inaction pending
So our application to join the European Community Is in and remains in We might have known it. Like all these; other glowing initiatives, the great European adventure neither succeeds nor failS. It is pending. But before the whole episode of the present government's attempt to joint the Six fades into oblivion, M Couve de Mnrville's speech to the European Council or Ministers re- quires analysis. The French Foreign Minis- ter's analysis on Monday wag' b. remarkable blend of irrefutable logic and ill-informed prejudice. When he said that the British economy was in no state to sustain the fall obligations'of membership of. the European Community he was only stating the obvi- Otis. When he said that the petind must first revert to the status of a purely national Cur- rency he Was either creating a-barrier which he knew we could not circumvent; or display- ing his Own ignorance Of the operation of the sterling area system. For there is oily one way in which this country could unilaterally 'nationalise' its currency, and that is by de- faulting on its i .,ndebtedness. This would not only be an inexcusable act Of bad faith, it would also set at risk the progress of world trade by drastically diminishing the available supplies of internationally acceptable money
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On the other hand; the sterling area SYStein could one day constitute the nucleus of an alternative European International cUrrencY to the dollar. Remove it as s,CoOe de Murville,wishes us to do, and the supremacy of the dollar is left unchallenged ts that really what the French want? But while the existence of the sterling area is a burden and not a blessing, the French have never produced any evidence tosupport their contention that our recurrent balance Of Payments difficulties' are provoked by it That is why the :European Commission, in its report, was right to lay the emphasis on our need to 'eliminate the 'fundamental dis- equilibrium' in our own economy, so that we can achieve and inaintain a rate of growth comparable _With: that of our continental neighbours. : It is here that the Germans might really be able to help us. It is to be hived that Chan- cellor Kiesinger, during his visit to London this Week, at lastsucceeded in convincing his hosts of the political impossibility of Ger- many ever levering Britain into Europe against the resistance of trance. 'Instead, Mr Wilson and Mr Brown would have employed their time better in urging Heir Kissinger to lend his support to proposals for the, 'Euro- peanisation'Of the sterling balances, and also in pursuing More responsible eCOnOinic poli- cies at home. It is preposterous that a country with idle reserves the size of those of the Federal Republic. should be accumulating trading surpluses at a fnte of 01q051 f1.500in a year Herr Kiesinger cannot put a bomb under General, de Gaulle He can Ptit a bomb under the German economy. He can also put forward' a practical proposal for the' 'Euro- peanisation' of the sterling balances: If he wishes his protestations Of support for British entry into the European Community to be taken seriously, that is what he should do.
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