DE GAULLE AND EUROPE-2
Gaullism: The Basic Dilemma
By LORD GLADWYN
TN conversation with de Gaulle, whom I saw jailer a long interval in September 1964 and again at the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, I have over the years always—done my best to suggest that a Western Europe without Britain does not make any political sense; that an attempt to form it would probably only lead in the long run, not to French, but to German or, alterna- tively, to Russian. domination of Western Europe; that, however that may be, no political system acceptable to any of France's neighbours can possibly work unless there is some machinery for common decision-making other than unanimity; that by far the best thing would be kr the French and the British to agree on the formation of a European political and defence Machine which would embody this principle, if Only, to start off with, in a very restricted way: and that one of the first tasks of such a nucleus should be to prepare a scheme for the co- ordination of our two 'Forces de Frappe' and of all the conventional forces of Western Europe Within the framework of the Western alliance.
I do not think de Gaulle is entirely unsym- Pathetic to this kind of reasoning, but he is inhibited by his apparently quite genuine fear cf losing his 'national identity.' We therefore invariably come up against the rock of 'sovereignty.' He will accept nothing, so he always says, which has the faintest 'element of supra- nationality.' And, of course, on the other hand, if Britain should come into a simple 'Europe des Etats,' which she might be willing to do as such, would it not be inevitable that the leader- ship would fall from France's grasp? The ances- tral voices win.
Though, as I say. 1 have the impression that the General would really prefer to come to terms with l'Angleterre, I really do not see how we can escape from this basic dilemma. It is true that if, as many allege. he is intent, if not on ;tetually wrecking the EEC, at any rate on putting It into cold storage, we oqght to be able to fix tip some new kind of European Community out of the debris; but we cannot do this on the basis of a 'Europe des Etats,' and as long as this con- cept is insisted upon there will simply be in- !Teasing European anarchy from which only the Soviet Union, or China, can possibly profit. trench withdrawal from the EEC, and indeed from NATO, is not something which even the most anti-Gaullist European could possibly de- r,!, for it would lead to a division in the alliance. No wonder the Kremlin is increasingly delighted by the General's policies. toThere are people in Britain who are prepared 3 ,justify them, too. This cannot be attributable solely to a pleasure in being kicked around, though no doubt that comes into it. The approval is probably due to a genuine conviction that a United Europe in a supranational sense is an illusion and that the sooner we ourselves pursue a purely nationalist policy the better. So far as we are concerned, we should, therefore, as the General would wish, leave the organisation of Europe to him and, apart from special joint projects, get on with developing our Common- wealth and Empire. I think de Gaulle has always been genuinely astonished that the successors to Sir Winston Churchill have not taken this simple course. Indeed, he once told me himself that he could not believe that we would ever sacrifice 'our wonderful system of Imperial Preferences.' Unfortunately, this is not a practicable solution. The Empire has ceased to exist. The Common- wealth, though of great value as a sort of inter- racial elub, is not, and cannot be, either a political or an economic entity. The proportion of our trade with the Commonwealth decreases yearly, more and more countries like Australia :end New Zealand will be obliged to trade with the great industrial complex of Japan. To a lesser extent, but the argument holds so far as it goes, it is as if we suggested to de Gaulle that he should get on with the development of his own 'Commonwealth.' more trade with Indochina and the vast 'Freiich. districts of Africa, closer rela- tions with Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco and so on. No doubt he would like to; but, just as in our case, there are nationalist considerations which restrict any such development. Of course we can, and we should, bring the Commonwealth together as much as we can and, in particular, try to bring it into some kind of special relationship with a United Europe: but to suggest that it can be a substitute for the latter is not to com- pare like with like. If Europe remains divided, the Commonwealth does not provide, for us, any satisfactory alternative.
It is, however, quite possible that de Gaulle has now decided to wreck the Common Market, or that at least he will now seek to reduce it to a simple customs union in Which French agricul- ture will enjoy enormous advantages and no decision will ever be taken without French con- scnt. But if so, all France's partners have to do is..to sit tight and dare France to withdraw, knowing that, if she does so, she will come back one day. The great industrial complex will prob- ably thus continue to gain ground, though less rapidly than it otherwise would, our own ex- clusion from it having an increasingly unfortu- nate effect, not only for us, but for Europe generally. And if it does continue, then whatever de Gaulle may do or say it will one day pro- duce some kind of political authority. On the other hand, the chances of the per- petuation of a 'Greater France' customs union from which we should remain excluded are materially increased if Britain continues to have no European policy. Only if we vigorously assert our intention to enter a real economic and political union will our European friends be en- couraged to stand up to Gaullist pressures and keep the door open both for us and for a genuine Community. It is no exaggeration to say that such a gesture by Britain might change the whole destiny of our western world.
Should we so act we might well discover that we have been taking the recent attitudes of de Gaulle too tragically. The apparent nihilism is no doubt principally designed to delight the more unsuspecting of the French and thus to persuade them to keep the General in office. Sometimes his more outrageous gestures seem to be dictated by a desire to show that there is no effective opposition to anything he may do, at any rate in France. There is no such thing as 'Gaullism' as a philosophy, still less as a policy. The Gaullists simply say hurray to what- ever the General from time to time tells them to do or think. To have boxed the compass several times in foreign policy within seven years is no mean feat. In so doing, to have been treated as an `infallible guide' by a large majority of the sceptical Gauls is even more astonishing. The only guiding line through all this is, I repeat, to grasp that whatever France does is right; that the General is France; that therefore the General is infallible. Apparent contradiction or anomalies in French foreign policy cannot therefore be taken at their face value. They are tours de force, designed to astonish the bourgeois, performed in perfect safety to a dazzled audience over the useful safety net of American nuclear supremacy.
Whatever the difficulties, therefore, in the way of achieving a United Europe, or at any rate a United Western Europe, may be—that is to say, some Europe other than a 'Europe des Etats,' which, as we have seen, even if it were achievable, would not really be a Europe at all, but only a greater France—it looks as if they would be generally overcome. It may be a slower process than we imagine. It is true that we shall have, before any meaningful political authority is established, to create, if not exactly a Euro- pean patriotism, at least a European fellow- feeling and a European sense of purpose. Among the 'establishments,' and the intellectuals, this may be a reasonably easy process. Perhaps in those circles the Homo Europaeus, so suspect to the General, may be said to have already arrived. For the people as a whole this evolution will clearly be a great deal slower. But the broad impression, among those qualified to gather the evidence, is that the tendency in all the Euro- pean lands, the groundswell as it were, is to- wards some real unity and against the nationalist. the atavistic instincts that push them in a con- trary direction.
Towering genius though he is, it does not look, on present form, as' if de Gaulle would be able to hold back for long the forces making for unity. Certainly his successor, however nationalistically-minded. would have far greater difficulty than he in repeating King Canute's well-known gesture. So it may well, at this point, be advisable for us to see why it is that thinking in Gaullist terms, tempting though it may be for an ex-imperial power such as Britain, is no longer adapted to the problems of our time, and what the real reasons are which still push us, however reluctantly, towards acceptance of membership of a genuine and vital European Community.
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