The Age of Commitment

A number of Americans last week got a closer look at the man officially in charge of building a prosperous federated Europe. German-born Walter Hallstein, 61, who as president of the Commission of the European Economic Community runs the executive machinery of the Common

Market, was in the U.S. to make three major policy speeches.

A onetime rector of Frankfurt University and former No. 2 man in the West German Foreign Office, Hallstein is possessed of formidable erudition, but no one in his U.S. audiences last week had much difficulty in understanding what he was saying. Captured at Cherbourg during World War II service as a Wehrmacht lieutenant, Hallstein polished up his American vernacular in a P.W. camp in Mississippi. Conceded by all hands to be a skilled negotiator, he is a party-shunning bachelor who devotes twelve hours a day to his job and is held by many to be a dull fellow. But he inspires deep respect in his subordinates--who meticulously address him as "Mr. President"--and is capable of a corrosive wit that is not far from arrogance.

Hallstein showed none of this side in his speeches last week. Instead he appealed for understanding. At Omaha's Creighton University, he complained: "Sometimes it has seemed that our Community was being torn out of its crib and being asked to shoulder the burdens of a man. Sometimes it has seemed that even our friends were being too impatient to give us time to mature."

Anguish at Success. Hallstein's community was certainly maturing fast. All around the world, nations that laughed when the Common Market countries sat down to play at six-handed free trading are now envious of the remarkable economic progress the Six have made. Looking on nervously are the Commonwealth countries and the members of Europe's "Outer Seven," whose future relations with the Common Market depend upon the outcome of Britain's painful negotiations with the Six. And a dozen other countries, most of which have no prospect of ever joining the Common Market, regard the market's developing single-tariff wall as a piece of economic aggression. "We see only this," wailed a Yugoslav government economist last week. "Our exports are being choked off."

In fact, the chief effect of the Common Market on international trade so far has been to expand Europe's buying power to the benefit of almost everyone else--including some of the loudest complainers. In the first eight months of this year, Yugoslavia increased its exports to the Six by 18%, Turkey by 34%, Portugal by 27%, South Africa by 41%, Japan by 16% and Latin America by 19%.

Sympathetic Hearings. On the strength of these statistics, the Six might be excused for ignoring the complaints of the outsiders. Instead, they give the impression of listening with sympathy. (Except, the British would say, in their case.) In Brussels last week, Israel was negotiating special tariff terms for its exports to the Market--which constitute 30% of Israel's foreign sales. Turkey is arranging a program that will ultimately give it associate membership in the Common Market. Other outside prospects:

-- The applications by Spain and Portugal for associate membership will get hearings early next year, though some Common Market nations strongly object to the Iberian dictatorial regimes.

-- Latin American nations have sent representatives to Brussels to complain because agricultural products from France's former African colonies are to be admitted to the market tariff-free. In response, some of the Six have eased their import restrictions on Latin American coffee, bananas and cocoa.

-- France, Italy and the Benelux countries have recently agreed to lower their stiff bars against Japanese manufactured goods, and talks on a commercial treat)' between Japan and the Six are expected in "the near future."

-- Whatever tariff reductions the U.S. ultimately wins from the Six for U.S. manufactured goods will be extended to all other countries that manufacture the same products on "the most-favored-nation" principle.

"We are not only willing to consider the problems of nations on whom our very existence has an impact, we are obliged to," said Hallstein in Omaha. "We have reached the age of commitment, and we accept it."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.