MR WILSON’S EUROPE P.M. THOUGHT LIKELY TO BE PREPARED FOR REBUFFS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31226, 25 November 1966, Page 12

MR WILSON’S EUROPE P.M. THOUGHT LIKELY TO BE PREPARED FOR REBUFFS

(By

MICHAEL GARDNER

oj the "Economist”)

Is Harold Wilson serious in his wish to take Britain into the European Economic Community? The short answer is probably: but without being driven by idealism.” He has decided, rightly, that the consensus in the country is now strongly in favour of taking the plunge.

So the Labour Prime Minister’s approach to Europe, in the negotiations about negotiations that he is starting, will be different from the approach the Opposition leader, Edward Heath, would have chosen. If there was a Conservative Government in Britain now, it would have told the Six that it was willing to sign their Treaty of Rome. It would cut to the bone its requests for “special accommodations” for Britain —asking only for a transitional period for adjustment, and leaving all other problems to be solved when Britain had got a voice inside the Common Market. Heath would have hoped to use the sheer reasonableness of this request as a weapon to

shame General de Gaulle into letting Britain in—or at least as a possible means of mobilising the other Five to put pressure on de Gaulle to let it in.

But Wilson is more likely, when he makes his “grand tour” of Europe, to mutter that he hopes special accommodations can be granted to protect this, that, or the other British or Commonwealth special interest. This is not because Wilson thinks that these special interests—in horticulture, or in I New Zealand, or in free entry of certain British imports from the Commonwealth —are especially important. Probably, if he saw that General de Gaulle would let Britain in if these conditions were dropped, he would drop them all like a shot. But Wilson, in a way that would not occur to Heath, is already preparing the posture he would’ adopt if he found that de Gaulle’s veto was still in place. If his mission fails, Wilson wants to be able to say that this was not just because de Gaulle gave him a humiliating rebuff. He will declare that it failed because he, Wilson, had bulldoggedly refused to sacrifice all these worthy British interests, in the way that the wicked Tories would have done. Unfortunately the result may be that, during the first stage of the negotiations, even some of those inside the Common Market who are keenest to have Britain in may come to feel that Wilson is a rather pettifogging little man. Sole Barrier

The important fact remains; the only thing that will really stop Britain from geeting into Europe will once again be a decision by de Gaulle to use his veto. There is obviously a strong possibility that he will use it again. The optimists are saying now that there are two reasons why his attitude may have been softened since 1963. First, to some extent, three years ago he genuinely feared what he saw as “American military domination of political relationships in Europe.” The entry into his Europe of so close an American ally as Britain might, he feared, increase this danger. With the emphasis in American military policy switched to containing China rather than containing Russia, and with France extricated from N.A.-

T. 0., some Gaullists are now saying that “this contingent military problem is more or less solved."

Secondly, In the last three years Gaullist economic thinking has put more and more emphasis on the importance of “bigness" in industrial affairs. The general himself is aware of the growing import ance of the science-based industries. and of the growing realisation that Europeans urgently need to act together

if this field is not to be wholly dominated by the Americans. If Britain came into the Common Market, bringing giant corporations like Imperial Chemicals with it. some Gaullists feel that there would be a much more satisfactory nucleus for future expansion of European-orien-tated instead of Americanorientated technological industries. Sterling’s Strength Probably (though not certainly) this offsets another economic argument that is on the negative side: namely, that some Europeans—not only the French—think that a Britain apparently so apt to get entangled in such fearful sterling currency crises is a less desirable member of their economic community than they hoped it would be three years ago.

But both these points may prove insignificant in comparison with what many people fear is the General's real political objection to Wilson’s bid. Three years ago, de Gaulle calculated that if both Britain and Germany were in the European community, France would no longer have a preponderant voice in determining the community's future course. Does he still calculate that? This is the riddle of the sphinx. On it, maybe, all else depends.