THE WEST EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET by Jean Monnet If any new arguments were needed to prove Europe's urgent need of unity, the tragic events of the past three months have provided them. I am convinced that if Europe had been united, whatever might have occurred in Egypt, the crisis would have taken a very different form. A united Europe would, like the United States now, have had more powers of attraction for poor countries like Egypt. Further, its capacity to create alternative power resources by developing atomic energy in common would have been immensely greater than it is.
In such circumstances, oil would have been the basis for trade and not for dangerous power politics. The quarrel would not have assumed its present proportions. Even now, the best hope for Europe's nations is to develop civilian atomic power together on a continental scale. This is precisely the aim of Euratom which is being negotiated by the Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg, which have already joined in the federal European Coal and Steel Cornmunity.
The terrible events in Eastern Europe call up another aspect of the need to unite Europe. The changes in Poland and the tragic insurrection in Hungary show that finally Eastern Europe must evolve toward greater self-determination, however slowly the change is to come. But the Russian repression proves that changes cannot come suddenly or by violence. They must develop gradually. In particular, it is clear that there is no other way to reunify Germany peacefully. But the countries of Western Europe will not be able to influence the situation in the right direction if their own peoples are hesitant about their future.
One must not be surprised that the present crisis has been deeply influenced by the irrational, human element. Countries constantly subject to the fears natural in Europe's precarious situation cannot be expected to take a calm view of events. For Britain and France, one must add the further strain on governments and peoples of prolonged, if necessary, retreats from old positions of power. They must create new foundations of prosperity and expansion if they are to hope for the future. The immense task
of building and guiding a united Europe could provide those hopes.
My impression is that awareness of these issues has lately persuaded many Europeans of the need for unity. Euratom is under negotiation, and recently Chancellor Adenauer and Premier Mollet have overcome the main obstacle to a treaty. It should now be rapidly worked out.
Similarly, a general European common market, which seemed almost utopian a year ago, has suddenly come to appear so realistic that Britain has proposed to associate herself with it in a free trade area that would also include countries like Switzerland, Austria and the Scandinavian. I can hardly exaggerate the importance of Britain's taking a major initiative of this kind in view of the reserve she has always maintained toward European integration.
The desire to unite is not confined to governments. The Action Committee for a United States of Europe includes the leaders of the main political parties and free labor unions in the six countries, and they sit not as individuals but as the leaders of their organizations. In addition to the Christian Democrats, Liberals and Socialists—who, from the first, supported the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Defense Community—the non-Communist labor unions and the German Social Democrats, who were originally reserved or even hostile, are now among this committee's firmest supporters.
Even outside the committee, organizations like the powerful French farmers' associations have recently come out in favor of a European cornmon market. These are not mere statements of principle, but active choices of policy by responsible leaders. There has never been more organized support for European unity than today.
The difficulties of achieving unity will continue to be great because of the inherent problems of integrating complex, highly developed modern economies that have grown apart for a century. It will be difficult at every stage to progress toward a European common market—perhaps never more so than when the treaties are signed and ratified and have to be carried out.