Caught at the Crossroads

The two most powerful politicians in Western Europe, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and French President Georges Pompidou, will meet this week in Bonn for their regular biannual consultations. The meeting promises to be somewhat strained, since the two men--each in need of burnishing his political image at home--will be urgently pushing virtually opposite views on the future of the European Economic Community. How--and whether--they resolve their differences will vitally affect the course of the Common Market, which appears to be in increasing disarray.

Besides the present monetary crisis (see THE ECONOMY) the Common Market still has not worked out joint positions on other pressing issues that face a community that will expand from six members to ten next January, with the addition of Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway. The issues include the crucial question of how far and how fast the members should move toward political integration, their position toward the U.S. and a common stand on the approaching conference on European security. As a starting point for threshing out those problems, a summit meeting of the Ten was scheduled to be held in Paris in October. Now the guessing game in Europe is whether the summit will be held then or later--or at all.

Brandt has special reasons for wanting the summit to be held as scheduled. After ruling West Germany for 2 1/2 years as the Federal Republic's first Social Democratic Chancellor, Brandt has seen his coalition's slender majority dwindle to nothing, largely because of defections over the ratification of treaties with Moscow and Warsaw. He was also hurt by his government's poor record in its efforts to halt inflation. Faced with a stalemated Bundestag, he announced last week that he would seek new national elections in November. But it is questionable whether he will be able to defeat the powerful Christian Democratic opposition, let alone return with a decisive majority.

Brandt hopes to impress his status-conscious fellow Germans with his role as a world statesman by playing host to the great and famous at the Munich summer Olympics. In addition, Brandt would like to star at an October summit that would chart the Ten's course according to his vision of a strong united Europe that would work in close harmony with the U.S. This would help him allay the suspicions of many West German voters that his Ostpolitik has made the country too susceptible to pressures from the East bloc.

Pompidou has become increasingly cool toward the summit. Ever since he suffered a setback in the unenthusiastic French reaction to his referendum on the Market's expansion, Pompidou has been trying to enhance his own prestige in France by evoking the memory of Charles de Gaulle. In a gesture worthy of the general, Pompidou has threatened to postpone the summit unless the other nine demonstrate "true European feelings." By that he means that if political integration cannot be avoided, the nine should at least acknowledge France as the Community's leading political force. To a country, the nine oppose Pompidou's presumption.

As a price for holding the summit on schedule, Pompidou is likely to insist that a solution of the Community's monetary problems take precedence over European political integration or joint EEC foreign policy. The severity of the currency crisis may force the West Germans to agree. Still, Brandt and the other eight are determined not to allow the French to block progress on other issues by focusing exclusively on the monetary problem.

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