Where Are the Elephants?

Watching for the coining of a united Europe is like watching for the elephants in a circus parade. First come the outriders, colored floats, steam calliopes and drum majors, tossing their batons. With each new sight, the kids shout "Here they come!" But still no elephants.

Since war's end, European unity has again & again been loudly heralded: there was Western Union, the Benelux union, the Council of Europe, finally the European Defense Community (not yet ratified by the parliaments of the member nations). Last week brought another hopeful attempt, this time by the Schuman Plan countries (France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, West Germany). The Schuman Plan's chief purpose is economic, i.e., to pool coal & steel resources, and to carry out this aim, the members have set up a High Authority (a kind of executive office), a Council of Ministers (a kind of cabinet) and an Assembly (a kind of parliament). In Strasbourg last week, the Assembly met for the first time and forthwith decided to go beyond economics into the business of political unity. That job was really up to the Assembly of the projected European Defense Community, but the Schuman people were in no mood to wait. The Assembly voted overwhelmingly to draft up a constitution for Western European federation (deadline: March 1953).

There were some dissonant chords in the calliope's unity music: P: The British, who are not members of the Schuman Plan but sit on its members' deliberations, were a little shocked by the Assembly's action. They consider the idea of European federation premature and just a little dangerous. P:The Germans are fuming & fretting about the Saar, which was to have become an internationalized zone as headquarters for the Schuman Plan. But the Germans want the Saar for their own; the French won't hear of it. P: In the Assembly last week, the Germans and Italians wanted to elect a German president. The French backed Paul-Henri Spaak. After a sharp skirmish, the job went to Belgium's Spaak, who last December quit in disgust as president of the Council of Europe's Assembly because, he said, it could only agree on "what could not be done."

Would the Schuman Plan Assembly do anything more? Said Spaak hopefully: "This is the beginning of a great parliamentary experiment." Nevertheless, the elephants were still a long way off.

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