Common Market (2)

Does France want us out?

Gerald Segal ■•■••••• Was the real French purpose in calling last week's summit conference of heads of government to renegotiate Britain out of the EEC as part of a larger scheme to reassert the orieinal Gaullist concept of a non-Atlantic-oriented . independent Europe of nation states, responsive to French hegemony? Obviously the French cannot simply push Britain out. But they can try to put the British Government in such a position that when it comes to phrasing the questions for the proposed referendum as to whether or not Britain should stay in the EEC, the Government, possibly against its own real wishes, will have difficulty in recommending the terms and as a result the British people will inevitably vote 'No.'

Both Harold Wilson and James Callaghan seem to be aware that this is the French plan and their efforts to avoid being out-manoeuvred explain the rather sad series of diplomatic manoeuvres in which they have both recently engaged. There was Callaghan's sudden departure from a meeting of the EEC foreign ministers which was working out the summit agenda at midday on December 3 to brief Belgian Prime Minister Leo Tindemans before he flew to Paris to act as emissary for the British in a hurriedly arranged meeting with the French President, Giscard d'Estaing: 1 he Tindemans-Giscard meeting, at which the Belgian Prime Minister sought to persuade the French leader to relent on the tough line his representatives in Brussels were taking on the issue of Britain's contribution to the EEC budget and which had had the support of do other EEC members, was followed by an Elysee dinner at which Wilson and Callaghan theinselves tried to win over the French President — without much success.

Mr Callaghan had made it quite clear to his fellow foreign ministers what, from the point of view of that faction in the UK Labour Party which wishes to stay in the EEC, was at stake, He asserted that the "question of Britain's contribution to the EEC budget was a matter of great political sensitivity for the British people." Finally, by mentioning that legislation for a referendum would have to be prepared by February and that Britain's position by that

time would have to be clarified, he was in fact focusing on the summit as a key turning point in the renegotiation process and appealing for a favourable decision which, in the circumstances, means an agreed commitment that Britain should make a smaller contribution to the EEC budget than was agreed in the Treaty of Accession.

The odd irony about the budget issue is that it was first conceived by Edward Heath, while Still Prime Minister, in the wake of the abandonment of the Community Regional bevelopment Fund programme from which, on the Tory government's original calculations, a large part of British losses sustained on joining the Community could have been recouped. Heath asked the Treasury to prepare a paper Which could be used in further negotiations, and it was this paper, updated, which James Callaghan seized on when he needed to develop a case for renegotiation. The Treasury argument, and it has been largely upheld since by the EEC Commission, was that once the transition period had passed, i.e. on January I, 1978, Britain would be making a proportionately higher contribution to the Community than other, wealthier members. This would arise because the system of community self-financing which would then come into operation is based upon contributions from customs duties and VAT. Britain as the country likely to have the largest trade dealings with non-Community members (no customs duties within the Common Market) would therefore be making a proportionately larger contribution than other members. James Callaghan, therefore, pleaded that a formula Should be accepted which would link the budgetary contribution to the size of the per capita gross domestic product.

The French dismissed this out of hand, arguing, first, that the forecasts were doubtful and, second, that in any case the matter would not arise until 1978 and there would be time to Consider it then. It was curious that initially the French were partly supported by the Germans, although one might have supposed from all the euphoria surrounding the Harold Wilson-GisCard d'Estaing meeting of the previous weekend that Britain and Germany had agreed a Joint policy on this issue. The German position, built, upon the view that nothing should be done which could undermine the proposed Community 'own resources' system, was that, although Britain. clearly had a case, it was sufficient to wait until 1977-78 before doing anything about it.

Finally, everybody, apart from France and Britain, rallied round a compromise proposal Put up by theBelgians which would allow for the immediate start of an investigation into the clUestion with a view to taking action sometime Ii) 1977, But why did the French, isolated in the Community, and knowing that concurrence on their part would have "made the terms right" f,..,nr Harold Wilson, persist? And did French orei gn Minister (and president of the meeting) Jean Sauvanargues in the course of delivering what Mr Callaghan called a "a blast of cold air" in fact say, as I am assured he did, "it is true that aritain has trouble in regard to the EEC; it is ..salso true that the EEC will have trouble with m5ritain if Britain remains a member"?

Another question: why did French Prime ilpnister Jacques Chirac, fully aware that ritish disappointment over the failure of the Regional Fund was one of the immediate causes of the renegotiation, go to Dublin three Weeks before and propose there should be a a•ntall fund (the summit to adopt the appropriate measure) limited to the two poorest 'embers of the Community, namely Ireland Od Italy? Was that not, in fact, a proposal for a Janco-Irish alliance to outmanoeuvre the ldritish — a proposal which, in the event, was 'fqected by Ireland's Garret FitzGerald who nsisted that if the Community starts with a small regional fund then there should be a Commitment to expand its size and extend its

scope to all members after a specified number of years, and in any case must from the start include Northern Ireland, a part of the UK.

These questions lead back to the deeper and larger question — why have a summit at all? More precisely, why did Giscard d'Estaing, on succeeding Georges Pompidou, call for a summit with a view to the 'relance' of Europe?

I would guess that in the same way as General Charles de Gaulle, the man who had been foremost in resisting the emergence of a European Community, suddenly in 1960 called for meetings to discuss European Political Union (the memoirs of the late Paul Henri Spaak, Belgian Prime Minister and an original signatory of the Rome Treaty, are worth reading on this) which ended up two years later in the stalled Fouchet plan to assert French hegemony over a confederal Europe, so did President Giscard d'Estaing feel it was time for him to make the same bid.

And on his own terms he was right. Earlier this year, as now, the European situation was one of disarray; new policies had to be formulated and it was important for France to see to it that such policies as were formulated did not cast Europe into an Atlantic mould, alien to the French geopolitical world view. This entailed rejecting the American bid, which the other members of the EEC accepted, for leadership of all the West in the energy crisis which was made at the Washington Conference in February this year. As a result France was as isolated on a fundamental matter relating to the European economy as she already was on defence following the withdrawal of the French forces from active participation in NATO by de Gaulle in 1966. And France had to move quicklY. The

new German Chancellor was known to be an Atlanticist, and Giscard knew that, with the

recognition of the GDR, he, unlike de Gaulle, had only limited leverage over the Germans. Moreover, Britain was in the hands of a government which though Gaullist in the sense of opposing a federal European state, was distinctively British Gaullist and anxious to reassert the Atlantic relationship. Not out of their mouths would come the words of original pristine French Gaullism such as Edward Heath uttered in Peking: "We, like you, are opposed to the domination of two super powers" — thereby ranking the US with the USSR in relation to Europe (compare de Gaulle's speeches in the period 1958-63).

The result has been that for the last six months two high-level committees have gone

through what I suspect will prove to be the

farce of working out two, complicated agendas on institutional and substantive issues. Do the

French — indeed did they ever — have the intention of allowing majority voting in the Council of Ministers on anything but the most trivial issues? And will they in fact agree to direct elections to a sovereign European Parliament? On such institutional matters, they are at one with Britain's Labour Government, and both are at odds with the smaller members of the community, though the French are content to let the British bear the odium of rejecting the various proposals.

Gerald Segal writes regularly for The Spectator from Brussels