Towards an old Europe?
Roberto Ducci
No one, among well-read continental Europeans, is going to be much surprised by a line of thinking about the future of West ern Europe, slowly gaining ground in British political circles, which was summarised by Mr Biffen two weeks ago in this paper with the following words: 'The chosen path will be the evolution of a Europe of nation states'. Nobody indeed could be surprised,
because a Europe of nation states (l'Europe des patries of de Gaulle was probably an
apter description, because neither Belgium nor Luxembourg nor Switzerland, nor for this purpose the United Kingdom or Spain, are states of one nation only) has traditionally been the British system of coping with continental affairs.
Under various names at different times it was adopted to prevent any French Empire (Louis XIV's or Napoleon's) from dominating the estuaries of the Scheldt, Maas and Rhine. It quickly ended the Holy Alliance of Metternich and Castlereagh; it underwrote the balancing act of at least two Anglo-French ententes cordiales and at least two Anglo-German naval pacts; it let down the League of Nations on the Rhine, while upholding it uselessly on the Red Sea. Historians have recognised with good grace that the English concept of 'Europe' was a by-product of a special geographical position (the Channel moat) and of the special vocation of a people of overseas discoverers, merchants, conquerors and settlers. Would liberty and Parliament have developed strong roots in England if the continent had not been divided into nation states?
The second world war changed the overall picture. The English moat had kept off Hitirr's ships, but not Hitler's planes. The Empire beyond the seas was vanishing, settlers and colonised requesting and obtaining independence. On the continent there were no states, nations or otherwise; there were two extra-European occupying armies, American and Soviet. The first one was quickly withdrawn. A yawning gap had to be filled. Americans and not a few Europeans (including Winston Churchill, first chairman of the United Europe Movement) were invoking a United States of Europe. Ernest Bevin for the Labour movement and the Foreign Office for the establishment took the matter in hand. Primum vivere: under the umbrella of the American nuclear monopoly, Acheson, Vandenberg and Bevin re-established the 1945 position: American troops went back to Germany, confronting the Soviets on the line of the Elbe. Self-government (but not arms) was given back to the western part of Germany. Postea philosophare: Truman, Marshall and
Hoffman wanted to discuss with a united Europe the sharing of American aid. The Treasury intervened: Hall Patch and Eric Roll invented the OEEC, a European mechanism for furthering economic cooperation among Western European states, including the three German Zones and the neutral countries: Austria, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland, but not Spain. (It was said in those days that there was no American official in the Organisation except the Chief Economic Adviser. He was enough.)
The grand design was completed in May 1949, a year after the signing of the OEEC Convention, by the establishment of a Council of Europe. This brainchild — it is said — of Gladwyn Jebb (qui en est bien revenu) was the most advanced model of a nation-states organisation. It boasted a consultative assembly and a committee of ministers meeting twice a year (how appealing to our overworked ministers!). Its voting rules were remarkable: unanimity (not counting abstentions) in most cases; twothirds majority in other cases, including the decision whether a question was so important that it needed to be adopted unanimously; simple majorities for procedural questions. Thanks should be given to Ernest Bevin and Lord Gladwyn for a voting system far less Gaullist than the Luxembourg compromise.
Germany was not one of the founding members of the Council. Thus, the academic nature of the European system of 1948-49 was strikingly revealed in 1950
when Truman requested an immediate German contribution to the defence of Western Europe, the American nuclear monopoly having been broken by the USSR. There were two responses. The Bra' ish one was analogous to the American:.0 German army should be raised and put In the field, though only five years had elapsed since the Nazi debellatio. The alternative response was put forward by the French (by some French — Monnet, Pleven, Schumann — with the concurrence of one great German, Adenauer, and one great Italian, De Gasperi) on the lines of the other work in progress, the Coal and Steel Community. The Labour Government chose not to join the ECSC, fearing the consequences for British nationalised steel and coal, though nothing is now being said about them by Mr Varley or Sir Charles Villiers. Nor would the Tories have anything to do with a European Defence Community which would have included German contingents in European uniform. There was one fatal moment when Eden (Churchill's acting Prime Minister) might have clinched the day: the EDC would have been approved by the French parliament if Britain had pledged to keep certain forces in Germany and with them the balance of power in Europe. This was not conceded in 1954 to a European military and political union; It was conceded in the following September to a nation-states union (the WEU) towards which the United Kingdom is even today solemnly engaged not to withdraw the BAOR from Germany unless authorised bY a two-thirds majority of its partners (nn question here of a UK veto).
A few words will suffice to point out the differences between the Bevin-Eden and the Monnet European systems. The hilt system was predicated on the idea that resurgent Germany would be kept in line by American power, in the wake of a continuing confrontation between West and East. The Monnet system (some people in this country might learn more of it by reading his Memoirs, just translated and published) was intended to exorcise the two ghosts haunting Europe's multisecular tragedy: France's alliance with Russia, Germany's entente with Russia. When Monnet's design began to wither, de Gaulle having reconquered Gaul, France left NATO and kept its sword ready to be forged in the Soviet fire. Pray that we shall not one day see Germany responding In kind.
Two Grand National hurdles have therefore impeded the development'of the European Community into a European Union; (What a wisely restrained word 'union was, when Heath, Pompidou, Brandt and Andreotti agreed upon it in 1972: not a federation, not even a confederation, but the symbol of an unwritten constitution which was going to be slowly and pragmatically defined, if Arabs and Israelis had permitted it!) One hurdle was nuclear defence: we preferred to a European nuclear deterrent two national deterrents, I.e.
for all realistic purposes one American deterrent. No Union is a union if it is not a committal to fight, die and win or perish together. The second unsurpassed hurdle is the political will to act towards the Soviet Union as a single unit. Maybe the military Presence of Russia on the central front, as Mr Biffen seems to imply, is no longer an 'external threat'. But what of the Soviet Presence in Angola and Mozambique, in the Horn of Africa, perhaps one days in Zimbabwe? Can a Europe of nation states cope with it better than it has done so far? In 1947-49 when Chnrchill was speaking for Europe; in 1961-63 when Macmillan Was trying to join; in 1970-72 when Heath succeeded (not to mention 1967 when Messrs Wilson, Brown, Callaghan and Jenkins asked Parliament's consent to negotiate, and 1975 when Wilson and Callaghan Called the British people to a referendum) there always were continental Europeans Who thought that Britain's presence was indispensable to sailing from the old to the new Europe. Did they delude themselves into thinking that a British hand on the helm would have kept the course straight in foul weather? In any case, the mainland of old Europe is well charted: the Council of Europe sleeps for its thirtieth year in Strasbourg, expecting the kiss of a Prince Charming; the OEEC, now. OECD, is busy producing myriads of words at the Château de la Muette (the Castle of the Mute Woman). The new Europe of nation states does not require amendments to the Rome Treaty, difficult to negotiate and to ratify (institutions, like old generals, do not die, they simply fade away). That Europe is already there, ready and willing to cope with problems like Eurostrategic weapons, a new monetary system, the future of Central Africa, the problem of energy after 1990, the forays of protectionism, the despondency of nihilistic youth. It will be sufficiently flexible to accommodate some states liege to the US, some non-aligned states, and even others (why not) under Soviet suzerainty. Merry gentlemen, may God keep us all in His favour.
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