth, which after averaging 9% a year from 1958 to 1969 has slowed considerably in the past two years. The expanded Common Market's influence will stretch from the equator--counting former French and British African colonies that have been granted special trading arrangements--almost to the North Pole, assuming that Norway joins after a referendum next summer, along with Denmark and Ireland. The Ten will have a population of 258 million (see map), a combined gross national product that is expected to total $660 billion in 1971 (compared with an estimated $1,058 billion for the U.S. this year), and almost twice as much gold in their reserves as there is in Fort Knox. The Ten now account for one-third of the world's trading, v. 14% for the U.S.

Looking for Leadership. Can collective political power be far behind? At present, the Common Market is politically stagnant, its parliament virtually powerless, its bureaucrats in Brussels more adept at harmonizing the design of milk bottles than at deciding important matters of policy. Ralf Dah-rendorf, one of nine EEC commissioners, accuses the organization of being incapable of recovering the broad political vision of its founders. Guide Carli, head of the Bank of Italy, recently declared that economic development has gone about as far as it can go without further political development. And political development--meaning internal integration and common international policies--has been held up pending Britain's entry. Shortly before the Commons vote, Willy Brandt said, "The success of the Western Europeans' efforts to assert their political weight more forcefully in the world depends to a large degree on the full cooperation of the British." That the Common Market will have. Heath wants to use the Community for developing a distinctly European foreign policy and for defense consultation as well. Though there can be no assurance that the Ten will follow through to actual political unity, Britain's entry provides a considerable impetus toward that goal. As EEC officials put it, "We are wide open for leadership." Italy looks to London as a guarantor of the democratic process within the Community and a counterweight against dominance by France and Germany. The West Germans hope that the British will help impose more effective parliamentary controls on the Eurocrats. The Benelux countries, having frequently been forced to bow to the demands of the Continent's Big Two, are also expected to look to Britain for counsel. So are Denmark and Norway, whose economies are so closely tied to Britain's that they have little choice but to follow her into the Community. Not that Prince Charles is about to be appointed Emperor, as Nancy Mitford has wryly suggested. Ireland, for example, which will vote on entry in a referendum next spring and which has already won assurance that important EEC documents will be translated into Gaelic, sees the Common Market as a way of finally escaping from British domination. Dublin may well look to Paris for leadership.

Words for a Friend. What will a stronger Europe mean to the U.S.? Since the end of World War II, in the words of a congressional act that provided the legislative basis for the Marshall Plan, it has been "the policy of the people of the U.S. to encourage the unification of Europe," and that policy has been endorsed by every President since then, including Richard Nixon. The irony today is that Washington is largely achieving the goal by reverse means; European doubts about American political and military leadership, as well as dismay over Washington's protectionist economic measures, have been a more effective centripetal force than a generation of American exhortation.

Last week Italian Premier Emilio Colombo reiterated his proposal for a European summit meeting. Such a gathering, he said, "should enable the Community to speak with a united voice with its friend America." Yet unless the economic issues between Washington and the capitals of the Ten have been settled by then, that summit could turn into a strategy session on how to counter the U.S.

The ultimate result of Britain's entry will be to end its uncertain balance between the U.S. and the Continent; henceforth, British weight will be thrown to the European side. At the same time, if the economic aggravations between the U.S. and Europe are allowed to continue, the old dream of transatlantic "partnership" could be transformed into a new reality of competing political and trading blocs.

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