Until the Year 200 1

"Here, and now, the beginning must be made," Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told the Bundestag. "The decision you make is truly for or against Europe."

With such solemn phrases, Adenauer appealed to the West German Republic last week to pledge its most precious asset, the Ruhr, to the great task of building a European community. Up for vote was German ratification of the Schuman Plan, which would put the coal and steel of Germany and France and their neighbors into an industrial super-government until the year 2001.

When Adenauer sat down after his eloquent speech, black wooden boxes were passed down the aisles of the packed Bundestag chamber. Into the boxes each deputy dropped one of three cards: blue for yes, pink for no, yellow for abstain. Tally: 232 blues, 143 pinks, three yellows. Germany, Europe's biggest steel and coal producer, had decisively answered

Adenauer's appeal to "live up to the greatness of the moment."

Principles & Politics. Konrad Adenauer, who combines rigid principle with flexible political skill, had worked deftly to achieve an unexpectedly sweeping victory. The Ruhr capitalists, who compose the right wing of his coalition, yielded when he wangled from the allies a promise to speed up the end of occupation controls over coal exports and steel capacity. He had won other votes by his courage in replying to demagogic Communist taunts. He stated bluntly that the Schuman Plan would incidentally mean that the heartfelt issue of German reunification had to come second to Germany's joining in the West's defense.

Adenauer's task was made easier by the illness of rabble-rousing Socialist Leader Kurt Schumacher, who for months has shrilled that the Schuman Plan is a conspiracy of "capitalism, clericalism, conservatism and cartelism." In his absence, Erich Ollenhauer led the opposition. Ollenhauer, a 50-year-old career Socialist who spent the war years in Britain, rejected Schumacher's familiar tactics of snarling insult and rampant nationalism; his opposition was polite and professorial. Even Socialist imaginations were fired when Professor Walter Hallstein, who co-fathered the plan with France's Jean Monnet, painted a bold picture of a Europe no longer economically fettered by national borders, able "to equal what was possible for the Americans."

Six in One. An American-style, expanding mass-market economy is the true aim of the Schuman Plan. By combining six nations' annual coal outputs, totaling 220 million tons, and steel outputs, totaling 38 million tons; by making products salable, tariff-free, in a market of 155,000,000 people; by making labor fluid, free to meet manpower supply & demand without passports; by sinking Europe's traditional tight little cartel islands which hold production down--by doing these things the Schuman Plan can liberate the European economy.

The Schuman Plan also gets the camel's nose of political federation under the tent. It sets up a super-government which for once avoids the dreamy supposition that all the members will love each other; rather it assumes that they will often be at odds, and seeks to prevent one-nation domination by an ingenious system of checks & balances. This is done by having the $4.5 billion annual coal and steel business run by a day-to-day executive of nine men--no more than two from one country --known as the High Authority. It is appointed by a Council of six cabinet ministers from the six member nations. It is subject (just like a European cabinet) to confidence votes in a 78-member Assembly, elected by the parliaments of the six nations.

These complexities may be lost on millions of Europeans, who yet sense something profound in the Schuman Plan and have frequently been ahead of their governments in supporting it. In May 1950, their hearts were kindled when France's Robert Schuman, proposing the plan, pointed out that Germany and France, once their basic industries had been scrambled into an omelet, would "no longer be tempted to wage war; indeed, war between them will be impracticable."

Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg have still to ratify. So must The Netherlands' upper house. But now that France and Germany, which count most, have both endorsed the Schuman Plan, the others will probably follow suit. Within months, Western Europe should be able to start making a dream of centuries come true.

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