Euratom and the Common Market

...The Kremlin is aware of the vast implications of this change of heart...

...To sum up, the six West European nations are now taking an important step along the difficult road to a united Europe...

...Prospects for ratification of the treaties are good, though the parliaments will have the last word...

...and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), which helped administer the Marshall Plan but was dependent for policy decisions on the national governments...

...In Italy and the Benelux countries, the democratic majorities are determinedly European in outlook...

...and the impact of Suez is slowly overcoming French reluctance...

...This promise was similarly held out by Molotov at the time EDC was pending, although defeat of EDC did not bring German unity a step nearer...

...Nevertheless, a major political change has occurred since the EDC days, and that is in the attitude of the West German Social Democrats...

...The treaties represent an important step forward in the move toward West European unity which began with the Marshall Plan a decade ago...

...Moreover, the ECSC's constitutional organs (executive, legislative, judiciary) have the right to levy taxes on the coal and steel industries, to borrow and lend money, to coordinate investments, and to aid the unemployed to adapt to new jobs...

...In June 1955, however, the foreign ministers of the six nations met at Messina and set new targets: the common market and the "Euratom" community...

...Britain did not join directly but set up an "association" with the High Authority of ECSC...

...Suez, which showed how weak the European nations were when acting on their own, has given new urgency to this effort, and the Euratom and Common Market treaties should be succeeded by further steps...

...The Soviet Union and the Communist parties of France and Italy declare that the Common Market is part of a consolidation of the Western "imperialist" bloc and as such is repudiated by all peace-loving peoples...

...Spaak, of course, has worked for the maximum degree of supranationality, but he has had to reckon with potential resistance in France...

...This British initiative results from a desire to avoid being frozen out if the Continental countries achieve a better competitive position as a result of integration...

...Let us hope this committee will soon indicate the next step en the road to one Europe...

...At the same time, Soviet Premier Bulganin is sending notes to Chancellor Adenauer suggesting a resumption of negotiations toward the reunification of Germany...

...Some European federalists criticize the current treaties on the ground that the Common Market's executive commission still remains rather dependent on the six governments...

...On May 1, 1953, the High Authority announced the opening of a common market for coal and steel among the six nations...

...London's move is not merely an outcome of Suez, for Harold Macmillan, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, exhibited deep interest in the Common Market long before Nasser seized the canal...

...The Common Market extends the coal-steel principle to the entire economy of the six-nation area...

...Today, however, he strongly favors European integration, and insists that West Germany would only leave NATO if the conditions for reunification were agreed on by the Big Four...

...But economic integration of this type is important only as a step toward political unity: What Europe needs is a Federal Government strong enough to run defense and foreign policy on its own...

...The next attempt, at the peak of the cold war, was the European Defense Community, and West European federalists hoped a Political Community would follow...

...The first steps were short, indeed: the Council of Europe, a purely consultative body which the Manchester Guardian labeled a "talking shop" at its very first meeting...

...Since the local Communists cannot deny the economic vistas which the market opens up to the working class, they stress two points in their attack: (1) the market's link to America, and (2) the possibility that, because of the association of French and Belgian Africa, all the West European peoples would become involved in colonial responsibilities...

...Thus was born the Schuman Plan, first proposed in May 1950 and ratified as a treaty two years later, which set up the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC...

...At the time of the last German election (September 1953), Socialist leader Erich Ollenhauer opposed both EDC and German entry into NATO...

...Euratom gives a supranational agency practical powers and tasks in atomic research and planning, as well as priority in obtaining fissionable materials inside and outside the community...

...The U.S...

...and discriminatory transportation charges are to be abolished...

...There is also the danger that it could not withstand crises which might occur in the next 15 years—such as the defeat of the current European-minded leaders by nationalists, or a serious economic recession...

...The ministers established a committee, headed by Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak, which in 18 months of hard work and consultation drafted the treaties which, with final adjustments made by the ministers in Paris last week, will now be signed...

...Britain, for its part, will not join the Common Market, but has announced its intention to set up a "free trade area" with it...

...Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet of France, backed by Germany's Konrad Adenauer and the late Alcide de Gasperi and Carlo Sforza of Italy, saw that the only way to progress was to build up European institutions with federal powers, even if they only concerned partial sectors of European life...

...corporate taxes and working conditions are to be equalized...

...Rut today, with Gomulka in power in I'oland and growing unrest in East Germany, the Kremlin fears the dangerous attraction which a Social Democratic government in Bonn would exert on the restive satellites...

...During that period, the basis for a free movement of capital and labor is to be created...

...Certainly this commission has less real power than the ECSC High Authority...

...in Germany, the Social Democrats have joined the Christian Democrats in a European orientation...

...Moscow may have considered Ollenhauer somewhat of an asset back in the days when he opposed EDC and West German NATO membership, and when East Europe was passive...

...But the French National Assembly refused to ratify EDC, and integration came to a temporary halt...

...Remembering the failure of EDC, the six governments have decided to take such resistance into account beforehand, and to prepare a treaty which can be ratified...

...Nevertheless, politics is still the art of the possible...

...In fact, economic integration must bring political unity, for a unified economy among six states pursuing conflicting general policies cannot last long...

...it is sending notes to Adenauer in this pre-election period to take the wind out of Ollenhauer's sails...

...There is ground for hope that such steps will be forthcoming...

...There are no longer any tariffs or quotas among the 160 million consumers of these nations...

...Certainly it is easier to fan East European hostility toward West Germany with a conservative Catholic as Chancellor than with a Socialist...

...By Renato Giordano Euratom and the Common Market Six coal-steel pool nations advance toward greater economic integration Rome Some time this month the foreign ministers of France, West Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries will sign treaties establishing an atomic community and a common market among the six nations...

...Government is prepared to give Euratom 20 tons of enriched uranium as a starter...

...Jean Monnet is President of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe, which includes the leaders of the main political parties and free labor unions in the six nations and which has spearheaded the integration effort in the past two years...

...A united Europe, it was realized then, could not be achieved as speedily and directly as the American Federal Union, but only step by step...

...The treaty provides for cutting tariffs among the nations by 30 per cent within the next four years, and eliminating tariffs and import quotas altogether within 15 years...

...This means that the British would accept the customs-union features of the market (with certain limitations), while abstaining from the broader, more positive aspects...