Talks on political unity

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32459, 20 November 1970, Page 13

Talks on political unity

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MUNICH, Nov. 19. Common Market Foreign Ministers will meet today for the first of a series of regular consultations aimed at increasing the political dimensions of the six-nation Community.

The meeting sets in motion the last of the three main initiatives which the Six pledged themselves at their Hague summit a year ago to undertake during 1970. The two others—enlargement negotiations and preparations for economic and monetary integration—have been under way for several months.

On political unification, the Ministers have set themselves only modest goals. The coordination of foreign policy is the first task facing them on the basis of a preparatory report by an expert group under Viscount Etienne Davignon, of Belgium.

The Ministers’ agenda has not been made public, but informed sources say that the three topics today will be the Middle East, prospects for a European security conference and relations between the Community and the Soviet Union.

All countries will be represented by their Foreign Ministers except Italy, which is sending the State Secretary (Mr Mario Pedini) to deputise for Mr Aldo Moro. The discussions will be secret, Ministers being accompanied only by their top advisers. A final communique will be issued but is unlikely to contain much information about the substance of their talks.

Informed sources say that the Ministers will first try to set out aspects of the three topics on which there is scope for agreement; the aim at subsequent sessions will be to arrive at something more concrete—possibly in the form of joint action.. In this context, the Six want their foreign policy consultations to go beyond the merely Consultative role

of such organisations as the Western European Union, the sources say. The West German Foreign Minister (Mr Walter Scheel), who will preside at the oneday meeting, will go to Strasbourg on Friday to report its results to the European Parliament,’ which groups members of Parliament from the Six.

Under Community procedure it has been agreed that the political union meetings, to be held twice yearly, will be hosted by the current president of the council of Ministers in his home country. The four candidates for E;E.C. membership—Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway—will be informed of the outcome of the Munich discussions at a 10-nation gathering in Brussels on December 2. The form of consultation with the candidates is set out in the Davignon report, but the report makes it clear that Britain and the others cannot take the initiative at these meetings by raising fresh topics for.Siiscussion.