Into Europe?
LORD GLADWYN
Though it may not convert many doubters or opponents, this excellent and scholarly work will nevertheless confirm the faith of all 'good Europeans.' It is chiefly a dispassionate and convincing account of the events leading from President de Gaulle's veto on British entry into the Common Market (January 1963) to the re- turn of France to the fold after her seven months' strike (January 1966). Mrs Camps ex- plains how and why the EEC survived the crisis of confidence following the veto with an ease that produced (more especially after the agree- ment on a common agricultural policy at the close of 1964) a certain euphoria, or 'false dawn' feeling which in its turn induced the Commission to put forward the following May rather too far-reaching proposals for financing that policy. She then proceeds to describe how it also survived, if with greater difficulty, the greater crisis precipitated on 1 July 1965 by the French walk-out on this very issue, and by the much more sinister and significant demand by de Gaulle in September 1965 that the Treaty of Rome should be drastically revised. After this she attempts a summing-up of the situation as it was a year or so ago and surveys the pros- pects of British membership of the Community.
The outstanding point in this review is the evident fact that de Gaulle's objective all the time was not solely to exclude Britain, but to destroy the kind of Community that was emerg- ing and beginning to assume certain political characteristics and to substitute for it some kind of 'imposing Confederation' in which France 'by the force of things' would be the predomin- ant power. It still is. So far, however, the Com- munity has weathered the storm, and, as Mrs Camps rightly says, the so-called 'Luxembourg Compromise' (January 1966) on the strength of which France returned to Brussels is entirely consonant with the maintenance of the Com- munity as a basis for an eventual economic and indeed a political union. The Commission has lost some of its influence and more of its prestige, but it remains the operative part of the whole machine.
. Nor has the rule of 'qualified majority' voting been abandoned; it has only been agreed that France, for the time being, will not abide by it if her 'vital interests' are in question. Nobody believes that there is, or was, any real likelihood of France or any other major member being put in a minority of one on any 'vital' issue; but (and here is the real point) an admission that any member should have the actual right of veto would mean an end to the whole enter- priSe; and the Five, rightly or wrongly, proceed on the assumption that, when de Gaulle goes, the successor government in France will agree to abide by France's clear treaty obligations. They are also persuaded that in this event Britain will join the EEC and herself likewise agree to abide by the terms of the Treaty of Rome.
Mrs Camps is, on the whole, of this way of thinking too, though, like most sensible Euro- peans, she certainly does not believe that the battle has been won. The General may yet play the card of agreeing to Britain's admission on condition that the treaty is re-written so as to remove all 'supra-national' content. Or he may simply block all further progress until his partners agree to the indefinite exclusion of Britain, if not of all her EFTA partners, and to the creation (in the political sphere) of his French-led 'Confederation.' Even when he goes some such tactics may be pursued by his suc- cessor. And there is always the chance that enthusiasm for the EEC may wane and that Britain will be tempted to pursue a `gaullist' policy of her own. Result : collapse of 'Europe' and a gradual extension of the authority of the two super-powers. Let us, with Mrs Camps and Tennyson, at least 'faintly trust the larger hope'! What all Europeans of whatever school of thought should pray for is that Britain will stick it out and simply 'not take No for an answer.'
What can Britain best do then, in the mean- time, to counter gaullist policies supposing that she wants to do so? There is one card that could be played and I have always thought it was a trump. Britain should make clear that she is firmly on the side of the Five on the Luxembourg formula and that she, therefore, favours the application, where it is laid down in the treaty, of 'qualified' majority voting. At the moment the Government tends to say that it has no particular views on this crucial point and will merely, on entry, conform to what- ever is the practice at thatlime. It should, in the first place, come off gib 'neutral' perch. But more than this: it should announce that, once a member, Britain would work towards a real Political Community employing the same techniques of the Treaty of Rome, situated in Brussels, and not towards an `imposing Con- federation,' situated in Paris. Two sentences on these lines uttered by the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary might well, by en- couraging our friends, change the whole face of Europe.
There are a few other issues on which I would not altogether agree with Mrs Camps. She believes that it is necessary, before any Political Community can be formed, for the major powers to agree on some common foreign policy. I believe, broadly speaking, that the contrary is true, namely that there must first be agreement on the policy-making machinery; and I have explained in the revised (paperback) version of my book The European Idea (New English Library 6s) how this might operate. Then again, Mrs Camps tends to sug- gest that the choice is still, basically, between nationalism and 'Federalism,' i.e. something on the lines of the Constitution of the United States. It is this last conception, I think, which she (rightly) describes as becoming rather `musty'; but I myself have always said that the choice was unreal, since a 'Community system' is a quite new conception and certainly not the equivalent of 'Federalism.'
The prospects for a real democratic Com- munity of a completely new type remain, how- ever, quite bright provided only, as I have said, that Britain firmly commits herself to such a conception. It is, therefore, here that we should provide a lead today, and to this end produce a leader who can (to use a language common to us all) persuade the nation that 'extra Europa salus non est.'
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