Monday, Feb. 11, 1974
By Disunity Possessed
One area of the world that has so far resisted the global wizardry of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is Western Europe. Last April, Kissinger announced that 1973 was to be "the Year of Europe" and called for the U.S. and the European Common Market to establish a new and restructured Atlantic alliance. Internal bickering among the European Nine was largely responsible for the failure to bring Europe and the U.S. closer. Now the scramble for bilateral oil deals caused by the energy crisis threatens to destroy the modicum of unity that the Europeans have struggled to achieve since World War II. TIME'S chief European correspondent, William Rademaekers, reports:
A year ago the enlargement of the European Community from six to nine members, with the entry of the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland, was celebrated in Britain with a month-long "fanfare" of concerts, galas and enthusiastic speeches dedicated to the dream of a united Europe. Today that fanfare has become a cacophony of disenchantment. The bigger Community has emerged as nothing more than a bigger bureaucracy. There is no will to move forward, no consensus on what political form Europe should take or even how to begin to make unity a reality.
The truth is that a united Europe is now a more distant and fragile dream than ever before. After listening to the pompous rhetoric of the December Common Market summit in Copenhagen, one senior British official added a new word to the diplomatic vocabulary: Eurocrap.
Leadership for the Continent is no where on the horizon. Europe today is governed by political technicians who devote most of their energies to tinkering with domestic affairs to remain in power--and do even that badly. Every major leader is beset by crises. Some, like France's Georges Pompidou and West Germany's Willy Brandt, seem tired and bored; others, like Britain's Edward Heath, are fighting for their political lives. All of them are, essentially, afraid to make decisions that would promote the cause of Europe for fear that they might cause momentary domestic complications. As a result, governments indulge in a depressing litany of mutual recrimination and petty squabbles. The British are sniping at the Bonn government for not providing enough money for a regional fund to aid depressed areas like Scotland; the Germans are angry with the French for floating the franc and thus trying to underprice German exports; the Dutch are still seething over Britain's sauve qui peut attitude during the oil crisis; the French continue to deal with the Community in the same haughty way that they dealt with their colonies in the 19th century.
There is furious movement, to be sure -- but it is caused by the selfish race to win special bilateral deals with the Middle East oil producers. Last week French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert toured the Middle East attempting to button down contracts that would ensure France oil for the next decade and beyond. He was followed closely by Italian Foreign Minister Aldo Moro, who jetted to Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi to guarantee supplies for Italy. In St. Moritz, the Shah of Iran took time between ski runs to listen to oil requests from German Economics Minister Hans Friderichs and British Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber.
National Egoism. National interests now totally dominate the European scene, not only in oil policy but in politics and monetary affairs as well. The Community Commission in Brussels continues to churn out statistics and progress reports, but lacks any influence over national policies.
The popular appeal of a unified Community is fading, mainly because of the lack of leadership. A poll in Western Europe taken in December showed that the number of citizens in Britain, France, Belgium, Ireland and The Netherlands who "don't know" whether they favor European political union outnumber those who were "completely" in favor of it. Feelings of bitterness and betrayal are wide spread. "The creeping vine of national egoism grows and threatens the future of our Continent," West German State Secretary for European Affairs Hans Apel said recently. Lamenting the Europeans' inability to work together, Giovanni Malagodi, former Italian Treasury Minister, com plained: "Reading the documents of the Copenhagen summit, one sees them full of pious aspirations, with one concrete point: the U.S. defensive shield must not leave Europe. For God's sake, the only concrete point is a confession of our weakness!"
Outside pressures from Kissinger or others can do little to influence a Western Europe in disarray. The U.S., after pushing and pull ing for more than two dec ades, seems to have finally given up and accepted Eu rope as an elaborate cus toms union made up of nine self-seeking nations, each unwilling to sacrifice na tional pride for European unity. Perhaps it is time for Europe to stop paying lip service to unity and do the same.
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