A closed Europe or . . .
ARE you pro-Europe? It always strikes me as the same sort of question as: would you like your daughter to marry an Old Harro- vian? The right answer to both questions is: which one? The alternative Europes are now being paraded, and the differences are apparent. There is the open Europe„ of free choice and free markets in goods and services and money. There is the closed Europe, whose most potent symbol is the Common Agricultural Policy, the negation of free markets — as the Governor of the Bank of England bravely told the assem- bled farmers at the Royal Show. Chancel- lor Kohl's priorities are clear. He needs the CAP. With an election coming up, he is not going to put his thumb on the hose- pipe which sprays subsidies all over his Christian Democrat votes in Germany's rustic south. The CAP is holding up agreement on freer trade in goods and services the world over. The threat is of a world split into mutually hostile trading blocs, to include Fortress Europe. Our trading bloc could then quickly become a currency bloc, with subsidies and grants on the CAP model to compensate the losers.
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