Brussels letter

Unanswered questions at Wilson's summit

Gerald Segal

I take it as a reasonable measure of the success of the British delegation (Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Foreign Secretary James Callaghan) to the first post-referendum EEC Summit in Brussels last week that when I bought Belgian francs in London the day before the conference I got around 82 for El sterling and on the day after the conference here in Brussels I got just over 85. In many ways it was Harold Wilson's conference, although he seems to have got, unfairly in my opinion, a rather bad press as a result of some criticisms which were made here after his opening remarks at the first session. I suspect that the continental press corps and some of the more federally-orientated European statesman felt somewhat cheated, in that the Prime Minister, fortified by the referendum result, did not launch a crusade for a United Europe. Had he done so the first party would have got a good story, the second the political lead they have been waiting for. Discussions afterwards tended to concentrate on a remark allegedly made by West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to the effect that "no country could expect economic help from Germany if they did not support the development of the European institutions." This was interpreted as being an expression of Schmidt's resentment at Wilson's failure to commit himself wholeheartedly to direct elections to the European Parliament and in to the furtherance of the European idea.

It is doubtful, however, whether Schmidt ever made the remark in the contexts or manner alleged; in any case he later went out of his way to emphasise that he was greatly impressed by the way his British opposite number had succeeded in getting an incomes policy adopted and further that his forthcoming bilateral talks with the Prime Minister in Germany were aimed at ensuring that the intimate relationship which now existed between Bonn and Paris applied in the same measure as between Bonn and London.

The fact is that Harold Wilson's speech was both more subtle and more meaningful than his , critics allowed. He avowed that Britain's membership of the Community was now total and, spelling it out, he said that "politieally, economically, industrially and in their trade commitments the British people were totally involved." But this, of course, still left open the question, which the UK referendum avoided and which incidentally no other member country has yet been called upon to answer, as to exactly what it is that the British people are involved in — a federal union or a common market or a hybrid in process of becoming one or the other or both.

And on this question of the future nature of the Community, Wilson neatly threw the burden of finding the answer off the backs of

the British people, where the French in particular have been trying to load it for the past year or so, on to the member states as a whole. He declared that "insofar as we press for interests of importance [this refers to-issues of national importance which might be subject to a veto procedure in the institutions] we shall be doing no more and no less than our EEC partners."

Thus on the issue of direct elections to the European Parliament which Britain, supported by Denmark, opposes it will now be up to the Community to consider, through a new study committee set up by the conference, exactly what is involved and then to ask the Council of Ministers and possibly a future summit to take a decision. The French, for example, will have to stand up and be counted on the extent to which they are prepared to allow the European Parliament sovereign power over the French national assembly. It is not really an answer to say that the European Parliament should be sovereign over community issues, for that merely raises the further question: what are community issues?

In any case the traditional European institutions are now faced with a summit — the "European Council," meeting three times a year — as the supreme arbiter of Community' policies, and what that Council (in Wilson's words "the highest form of coalition in the community") cannot agree upon, as in the current session they did not agree upon energy policy, cannot become policy.

There were three important areas in which policies were established by last week's European Council. On economic questions, it was agreed that the recession had been more severe than had been anticipated but that solutions would have to be worked out in a larger framework than the Community and in particular would have to involve the United States and Japan. Within the Community, it was agreed, members should work out their own policies but seek to harmonise them with their fellow members. The upshot is that Germany, France and Holland are expected to introduce reflationary measures based upon public investment in the next two months.

In foreign policy the European Council made a strong commitment to the existing structure of the United Nations, the rights of member states and the existing rules of procedure — which was another way of saying they would not bow to Arab pressure to expel Israel.

The tough line taken on Portugal — no economic or financial support unless Portugal develops into a pluralist democracy — may not however achieve the results pesired. The Community does not normally tie its economic relations to the political philosophies of the

countries with which it dears. 'this procedure has been justified in the case of-Portugal on the

grounds that it is a European country with aspirations to becoming a member of the EEC where specifically the precondition of democracy, as in the cake of Greece, would apply. It may be worth noting that the Communist bloc is also in Europe and that EEC members do have extensive trade relations with those Communist states and may be about to sign with them at Helsinki a general treaty covering economic and political relations. If the Soviet version is accepted, a key point will be non-interference in the internal affairs of othe.

parties to the treaty. In , the event of the Portuguese rejecting the European Council's appeal and the Communist Party pulling off a coup (Czechoslovakia of 1948 comes to mind) and applying for membership of Comecon, what could the Western response be?

If the treaty on European Security and Cooperation is signed in the next fortnight at Helsinki the West will be precluded from any 'interference.' It may be relevant that the summit chose not to publish an agreed statement on the impending Helsinki conference.