Brussels letter
Time to think again
Gerald Segal
Fortunately we are not just back in sqL18,1! one. The situation as it arises from both t"; EEC's failure to agree on internal and exterl policies in the course of the last year from the realisation, following the Washill6. ton Energy Conference, of the need to recoil' sider the entire question of future EuroPeati;, US relations is more challenging and promising than that. If anything it is almost though the West European powers had neve' moved at all and in a scene changed by forceos which their rhetoric could not control, I themselves in square minus one. From tii„Pf happy vantage point outside the frame reference which wishful thinking had Ott' them accustomed to, they can beginin rethink the entire complex of relations witP,'' continental Europe and with both its offsh°"
islands and its offshore continent.
0 A rethink is particularly urgent for Bo19 t simply because entry into the EEC has a0 justified the proclaimed hopes of those Ois
favoured it. In face of the current position a fair bet that whichever party is elected February 28, a reassessment Will have to undertaken. Ase
This is not to argue that those who opP'' entry on the grounds, for example, that
volve a reduction of sovereignty were right;
that they themselves had thought througilll constraint on sovereignty which a srn;i1e country like Britain inevitably faces in hier contemporary world. Nor is it, on the ot"ho hand, to invalidate the thesis of those Wi'eti believe close cooperative links, possiblY e,vde a European federal union, which will incia Britain, inevitable and desirable. The cointhe that a rethink is essential because 0'4 premises on which entry was based and hopes which were held out have been Oa" wanting. Sir Christopher Soames in a recent sPeec11.1 to the Conservative Political Centre posium at the Royal Festival Hall referred,tilei a Christmas cartoon, which appeared in I if Spectator and said it would be disastr0u5the everyone looked on the Community manner of the cartoon as some sort of " machine and judged it by how little we CI a get away with putting in and how much -got jackpot he could somehow get out. revealingly, Soames did not deny the tr,L'he implicit in the cartoon: indeed how coultifair as he knows perfectly well that it is ag0 satire upon almost every meeting of the ,,ge Council of Ministers? The fruit machine itil.ros is even reflected in the attitude of the P.0 corps where every journalist is bound that during the Council's sessions of his governmental representative such clue° as : where does the decision leave 00to farmers?; by how much will taxation ha.ved be increased to meet the regi°0"or programme?; how much will area X in. it country get under the decision?; how help our unemployment problem? And on the basis of the answers obtaineacte will have to file his newspaper that his re the may know where they stand and What whole exercise means for them. I remember once last autumn teasinyttle Irish colleague while hanging about" ttle Charlemagne corridors in the middle night waiting for some decision on agricut,s'ect policy, whether he thought it right to lee, the Community to find the money (in et, to as I put it to him, a socialist) sirt1P4ore' finance his local inefficient agricul lie bought me a drink and advised Ine to wait until it was my turn. That :all* soon enough with the failure to Pr,ee on the regional funds when a few fiNomats of once proud Albion were to be °11,hd pale with rage, through gritted teeth liering reasonably polite anathemas upon ,ose, apparently the Germans, who, so it was ,a.deged, although the truth turned out to be n,.ather more complicated, had made certain Piomises at the Copenhagen summit and had new ratted on then. And because the fruit ?lachine had not delivered the goods all their ellovy players were for a brief but shameful nPeriod of time denied the possibility of a joint 1`4....ergY policy. moreover, Sir Christopher is only half right \vs hen he said in the speech that this sort of hPirit would ruin the European Community: tr ce would be absolutely right if the sort of L fop Community he has in mind were in
, • act in existence. The truth is such a Com
s y
rnunit..
is only an aspiration on the part of tiPl.e, and Michael Jobert, the French Foreign wIrlister, was correct when he remarked in 0 aishillgton last week that the EEC is so far prolity an Economic Community and not a laical one. this Sir Christopher, as it were, answered nee must extend the Community's action into domains; we must become a political Corn domains; in the true sense of the term." e,l,s may be a noble aim but it is not e:Nained how it is to be achieved and in any egse Britain did not join a political but an eonornic community and it is on the jurornic level that progress so far must be niaged. On that level the simple truth is — it , Y be the short-term truth but it is the one Le know about and it is up to those who the about CAP, a paramount question is c future of British industry in the enlarged (30Thonity. fundeaving aside the issue of the regional the future of the social policy and the th'es'Meht about CAP a paramount question is Corn future of British industry in the enlarged nnnunity. thIrl nuerous speeches and in such books as 4u.13elmican Special by E. Behrington Behrens led Is There Any Choice? Britain must beil Europe, it was held that British industry wehe,,xPosed to healthy competition which tire`gu guarantee efficiency and at the same de_e Would enjoy the benefits of a larger Ithris estiu market. On neither count so far has fact Materialised in regard to competition; in Pers1„lhe governments of the member states Dart:" in defending their own industries — in teehlcolar those concerned with advanced vantn,c)1°gY — in the interests of national adtriaril"ge• And as far as the larger domestic tsiAet is concerned, what was ignored at the to tehl'vas the fact that such a market is as open diff-i'e continentals as it is to the islanders. It is for chit to avoid the conclusion that the chase beintrY in the industrial field was largely 1441— upon the arrogant assumption that Brithe icould offer Europe advanced technology, eithp4,,M13,lication being that the continentals, by their own nationally-owned cornin a's or through the multinationals, could not a1 event event acquire whatever Britain had to Ili a oeell ;41Y case competition could easily have \vailted.tound in the world market if it had been CU The truth seems to be that British „his List t ,..`rY wanted competition provided, and lhact:as the implied clause in the contract stit-vi",,°,11 joining the EEC, that it guaranteed have ',at!. However, the events of the past year aurviv'llown that short of government support p A e.„4SimPly cannot be guaranteed. :lit:ruing to Peter Walker in a speech, to trad:'llent at the end of January, the UK arti0;; deficit with the dld EEC of the Six Parie'„rited to £1,120 million; further, in corn With 1972 our exports to other EEC 10115:; tries had increased by 37 per cent, our ris by 48 per cent. The figures tend to show that British industry is simply not making it in the Common Market. The answer given by Soames and the various other British representatives here is that, as the imbalance is largely caused by the import of capital goods, the total trend should be regarded as healthy, in that it raises the future export potential of British industry. It is difficult to see how this argument can be sustained, Bearing in mind the time-lags involved in the commissioning of the capital equipment and the production of further goods, the import of capital equipment from the continent in fact gives the continental manufacturers an added margin in the future trade relations between the two.
Presumably if the EEC were a true political community this would not matter, as there would be no reason why our French and German fellow citizens should not in fact enjoy a conceivably predominant position in British industry. But as the object of the original exercise was simply to boost British industry it would mean the wheel had come full circle. Presumably we could have taken the risk of the same disastrous outcome by simply accepting free competition.
This paradox of not facing the real commitments to community orientation in industrial policy was revealed again last week in some remarks by Sir Fred Catherwood: "In return for the markets and monetary stability which we so desperately need we will give to Europe the leadership and the vision which it so desperately needs." The point is, however, that there is no guarantee of either market or monetary stability for British industry as such, even assuming, which is doubtful, the Europeans still look to us for leadership. Happily, however, a new option may be open to us. The possibility of a total rebirth of European industry including British emerges from the new Atlantic links implicit in the outcome of the Washington conference.
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