Brussels impasse

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33413, 20 December 1973, Page 15

Brussels impasse

< N.Z.P.A .-Reuter— Copyright) BRUSSELS. December 19.

Latent tensions within the Common Market have burst into the open in a bitter, deadlocked dispute over the creation of a regional fund to help the poorer parts of the Community of nine nations.

The division over the fund is not only a rift between those countries which would pay into it and those which stand to benefit from it; it is also the manifestation of the different approaches among the Nine to the whole issue of European integration. The crisis has shattered the credibility of the statement issued after the weekend summit meeting of Community leaders in Copenhagen. Although they reconciled differences on how the Nine should tackle the oil crisis, and instructed their Ministers to reach an agreement on the proposed regional fund by last night, their bland words have remained a dead letter.

Because of the lack of progress on the fund, Britain is blocking the first steps towards preparing for a Community programme for dealing with the energy crisis.

The British Government has set considerable store on the creation of a substantial

ifund, to show national public opinion that Britain can obtain great benefits from her membership of the E.E.C. The British position is supported by Italy and Ireland, which also stand to receive considerable assistance from the fund, due to come into force on January 1. But against them stands firmly an intransigent West Germany, whose basic argument in support of only a modest fund at present (onefifth the size sought by the i other three) is that the Community, as it now is, does not merit a larger one. Arguments put forward over the last 48 hours here by the West German State ‘Secretary (Mr Hans Apel) show clearly that Bonn is | tired of being the “paymasI ter” of the E.E.C. and receiving no political commitment to Community integration in return. If the Common Market were already a federal organisation, then West Germany, as the richest part, would pay for poorer areas; but the Community lags far behind this goal at present, Mr Apel contends. He maintains that West I Germany cannot pay towards 'a large regional fund so long as there is no real commitment on the part of the others to economic and monetary union, including fixed parities between E.E.C. currencies, economic cooperation, and a strengthening of the Community’s institutions.