Test of Wills in the Common Market

...Thatcher apparently hopes that ultimately Paris will feel obliged to reassess its position...

...Although entering the network meant surrendering certain elements of national sovereignty, the sacrifice seemed worthwhile...

...Only a united Europe could presume to seek a place at the top table...

...By the early '60s, however, there was no denying that the breaking down of trade barriers between Community members had invigorated all their economies...

...With his Socialist government already reeling from domestic economic setbacks, a reduction in EEC benefits would leave him to choose between two unpalatable options: either raising taxes yet again to cover the shortfall, thus alienating the urban electorate, or putting up with direct action from French farmers, who have learned over the years that blocking main roads with dumped produce and burning tractors outside town halls often gets them what they want...

...Undeniable, too, was the gradual diminution of the postwar role Britain had played in European affairs...

...But London, with moral support from Bonn, is unlikely to either pay up or back down until the matter is satisfactorily thrashed out...

...Yet production of the tiny green fruit increased as the Community's subsidies began to pay producers for olives that were put into storage or destroyed...

...As was the case with Greece, their first applications for subsidies would arouse howls of complaint in Britain unless procedural and budgetary changes were enacted before they are taken into the Community...

...Like a gallant knight guarding a beleaguered damsel from the evil dragon of economic logic, Paris consistently ignores the changes in the world since 1957 as it derides what it claims are British attempts to undermine the Common Market's founding principles...

...In addition, the once proud imperial powers had become especially conscious of the slight influence they exerted in a world dominated by the Cold War between the United States, upon which they depended, and the Soviet Union, by which they felt threatened...

...Some visionaries went so far as to declare the organization the embryo of a United States of Europe that would one day rank as a third superpower...

...Every quart earns an EEC handout, and the surplus exceeds 1 million tons of milk powder...

...It is also always quick to gainsay charges that, while every member derives considerable benefits from the EEC, the countries of the northern tier tend to give and the southern states—particularly France, with its inefficient agriculture —get...

...The 10 heads of state agreed only that anything they might say would exacerbate the situation...

...The Coal and Steel Community's success following its establishment the next year inspired further efforts along similar lines...

...This is no charade...

...Not for nothing did Italian, Greek and Irish farmers, forewarned that cap expenditures were going to be under attack at Athens, descend on the Greek capital to demonstrate in favor of the status quo...

...Unfortunately, it has resulted as well in the accumulation of mountains of surpluses...

...Britain chose not to join at the time, despite its suffering many of the same economic woes as the "Six...

...The idea soon won support, partly because it made economic sense, partly because it promised to ameliorate the historic antagonism between the nations that were to be the primary participants, Germany and France...

...Some Europeans say the postwar period ended on New Year's Day 1958, when the Treaty of Rome became operative, bringing the Common Market into being with six members—West Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries...

...It has provided badly needed assistance to impoverished regions of the Community...

...At the same time, the Iron Lady's argument that European agriculture is now secure, and it is time the Common Market devoted more of its resources to the pressing problems of industrial development (in, for instance, Britain), made little impression on French President Francois Mitterrand...

...The government in Westminster cherished its prerogatives far too much to cede any of them to a gaggle of foreigners...

...FRANCE Test of Wills in the Common Market by norman gelb London A tits inception in 1957, no one suggested that the European Economic Community (EEC) would evolve free of setbacks, perplexities and obstructions...

...Peculiar as it may seem for heads of state to discuss cows when they gather, the docile beasts are a perennial topic at the EEC...

...Since the major points of controversy involve how much different countries should contribute to the Common Market kitty, the stalemate is life-threatening...

...And, in fact, the EEC's achievements have been impressive...

...The men of the soil hardly won over British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose own farmers are relatively few in number and more efficient than their counterparts on the Continent...

...The Common Market has peddled vast quantities of butter, grain and meat to the Soviet Union at give-away rates, while Europeans complained about high prices in their own shops...

...As in the U.S., where Congress' differences with the President often lead to the withholding of essential allocations until the last minute, the EEC members could normally be counted upon to fall into line when the crunch comes...

...In a stroke of bad luck for Britain, Mitterrand's Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson happens to be president of the Common Market's Council of Ministers until July...

...After Le Grand Charles left the scene, Britain was accepted, along with Ireland and Denmark, under terms far less advantageous than it might have negotiated earlier...

...as Western Europe struggled to emerge from the chaos left behind by World War II...

...So the English swallowed their pride and applied for entry into the Common Market twice...

...Wide agreement now exists that Britain's regular budgetary assessment was fixed at a level it couldn't permanently sustain, and at Athens a plan was presented for long-term reduction...

...It effectively averted this danger with price supports and protective tariffs...

...A more fundamental issue underlying the impasse is the Common Agricultural Policy (cap), today absorbing almost two-thirds of the EEC's $25 billion budget...

...At the moment, Mitterrand is in a notably poor position to make concessions...

...It has substantially stimulated economic growth and trade...

...Moves toward amalgamation seemed appropriate and expedient Norman Gelb is The New Leader's regular correspondent in Great Britain...

...Both applications were vetoed by French President Charles de Gaulle, who insisted that London would always be more closely tied to America than to the Continent...

...Whatever the rights or wrongs of Mitterrand's position, it is not surprising...

...For unless new funding arrangements are ratified before next autumn, the organization will be bankrupt...

...More realistic students of history tend to look back to 1950, when the fertile imagination of French economist Jean Monnet produced the proposal for the European Coal and Steel Community...

...If the current drain from the cap is not enough to keep Thatcher by her guns, she can always turn an eye to Spain and Portugal, who are standing on the EEC's threshold...

...Nor should that be completely ruled out in the present case...

...The French will not readily surrender the windfall...

...There you have one source of the current trouble...

...The Community-wide summit meeting held in Athens last month produced such deep dissension that, for the first time, no final communique could be issued, not even one expressing vague, hopeful sentiments...

...Veritable lakes of wine have been bought up...

...West Germany and Britain are the EEC's biggest contributors, France its biggest beneficiary...

...It also has pinpointed global developments that might warrant an active Western European response...

...But the pressures against an accord are serious...

...When Greece joined the EEC in 1981, its olive oil trade was declining in the face of world-wide competition...

...The cap was designed to guarantee Western Europe's farmers a "fair" standard of living at a time when the vestiges of war and stiff outside competition threatened to wipe them out...

...Profiting far less than France from the communal pot, and not having to fear that its farmers will run riot, Britain can easily afford to wait as the EEC drifts toward bankruptcy...

...Besides, Her Majesty's ministers didn't expect the EEC to amount to much...

...Most observers were confident, though, that without depriving member countries of their national identities, the Common Market would weld Western Europe into an entity that was sturdy economically and increasingly unified politically...

...The immediate cause of the summit's failure was old nemesis France's decision to block the adjustment...

...Most European economists consider the collapse of the Common Market unthinkable, and the confusion arising from such an eventuality would surely be immense...

...Thatcher stood pat, as she usually does when a confrontation arises, and the summit bogged down...

...One-Europe advocates frequently trace the roots of a united Continent to Charlemagne...

...Indeed, most of the cap funds are devoted to the storage, destruction or dumping of surplus food...

...The EEC sugar surplus, packed in two-pound bags, could circle the equator almost three times...

...Still, the terms of a satisfactory compromise are, at this stage, not in sight...

...Nonetheless, the Common Market now faces the possibility of collapse...

...For even though the number of cows in the Common Market countries has remained largely unchanged over the last decade, milk production has risen by 25 per cent...