Where is our European policy?
Patrick Cosgrave
The high generalisations about Britain's role and influence in the world which form the staple of most ministerial contributions to foreign affairs debates in the House of Commons nowadays sound, alas, somewhat flatulent. Lord Home was probably the last Foreign Secretary who, given Britain's reduced international circumstances, could make something compelling of that tour d'horizon with which the Foreign Secretary of the day normally opens a Commons foreign affairs discussion. Mr Callaghan lacks his predecessor's forensic capacity and deep, almost academic, understanding of the way relations between states work, and his wordy contribution to last Monday's debate rang hollow and crude. It was felt to be empty and pretentious, I fancy, by most who heard it; but this should not allow our attention to be attracted away from the fact that the Foreign Secretary, and several subsequent speakers, touched on an issue crucial to the future of British foreign policy, and one which, moreover, is causing the most unexpected kinds of division in the ranks of both major parties.
The issue is the future of energy policy within the EEC and, in particular, whether or not Britain should insist on representation at the forthcoming international energy conference separate from her Common Market partners. At first blush one might expect all the former anti-marketeers — and, of course, the handful of people who continue to refuse to accept the result of the referendum — to applaud Mr Callaghan, or at least chortle at the failure of the Nine to come to agreement on representation, while at the same time pro-marketeers would be expected to be hostile to the Foreign Secretary's independent policy. But matters are far from being as simple as that, and in their complexity they suggest that neither government nor opposition has any very clear idea of what future British policy within the Community ought to be.
The relevance of my unkind remarks about Mr Callaghan's general style is this: since he
makes crude and banal every issue which he touches — that folksiness which serves him so well in internal Labour Party disputes is hardly a suitably subtle instrument of foreign policy. discussion — he conceals rather than clarifies the strategic importance of diplomatic issues. When Mr Callaghan said, in the course of the debate, that he could not understand European objections to Britain's insistence on separate representation, since he was not objecting to the other eight EEC countries having their own role, he sounded, as he so frequently does, like a harsh , but jolly Victorian uncle. But his joke was a typical method of trying to make simple what is complicated, and of trying to foreshorten a discussion which ought to be extended.
Opinions on the issue are, in any event, confused. Mr Maudling, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, who has never been particularly enthusiastic about Britain's membership of the EEC, nonetheless committed the Shadow Cabinet to a position critical of the Government's policy. It seemed a pity, he suggested, that so soon after our membership of the Community was confirmed we were breaking ranks with our partners on the one matter exercising the energy and attention of pretty well every country in the world. On the other hand, such pro-marketeers as that ,admirably and consistently independent-minded Conservative backbencher, Mr Peter Tapsell, support Mr Callaghan's stand, and steadfastly, even passionately, argue that Britain, about to become the major energy producer within the EEC, should fight her own corner, and rather insist on her partners respecting her interests than join them in promulgating a common Community policy.
It is tempting to see in all this the fulfillment of one of the prophecies made by the opponents of British membership of the EEC during the referendum campaign. It was then said, as it was during the renegotiation period, that the continental EEC countries were out to filch British oil, and that the terms of our membership were such that we would be unable to prevent its export even if we wanted to keep it for ourselves. Undoubtedly there is some feeling, particularly in Germany, that North Sea oil should be regarded as a Community, and not a national resource. But I do not see that selfishness, or self-interest, as the principal motivating force behind the insistence of the eight that Britian should join them in hammering out a collective policy for the conference. Their feeling, rather, seems to be exactly the same feeling that eight countries, Britain included, had when the French broke ranks at the Washington conference of oil-consuming countries. On that occasion, however, the 'French had a strong logical point, for they were resisting the abandonment, under American pressure, of a policy hitherto agreed among all nine EEC countries.
Energy is a test case of the possibility of formulating a common European foreign policy. Such a policy has always been the dream of the most enthusiastic pro-marketeers. But even politicians who opposed Britain joining the EEC frequently felt the desirability of all the Western European nations standing together on major diplomatic issues. Indeed, it was often suggested that membership of the Community, since it would create stress and strain, would hinder the genuine search for a common European interest in the face of the super powers, Eastern and Western. And it is evidently the case that, if the Nine cannot agree on so crucial a matter any agreement they reach on less important matters will be of little consequence. If, therefore, a common European foreign policy is felt to be desirable the British government's present attitude must be seen to be destructive.
But there is also the possibly even more important matter of what general European policy Britain is to follow inside the Community. Broadly speaking, there are three choices. Britain can — as probably a large number of Conservatives and a very much smaller number of Labour MPs would wish — encourage federalist tendencies within the EEC. At the moment, she is alone with Denmark in opposition to early direct elections to the Strasbourg Assembly (which some people call a parliament). She could, on the other hand' adopt a Gaullist posture, aiming for the creation of a European alliance of nation states, but resolutely opposing all federalist instincts. Or she could pursue the middle course favoured by many pragmatic Europeans, of encouraging a step by step approach to European integration, agreeing a common policy where the material for agreement is obviously present, hY istriving not to excite dissension when there ls no evident common ground between the partners. The trouble is that, at the moment, the British government is pursuing, as the foreign affairs debate made all too clear, none of these policies. The occasional isolation into which General de Gaulle led France was never Ms preferred policy: more usually France under the General, while maintaining her independence' used her agreement with Germany to create all axis against the other four member states. At present Britain is neither whole-heartedly for European unity nor exploiting differences within the EEC and aligning herself with at least one of her partners. Her policy, if such lt can be called, is thus neither co-operative Or Machiavellian. However, having sketched in that general background, it must be admitted that the energy issue is a particularly difficult one. As Mr Gordon Wilson, the Scottish Nationalist MP, has cogently pointed out (though in the interests of Scottish separatism) the referen; dum judgement settled only "the principle 0' continued membership of the EEC". EnergY . scarcely came up in the course of renegotiation, whether in connection with North Sea oil or with the massive French commitment tr) investment in nuclear power. Mr Wilson's argument, and that of Mr Tapsell, is that there is a fundamental, and world-wide, difference between oil producers and oil consumers sn that,, in his words, "there is a basic incompatl" bility which no joint delegation could encompass in a common cause". The pro-marketeers would, naturally, reply — •as M. Jean Rd already has — that the Community exists 111 order to encourage integration and iron °tit incompatibilities. Whichever side one takes it's clear that the question of representation at the energy conference is the kind of question whictl, can only be resolved as part of a genera' European policy; and there is little sign that either major party is remotely near the formulation of such a policy, urgent thougt1 that formulation is.
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