COMMON MARKET
A comparison with the talks of 1962
LEONARD BEATON
The Common Market negotiations of 1971 have awakened political forces which are re- markably like those which showed them- selves in the same enterprise in 1962. The factors which gave 1962 its dramatit charac- ter and the negotiation its particular shape are once more emerging one by one. There are, of course, differences as well as similari- ties and these could prove decisive.
First, the similarities. In 1962 as now, the British government had taken the decision to join and assumed that the Six had accepted with varying degrees of enthusiasm that this was inevitable. As a result, the British were 'looking for a vigorous negotiation of the subsidiary issues pushed through as fast as possible. A well-informed, well-briefed dele- gation, waiting impatiently from meeting to meeting, was surprised when an outline agreement was not achieved in time for the holiday. It was still trying at Christmas.
The French, on the other hand, and with them the Six as a whole, had made no politicial decision. They could see no advan- tage in haste. A petitioning Britain was re- markably docile and friendly. The game of negotiation had a number of simultaneous functions; first, it would reveal possibilities of advantage to France which could invari- ably be achieved, since the British are deter- mined that the negotiations must succeed while the French were at best indifferent about either success or failure; and negotia- tions would also provide occasions for the British to break it off, which they had Promised to do if certain concessions, easily denied, were not made. We shall never know whether the French•really believed the Mac- millan-Sandys undertakings about protecting the interests of the Commonwealth, EFTA and British agriculture. But if they did, a means of failure without veto was offered to them and they acted in such a way as to achieve it. They are re-enacting all this now over the negotiations as a whole and particularly over Mr Rippon's little list of things which the British still profess to feel are important.
For its part, the British government, then as now, was perfectly well aware of the fact neither Parliament nor the people had it in mind to end their independent history or to lower their standard of living. Discussion of entry into the EEC was likely to arouse oppo- sition along both these lines. The notion of terms was therefore invented. It was held that entry into an economic union of Europe had little or nothing to do with the advan- tages and disadvantages of such a union, still less with the desirability of a subsequent political union: it was all to do with what the British negotiators achieved. Since the negotiation was being conducted without bargaining counters on the British side, it might be thought that this was an extra- ordinary place to put the emphasis. But as a matter of observed political fact, it worked and is working exceedingly well. Then as now, large numbers of well-disposed politi- cians (and others) persuaded themselves that the predictable and comparatively trivial outcome of the issues in dispute would settle the matter. In the meantime only the pre- judiced could presume to prejudge the issue. Thus, sustained national attention to the unionist case could be avoided, since Euro- pean .unionism has always had about as much future with British opinion as United Kingdom unionism with Irish opinion. In this context, the domestic drama in both negotiations has surrounded the Labour party in opposition. As the party conducted its debates in the early part of 1962, Mr Gaitskell was faithful to the notion that no one could possibly make up his mind until the terms were known. So now is Mr Wilson. It was not until the party conference in the autumn that Mr Gaitskell gave way to the powerful forces within the party and the country, and to his own convictions. Here we may or may not find a difference with Mr Wilson, particularly in view of the amount he has said on the subject since 1967. Oversimplifying, what happened in 1962 was that the negotiations dragged into 1963 and might have gone on another year; that by then it was clear that the British were coming in on any terms; that the British application had seriously challenged French leadership in the Community; that France nevertheless managed to secure her central objective, the Franco-German treaty; and on the basis of this President de Gaulle decided that he could afford to go into open opposition to British membership.
How will the two main actors respond this time? While the British regime is re- markably similar, and is behaving almost identically, the French regime is not. It is true that President Pompidou, like President de Gaulle, is searching for a European equi- librium in which France can operate effec- tively. It was also probably true that in April 1962 de Gaulle had not made up his mind where the British desire to join the communi- ties fitted into this. But the great success of British policy over the last decade—a success for which a heavy price has been paid else- where—is that all who profess to be and call themselves Europeans are convinced Britain has a right to join the Community; and that whatever the Rome Treaty might say about unanimity a French government is felt to have no right to block them. President Porn- pidou is not a politician who longs to be loved. But he has fewer illusions than Presi- dent de Gaulle about what can and cannot be done with the Germans.
What seems to be predictable on the basis of 1962 is that the British negotiators will become increasingly irritable about their deadlines; that nothing of any real value to Britain will be achieved in the negotiations; that as old issues are settled the French will happen on new ones requiring settlement; and that the sure sign of British failure will not be an Anglo-American success like Nassau or an Anglo-French failure like Rambouillet but a Franco-German recon- ciliation. In 1971 as in 1962 the only signi- ficant variables in the situation are the French vision of a European equilibrium-and the stand of the Labour party.
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