An Uncertain Forecast

No recent political event in Western Europe had been more widely predicted than Georges Pompidou's early departure from power. Yet the death of the French President last week (see following story) heightened the general jitters in a Europe that is increasingly fretful. After a generation of unparalleled prosperity. Europeans are apprehensive about inflation, unemployment and social instability.

There was an almost novelistic quality to the timing of Pompidou's demise. It came two days before the 25th anniversary of NATO, which Pompidou, like Charles de Gaulle before him, had used as both a military shield and a political foil. His death came shortly before the anniversary of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's grandiose call for a Year of Europe; that the year proved to be something less than what the Nixon Administration expected could be counted as a triumph for Gaullist foreign policy. There was no little irony in the fact that when the President of the U.S. finally made his trip to Europe last week, it was not to be photographed with fellow statesmen at a summit or to sign a new Atlantic Charter, but to attend a memorial service for a statesman who had criticized American foreign policy.

Much to Mourn. Europe had much to mourn too. France, heading toward what now promises to be a knife-edge election, could well emerge with a left wing President at odds with the Gaullist majority in the National Assembly. It would then become the latest addition to the Continent's already long list of sickly, shaky democracies. That list includes minority or coalition governments in Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Britain.

West Germany's Chancellor Willy Brandt now stands as the leader of the most stable regime in the European Community. Although his Social Democratic Party has been set back sharply in three recent local elections. Brandt nonetheless has an opportunity to deal in the Community from both economic and political strength. Characteristically, he has already dismissed the possibility. In a press conference last week, Brandt went out of his way to emphasize that good relations with even a weakened France were the cornerstone of West German foreign policy, and that Bonn would use its enhanced position in Europe only "in a modest way."

Brandt's reluctance to assume the mantle of leadership in Western Europe may well help make good a depressing forecast by many Community watchers:

Pompidou's death will plunge Europe into a lengthy period of paralysis. The tragic news from the Elysee reached a meeting of Common Market foreign ministers in Luxembourg just one day after British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan had finished making the new Labor government's case for a "fundamental renegotiation" of the terms of Britain's EEC membership--meaning its determination to work out a better economic deal. Callaghan had reckoned that the negotiations might be strung out for a year, leaving the Labor government ample time before it must pay off on its most controversial campaign issue. But Pompidou's death upset all the diplomatic timetables--and not only in London. "The future of Europe depends upon the election in France," says a senior official of the West German Foreign Ministry. "Until we know who wins, we will not know anything."

And nothing, he might have added, will happen, at least for a while. The informal gathering of EEC foreign ministers, scheduled for next month in Bonn, where Callaghan was to spell out in detail Britain's aims, has now become meaningless because of France's uncertain political situation. At the same time, Pompidou's death scuttled plans for a late May or early June summit of EEC chiefs to consider the British proposals.

No new dates of any kind will be penciled onto Europe's diplomatic calendar until after the new French government gets its bearings. By that time, the summer-holiday doldrums will have set in, and thus serious "renegotiation" could not begin until September or October. "I used to have a feel for the main current, and could make fairly good forecasts for a year or more," laments a member of Brandt's government. "Today I can't see tomorrow."

Faltering Miracle. Few observers anywhere expect dramatic changes in French foreign policy, even if a non-Gaullist is elected. (French domestic policy is another matter entirely, especially if a leftist candidate wins.) Despite the resurgence of strident Gaullist rhetoric in recent months, Georges Pompidou was first and foremost a realist. At home the tragedy of his presidency was that he had to work almost in stealth on developing the "modern" France that he envisioned, lest he upset the orthodox Gaullist constituency to which he was chained. It was a project that he could not hope to finish. Even if his health had not failed, the faltering of the French economic miracle would have delayed the fulfillment of his ambitions. Then the Middle East war exposed France's diplomatic impotence for all--and especially the Gaullist faithful--to see.

Pompidou's successor, whoever he is, may find it hard to restore the exuberant French self-confidence that was one of the great Gaullist legacies. Unless next month's elections deliver a resounding vote of confidence in Gaullism, the operative fact in European affairs is not likely to be France's willful independence but its weakness.

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