Europe: The British Are Coming!?*

IT was the same elegant ballroom in which Charles de Gaulle had twice scuttled British applications for entry into the Common Market. Appropriately, many of the journalists who had witnessed those historic pronouncements were among the 300 newsmen who gathered at the Elysee Palace one evening last week. Seated on gilt chairs with barricades of cameramen and TV crews behind them, they waited for the appearance of Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath and France's President Georges Pompidou.

The conference was scheduled for 6 p.m., but the hour came and went and nothing happened. Some reporters wandered about the palace while others went out into the beautiful Elysee garden, which was covered with rich green umbrellas of chestnut trees in the final dazzle of bloom. A light, misty rain coated the grass and clung to the dark blue jackets of the Garde Republicaine. At 6:30, loudspeakers crackled that the two men would appear at 7. British journalists began to fret about some unexpected "difficulty." A French correspondent grumbled: "The general was always on time, even when he said no."

Opening the Way

Then, behind a procession of aides and bodyguards, came Heath and Pompidou, walking in step into the gilt and crystal glitter of the ballroom. Pompidou signaled Heath to precede him into the room. The two men seated themselves in Louis XIV armchairs on a raised dais, with Heath at the President's right.

"We are both aware that the questions we are debating come at an important moment in the history of our nations and in the history of Europe," said Pompidou, speaking without text or notes. "Many believed that Great Britain is not European and that it wanted to get into the Common Market only to destroy it," he explained in a disarmingly candid reference to the justification that De Gaulle had twice used for vetoing Britain's earlier application to join the European Economic Community. "Many others also believed that France was prepared to use all means of veto to prevent Great Britain from getting into the Common Market. Well, ladies and gentlemen," said Pompidou, now glancing at Heath, "tonight you see before you two men who are convinced that this is not the case." Then, in a convoluted manner, Pompidou added: "It would be unreasonable to think that an agreement cannot be reached between Britain and the Common Market in the talks beginning in June."

Ted Heath, who made his maiden speech in Parliament 21 years ago on the subject of European unity, responded: "I have long believed that Europe must grow steadily together in unity, and that Britain should be a part of that wider unity. I believe that only in this way can we secure the future peace of our Continent and end forever the quarrels which have brought such suffering upon our countries in the past."

There was no misinterpreting the words. Britain, having spurned Europe 14 years ago when the Treaty of Rome was concluded, and having twice been spurned in turn, has now been invited to join the Common Market. WE'RE ON OUR WAY! headlined London's Daily Mirror after the two-day talks had ended. At the star-shaped Batiment Berlaymont in Brussels, one jubilant member of the nine-man EEC Commission cried: "There is absolutely no doubt about it--Britain is coming in!" The Heath-Pompidou understanding opened the way not only for British admission but also for entry by Ireland, Denmark and Norway. By 1973, the Six are likely to become the Ten, with a combined population of 253 million and a $660 billion gross national product, second only to America's. Later, that number may well be enhanced by the association of other West European nations, such as Portugal, Sweden and Spain. There is still a possibility, however, that the British Parliament will rebuke Heath and reject membership.

Moreover, there is no denying that with or without Britain, Europe is decades away from achieving the political and economic cohesion that would make it a truly united or a confederated power. Even so, if Europe does eventually find unity, the Paris meeting will loom as one of the major landmarks.

Hospitable Climate

The groundwork for the Heath-Pompidou sessions had been laid the week before in Brussels. During an all-night meeting, the Foreign Ministers of the Six and British Chief Negotiator Geoffrey Rippon reached working arrangements on three major points concerning British entry. They were preferential treatment for Commonwealth sugar-producing countries, British adjustments to the EEC's higher-priced agricultural produce, and a formula for British contributions to the EEC's central budget. A number of other developments, however, helped ensure a hospitable climate for last week's summit meeting. One was West Germany's recent unilateral decision to allow the Deutsche Mark to float; the action, designed to combat West German inflation, upset other members of the Six and helped persuade Pompidou that some counterweight to German power was needed. Another favorable development was the U.S. Senate's defeat of the Mansfield resolution, which alarmed Europeans by calling for a 50% cut in American troop strength on the Continent by year's end. The Senate's action buttressed European hopes that NATO will be in a strong bargaining position in any future talks with the Warsaw Pact on balanced, mutual troop reductions in Central Europe. But whatever the outcome of such negotiations, most Europeans realize that they will remain dependent upon the U.S. for nuclear protection.

Before leaving for Paris, Heath told a conference of conservative women in London's Westminster Hall: "We face a momentous test of will." The result of that test, he went on, would answer the question: "Do we have the wisdom to achieve by construction and cooperation what Napoleon and Hitler failed to achieve by destruction and conquest?"

So eager did the P.M. seem to learn the answers that when he climbed down from his HS-125 executive jet at Orly

Airport, he shot right past the honor guard and band. Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas had to steer him back to the reviewing stand to hear the Marseillaise and God Save the Queen.

Good Morning

The visit went well from the start. The mood was so upbeat that on the first day of the meeting, French national radio began its broadcasts with a salute that must have rattled coffee cups from Calais to Cannes: "Good morning," instead of the customary "Bonjour." The newspaper France-Soir ran a headline that was almost English: POMPIDOU-HEATH SMILING DAY. Heath, similarly, spoke in a language that was almost French when he arrived at Orly. London's Evening Standard slipped in a small tribute with the headline TED ET GEORGES: SUNSHINE FINALE. Meanwhile, at a blacktie dinner at the Elysee the first night, Pompidou toasted the Queen with a superb Dom Perignon '64 champagne and noted: "Our views are sufficiently close that we may continue without pessimism."

All told, Heath and Pompidou spent twelve hours in face-to-face talks attended only by translators (the two leaders were also together for two luncheons and one dinner). They ranged over the entire spectrum of Common Market issues. Meeting mostly in the gold-and-tapestried Salon Dore, occasionally strolling in the Elysee's tree shaded back garden, they dealt with two unresolved questions: preferential treatment for New Zealand, to which Britain has highly emotional ties; and the role of sterling. On both issues, Heath was heartened by Pompidou's reasonableness. The two men concurred that some accommodation was manageable on granting access to New Zealand butter and cheese; they instructed their negotiators in Brussels to work out details. Regarding sterling, Pompidou agreed to consider Heath's request that the inevitably complex talks on the role of the British pound be kept outside the general EEC discussions so that the entry negotiations would not be slowed down.

In return, Pompidou won certain assurances from Heath. One was that Britain would place the Market's economic interests ahead of London's commitments elsewhere. Heath also advised Pompidou that Britain would ultimately put the EEC political considerations ahead of its loose ties to the Commonwealth and its even looser ties to the U.S. That helped convince Pompidou that the British have become sufficiently European-minded.

Pompidou needed considerable convincing. Like De Gaulle, he feared that Britain, once in the Market, would merely be a stalking horse for huge American corporations. After De Gaulle's funeral last November, Heath asked during a brief meeting with Pompidou: "Do you see a major difficulty to Britain's entry into the European Economic Community?" "I see only one," Pompidou replied. With that, he opened a copy of Le Figaro to a full-page ad for British Overseas Airways Corporation that proclaimed: L'AMERIQUE COMMENCE A LONDRES--America begins in London.

Shortly before last week's visit, Pompidou expressed other doubts. In an interview with the Brussels daily Le Soir, he said: "The countries of Western Europe are not movie stars who change fiances every six months. If we get married, it is forever. So we must be serious about it." In the same interview, Pompidou voiced the fear that French would be supplanted by English as the EEC's major working language. That would be disastrous, he indicated, because English is not simply the language of Britain but "above all, the language of America." He added: "Europe will only be Europe if she distinguishes herself--I don't say cuts off, I say distinguishes herself--from America." In many ways, Heath agrees. Unlike many of his predecessors, he feels no particular bond with the U.S. "Heath is not anti-American, he's un-American," British Author Anthony Sampson (The New Europeans) said recently. "He has no pull toward America, either through family, the war or friendships. He feels no reciprocity from America."

British anti-Marketers seized on Pompidou's display of linguistic patriotism as a good example of why London ought to stay out. The latest Louis Harris poll shows that 62% of the British public do not want to join the Six v. only 20% who do and 18% undecided. Interestingly, 82% of those queried thought that Britain would join the Common Market anyway.

Only a few years ago, the British public was overwhelmingly in favor of joining Europe. To a degree, the switch has been caused by the two French vetoes, which still wound British pride.

There is still a residual insular attitude, as expressed by the character Uncle Matthew in Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love: "Abroad is utterably bloody and foreigners are fiends." Few Britons seriously believe that they will lose their national identity if they join the Market, any more than French or Germans have lost theirs. Still, they do not want to feel lumped together as one part of a frequently squabbling whole. Most important, at least in the short run, the British fear that higher-priced Common Market foods will cause drastic increases in their cost of living.

Historical Imprint

Opponents range from right-wing Tories and M.P.s with farming and fishing constituencies to left-wingers who see the Market as just that--a soulless bazaar dedicated only to profits and consumption. The most vocal opponent of all is Enoch Powell, the leading Tory right-winger, who has been traveling throughout the Six to explain why a majority of Britons feel "a repugnance" toward joining the EEC. Says Powell: "The principal events which have placed their stamp upon our consciousness of who we are were the very ones in which we have been alone, confronting a Europe that was lost or hostile. That is the folk memory by which our nation has been formed." Some Britons are less worried that this vague Jungian consciousness of the past will be submerged than that some shaky industries of the present will go under. "If we go in now," says Roger Littlewood, 34, an industrial salesman from Birmingham, "European competitors will bring us to our knees before we have a chance to fight on an equal footing. We won't survive."

British pro-Marketers make the opposite argument --that without the stimulus or even jolt of Market membership, Britain will continue sliding downhill. As the London Times put it recently: "It used to be said that Rolls-Royce was Britain; if we stay out of Europe, Britain will be Rolls-Royce." Continental proponents of an expanded EEC make much the same argument. They reason that Britain's entry will enliven the Common Market and ultimately accelerate progress toward European unity. By contrast, British failure to gain admission would cause a period of disillusion and recrimination within the Common Market, especially if the French once more vetoed London's application. In that event, most scenarios agree, the other five members would turn against France, leaving her angry and isolated. The development of the Common Market, especially along the lines of political unity, would be stunted. Without a countervailing force in the EEC, West Germany would dominate the Community. But a diminished Market would lack the larger European framework that Bonn needs to anchor its policies toward its Communist neighbors. Italy, with the West's largest Communist Party, would feel vulnerable.

As opposed to that apocalyptic vision, quite a cheerful one can be summoned up by believers in European unity--assuming that the Six do indeed become the Ten, and eventually add others. The Europeanists note that the nations of Western Europe contain 320 million people with a spending power of $385 billion, exports of $96 billion and imports of $102 billion.

They also concede that strong centripetal forces are still at work.

Within an area one-third the size of the U.S., eleven major languages and countless dialects are spoken, 15 separate currencies are used, and starkly different governments, from parliamentary democracies to outright dictatorships, are in power. There are national loyalties, regional loyalties and local loyalties, often at odds with one another.

Still, there is a growing confluence of interests, particularly within Europe's industrialized heartland. After World War II, many countries in the area underwent the shattering upheaval of a switchover from rural-to urban-dominated societies. At the same time, they experienced a baby boom that has given West Germany an under-18 population of 28%, England 29%, France 30%. Today problems of urban blight, restless youth, insufficient housing and environmental pollution hit Europe's urban centers with comparable force, particularly the four major "conurbations" --London with its 11.5 million inhabitants, Paris with 8,000,000, the Rhine-Ruhr complex with 10.5 million, and the Dutch megalopolis, stretching from Utrecht to Rotterdam, with 4,000,000. Britain and the Six have almost identical per capita incomes (from a low of $1,860 for Holland to a high of $2,060 for France), so that their buying power is roughly the same. Another unifying force is the vacation time explosion of intermingling that sends tens of millions of West Europeans tootling down Autobahnen, autostrade and autoroutes every year on their way to holiday resorts, often outside their own countries.

Composite Euroman

The growing similarities between Europeans have enabled investigators for the first time to draw a sketch of the composite Euroman. In a study commissioned by the Reader's Digest, 24,000 adult Europeans in 16 countries were surveyed in 1969 by leading research firms on the Continent. The results showed that Euroman is roughly 34, married and has 1.5 children. He is employed by a factory or company that has 50 or more employees. In addition to sizable social benefits, he earns about $50 a week in take-home pay. He quit school at 16, but he speaks one other language, most likely English, well enough to read a newspaper or understand a movie. He watches his television set an average of 13 hours a week. He uses his neighbor's telephone, but expects to get his own within a year or so. He has a car--a modest economy Renault, Fiat or Volkswagen. He has a vacuum cleaner, washing machine, food blender and refrigerator, but no deepfreeze, air conditioner or dishwasher. He has a savings account, but hoards a bit of gold at home as a hedge against a sudden collapse of paper currency.

Euroman's attitudes are more difficult to pin down, naturally, than his possessions. One point of view that appears to be shared by vast numbers of Italians and Frenchmen, Germans and Scandinavians, however, is that their destiny is inextricably linked to that of the rest of Europe.

Will the British, too, come to share that view? The issue is almost certain to develop into one of the hardest-fought battles in modern British politics. For both major parties, it poses severe quandaries. If public opinion continues to run against Market entry, Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson may well commit his party to a position against Common Market membership. That, in turn, would cause a break between him and Deputy Party Leader Roy Jenkins, a dedicated "European," and a damaging split within Labor.

The problems will be even more severe for Ted Heath, particularly if Tory M.P.s become convinced that their constituents are dead set against joining Europe. If the terms of Britain's EEC entry are set by the end of June, as now seems almost certain, Heath will face difficult options. He could try to railroad the EEC entry through Parliament before the summer recess, which normally comes in July. He could also wait until October, after the party conferences. But there are disadvantages in delay. By the fall, Labor may well have turned openly against entry, and opposition in the Tory rank-and-file may have burst through the surface.

No More Open Sea

Anti-Market Tory M.P.s are already warning Heath that mishandling Market membership could have disastrous consequences for the Conservatives. In Commons last week, Tory M.P. John Jennings said that if Chief Negotiator Rippon did not win satisfactory entry terms from the Six, "he will split the Tory party from top to bottom and bring about the downfall of the Tory government." If Heath believes that he may be defeated, his ultimate escape hatch would be simply not to submit the membership issue to Commons, perhaps ducking behind the excuse that the EEC's terms were not generous enough. But last week's Paris summit strengthened the Prime Minister's position at home and made it less likely that he would have to back down.

"Every time we must choose between Europe and the open sea," Churchill told the French shortly before DDay, "we will choose the open sea." De Gaulle frequently cited that remark as evidence of Britain's incompatibility with Europe.

He never mentioned another Churchill dictum, dated 1946: "We must build a kind of United States of Europe." Heath's task--and it is likely to be the most important of his career--is to persuade the British that their destiny lies not toward the open sea but across the Channel, the ditch that long rendered them impregnable to continental conquerors but also cut them off from a more active role in Europe.

*The interabang, shown here, is the first new punctuation mark to be devised for print since the adoption of quotation marks in the late 17th century. Introduced in 1967 by the American Type Founders Co., the interabang is intended to express a simultaneous quality of exclamation and of questioning.

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