AGREEMENT ON SAAR

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27491, 27 October 1954, Page 11

AGREEMENT ON SAAR

Provisions Of Statute

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON. October 25. The French and West German Governments will tomorrow publish the terms of the draft statute by which they have settled the problem of the ka-ar, .“t® greatest of all post-war obstacles to French and German reconciliation.

The statute must first be approved by the Paris Bonn parliaments, and then submitted to the Saarlanders themselves in plebiscite. Voters in the small but highly-industrialised state will then choose between the statute and the present regime, with its close ties with France. Pro-German parties, forbidden to take part in the elections that put the present Saar Government of Mr Johannes Hoffman into power, will be allowed to function during the three months between French and German ratification of the statute and the plebiscite. This will be the first time since the war that open campaigning for the ultimate return of the Saar to Germany has been allowed. The draft agreement provides for the territory to be internationalised under a neutral high commissioner appointed by the Western European Union, the seven-nation body in which Britain is collaborating with the countries of the ill-fated European Defence Community. “Compromise View” It thus represents a compromise between the German view that the Saar, in which German is the common language, is part of Germany, and French insistence that the Saar’s economic link with France must continue. The French case is based on the twoedged claim that the Saar and iron oreproducing French Lorraine are interdependent, and that if the Saar’s industry were integrated once more in Germany, the Federal Republic would dominate the six-nation coal-steel pool. The neutral high commissioner will be responsible to the parliamentary assembly of the union for the Saar’s foreign affairs and defence, and the protection of the constitution and political independence of the territory. The close economic tie with France will continue, but rather less rigidly than before. Details are still to be fully worked out, but France’s exclusive rights will be watered down, and the Saar Government will henceforth administer the coalmines instead of France.

The Western European Union is due to last almost into the next century. But if in the meantime Russia and the Western Powers reach agreement on a peace treaty for the whole of Germany, the Saarlanders will hold another plebiscite, this time to determine their permanent destiny.