Summit without France

Press, 4 October 1985, Page 16

Summit without France

The summit meeting of the world’s leading Western countries, to be held in New York in three weeks, is looking a little ragged. France, though invited, will not attend. Belgium and the Netherlands, which were not invited, would like to attend. Mrs Thatcher, the Prime Minister of Britain, was invited but is not sure that she can make it. President Reagan wanted to meet the leaders of France, West Germany, Britain, Italy, Canada, and Japan before meeting the Soviet leader, Mr Gorbachev, in November. Belgium and the Netherlands have called for a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation instead. Mr Reagan plans to go ahead with the meeting even though the plans for the summit meeting in New York have gone a little awry.

President Mitterrand of France has not said precisely why he will not go to New York, but the wording of the announcement that he would not go suggests that he would have liked to have been consulted on the timing. The Americans say that they had to release the date because it. had already been released in West Germany. President Mitterrand has not refused to meet President Reagan, but would like the timing to be agreed mutually. An even more important consideration in the mind of President Mitterrand may have been that he did not want to be called on to give France’s wholehearted support for the position Mr Reagan will take to Geneva to present to Mr Gorbachev.

To some extent, the summit meeting may be seen as the United States consulting its main allies before the meeting between the American and Soviet leaders. More convincingly, the meeting is likely to be the occasion on which the United States tells its allies what will be said at Geneva and asks for their unreserved support. On such occasions it is hard to stand against the crowd and President Mitterrand knows that, had he gone, he would have come under intense pressure to agree with the others. President Reagan also knows that it would be much more difficult to achieve an agreed position if all of N.A.T.O.’s 16 nations were at the meeting.

The main point on which Canada, Japan, and the West Europeans will be asked to agree is the strategic defence initiative, the American plan to establish an anti-ballistic missile system in space. France has already said that it will not support the programme. The outcome is likely to be that the leaders who attend will, give the plan more wholehearted support than

they would have mustered had France been present. For all that, their support will carry the less weight because of the absence of a strong and influential country. Unless the United States manages to soothe away the irritation expressed by the Netherlands and Belgium, President Reagan will be going to Geneva to see Mr Gorbachev while the countries of N.A.T.O. are openly split about who should be consulted about the attitude of the West towards the Soviet Union. The United States will not want this. Occasionally some scepticism is expressed in Europe about whether the United States is really serious about its arms talks with the Soviet Union. Some Europeans need convincing that anything would satisfy the United States in such talks. Another old European fear has recently surfaced from the West German Ministry of Defence. The old fear is that the United States will fail to guarantee the security of Europe because it will not risk a Soviet attack on the American homeland. The new version of the old fear comes from the strategic defence initiative itself. The West German Ministry of Defence is arguing that the strategic defence initiative will enable the United States to protect its homeland and therefore disengage itself from the defence of Europe. For this reason the Defence Ministry is arguing that the countries of Europe should combine to produce Europe’s own anti-missile defence system.

President Mitterrand’s refusal of the invitation came on the eve of the visit to France by Mr Gorbachev, who has now arrived in Paris. Mr Gorbachev has wasted no time in reacting favourably to President Mitterrand’s dislike of the strategic defence initiative. President Mitterrand generally disapproves of joint communiques, so it is doubtful if the names of Mr Gorbachev and President Mitterrand will appear on the same sheet of paper condemning the strategic defence initiative. Nevertheless, Mr Gorbachev’s visit will be studied with interest by many Europeans. One of the most important questions in the minds of observers will be about whether the Soviet Union under Mr Gorbachev has decided that it can deal with President Reagan’s America or whether the world will have to wait for another American President before there is some serious movement towards a lessening of tension — tension felt nowhere more acutely than it is in Europe.