Britain: At Sixes and Sevens

...Simply to accept the external tariff of the Inner Six and to remove internal barriers to trade would mean for Britain turning Commonwealth preference on its head—in other words, allowing free entry to Continental industrial products and put ting a tariff on Commonwealth products which at present enter the United Kingdom duty-free...

...A few respected independent journals like the Economist and the Ob-server have argued that if Britain negotiated now for entry to the Common Market it could join forces with those inside it, like General de Gaulle, who oppose the sort of integration desired by Chancellor Adenauer, Jean Monnet and the Com mission in Brussels, so as to prevent the achievement of political union...

...No one any longer feels it is inconceivable that Britain should join the Common Market...

...Finally, the preference accorded by the Common Market to the Continent's overseas territories would have to be extended at least to the African members of the Commonwealth if they were not to regard Britain's en try into the Common Market as a gross betrayal of their interests...

...I think it is important to make up our minds on that point," he added, "if we are to make progress in the future...

...Britain is anxious to negotiate on all these issues—and is more ready to accept a compromise settlement on them than ever before...

...These obstacles might not be insuperable by themselves...

...Quite apart from its general reluctance to accept federalistic commitments—which is probably declining—the general line of Continental policy both toward settlement with Russia and toward nationalism in Afro-Asia is one which Britain could not accept...

...There would therefore be powerful opposition on the Continent to the sort of changes in the Rome Treaty which would be required to enable Britain to join it...

...One of the most important statements by the Foreign Secretary in the debate was his final admission that the concept of a Free Trade Area was dead and that "another set of proposals of the same nature have no chance of acceptance...

...While EFTA is of only marginal interest to Britain itself, the decision to join it was of overwhelming national importance to some of the smaller members...

...So there is everything to be said for Britain waiting a year or two until the dust settles and the future of the Common Market is clearer...

...But any change in the Treaty of Rome which helps to meet Britain's legitimate interests in these respects is bound to damage some legitimate interests of existing members of the Common Market...

...To its eternal credit, the Government has resisted this temptation...

...It is by strengthening political consultation and military interdependence in side NATO that Britain can best in sure that if the economic division between itself and the Continent continues it will have no serious political consequences...

...For by trying persistently to revive the old project for a Free Trade Area covering both the six countries of the Common Market and the seven of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Britain has been making the gulf between herself and the Continent steadily wider...

...Very few people in Britain believe that any economic advantages could compensate for the loss of Britain's right to take independent initiative in world affairs and the loss of influence its liberal colonial policy has won in the underdeveloped parts of the world...

...BRITAIN:AT SIXES AND SEVENS London must bridge the economic gulf with Europe to avoid serious consequences By Denis Healey MONTHS OF MOUNTING speculation about a revolutionary change in Britain's policy toward Europe came to an end in a Parliamentary debate on July 25 when the Government made it clear that it was going to do nothing whatever about the problem for the time being...

...At the present time the only real choice facing Britain is whether or not to join the Common Market out right...

...Here too the debate revealed an important shift in British think ing...

...Moreover, to accept the common agricultural policy of the Six would mean discriminating against the Commonwealth in many of the foodstuffs and raw materials which are by far its most important exports to Britain...

...For there is no doubt that if Britain sought negotiations with this end in view, the negotiations would certainly break down and the possibility of friendship between Britain and the Continent would be destroyed for a generation...

...On the other hand, providing Britain does not interfere, it is possible that the Six may of their own free will modify their political objectives sufficiently to permit British entry— or alternatively, may modify their foreign policy so that federation would hold fewer terrors for Britain...

...In any case, NATO is a far better framework for political cooperation between Britain and the Continent than any purely European organization, as the failure of the Western European Union organization has shown...

...The old Pharisaical isolationism toward Europe has disappeared—in my opinion for good—and with it one of the major obstacles to good relations...

...But the debate also showed that even the most passionate "Europeans" in the British Parliament do not believe it would be possible for Britain to join the Common Market without first negotiating certain changes in the Treaty of Rome to meet its special economic problems...

...So far as the political dangers of the split between Britain and Europe are concerned, it is difficult to see these as the consequence of the economic division...

...Unfortunately, the prospects of America's taking such action this year are not good...

...There is also general agreement on what those problems are...

...Britain's failure to recognize the essentially political motivation of the Common Market was probably the main reason why the Free Trade Area negotiations broke down...

...Though the Treaty of Rome is vague on this point, all its more important supporters are quite unequivocal that the economic union it explicitly envisages must lead to political union...

...By accepting the Common Market generously for what it is—a historic contribution toward European unity and Western strength—Britain can not only reduce its potential dangers to negligible proportions, it can also create the psychological atmosphere which will be necessary to bridge the gulf in the future...

...But so long as the "integrationist" forces dominate the Common Market it would be very difficult for Britain to join...

...But there are at present additional obstacles on both sides which make negotiation undesirable for the time being...

...And though some British politicians regard EFTA as an expedient which can be abandoned because it has failed in its main objective of forcing the Six to come to terms, the great majority in both the Conservative and Labor parties is determined not to act without EFTA's full sup port...

...It would be the height of perfidy for Britain now to seek a private deal with the Common Market with out the support of the rest of EFTA...

...Under the Rome Treaty members of the Common Market are obliged by 1970 to abandon direct commercial relations with third countries—this would destroy the main surviving material interest through which Britain keeps the Commonwealth together...

...But success will depend above all on Britain's own readiness—and America's readiness—to make reciprocal reductions in its external tariff to meet any lowering in the external tariff of the Six...

...To put it over-crudely...

...Abandoning for the time being any major effort to unite the Six with the Seven, it will concentrate on trying to get the Common Market to adopt the lowest possible external tariff and the most liberal foreign-trade policy...

...Britain could scarcely join the Common Market except under some arrangement which brought much of the Commonwealth into close association with the Common Market as well: and though a Commonwealth-Europe economic organization would offer its members as a whole opportunities even greater than the Six in their present form can hope for, some interest-groups among the Six would lose advantages they now enjoy— particularly farming interests and the French overseas territories...

...This, however, is a much bigger change in British policy than might appear—and it is a change in the right direction...

...Indeed, in many re spects, the breakdown of the economic negotiations was the consequence and not the cause of worsening political relations...

...Three EFTA members, how ever, are committed to neutrality in foreign policy—Switzerland, Sweden and Austria—and this by itself is enough to prevent their joining the Common Market, whatever economic changes are made, so long as the Common Market countries are committed to achieve political as well as economic union...

...Worse still, since among the Six the consumer pays the cost of farm support directly through the price of food in the shop, while in Britain the taxpayer supports farm prices through Exchequer subsidies, to accept the common agricultural policy of the Six would mean a revolution in Britain's whole farm policy, including a big increase in the price of many foodstuffs in the shops...

...There is little doubt that this is also the view of those in the Common Market who would like Britain in principle, but fear that negotiations to accommodate it now might wreck such progress as the Common Market has al ready achieved...

...Britain has committed herself to six other European countries outside the Common Market to form a free trade association along quite different lines from the Treaty of Rome...

...In this it will have the support of the rest of General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and of the dominant forces inside the Common Market itself...

...As a result, Britain has come round to a position very close to that of the United States...

...This lesson at least has now been learned well in Whitehall...