WESTERN EUROPE: Germany and France United

Few towns in Europe recalled the disastrous traditional enmity between France and Germany more strongly than the pleasant spa of Bad Kreuznach (pop. 33,000) in Rhineland-Palatinate. In Bad Kreuznach’s ornate Kurhaus, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg planned German operations on the Western Front during the last two years of World War I; from the same building, Field Marshal Karl von Rundstedt directed the Wehrmacht’s withdrawal from France in World War II. Last week in the salon of the Kurhaus, France’s Charles de Gaulle, who fought the Germans in both wars, raised a glass of good Rhine wine and toasted West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer as a “great man, a great European and a great German.”

It was Charles de Gaulle’s first state visit abroad since his return to power, and, as a man conscious of the power of such gestures, he meant it to symbolize the reconciliation between France and Germany. Crusty, old (82) Konrad Adenauer, a fellow Roman Catholic who hits it off well with De Gaulle, beamed in delight at De Gaulle’s assurances of French solidarity with West Germany in the Berlin crisis. But in London, the British government took nervous note of the politics, and the economics, of the meeting.

The Halfway House. The British, who like to be half in and half out of Europe, of late have become increasingly disturbed about the six-nation Common Market, the economic bloc of 160 million customers which France. Germany, Italy and Benelux will launch on New Year’s Day. From the start, the British refused to join the Common Market on the ground that they could not abandon their present intricate system of Commonwealth tariff preferences. At the same time, British industry dreaded the prospect of finding its products excluded from the Common Market. As a halfway house, Harold Macmillan two years ago plumped for a 17-nation European Free Trade Area to supplement the Common Market. The F.T.A. would permit free exchange of industrial products between member nations, but, unlike the Common Market, it did not call for ultimate establishment of uniform wage and tax levels or for a common tariff wall against outsiders.

Three weeks ago France, after a year of fruitless negotiation, declared that “it is not possible to create the Free Trade Area as desired by the British.” Dismayed and outraged, British spokesmen accused France’s protection-loving industrialists of trying to turn the Common Market into an exclusive high-tariff club. Such a step, warned the British, would split Europe into two hostile economic camps. British fears are shared by many, including West Germany’s free-enterprising Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard.

Closer to Equality. At Bad Kreuznach, De Gaulle skillfully countered France’s critics. In a show of moderation, he agreed that the 10% tariff cut and the minimum 20% increase in import quotas which the Common Market six will accord one another’s goods beginning Jan. 1 should be temporarily extended to outside nations, while some kind of “multilateral association” is worked out between the six and the rest of Europe. This was not enough to satisfy Erhard. But Adenauer is desperately anxious for Germany to forge an unbreakable alliance with France.

De Gaulle, whose ambitions are more French than European, had made sure that the Common Market nations would present a united front in future negotiations with Britain. And by strengthening the bonds between France and Germany, he had brought France appreciably closer to equality with Britain and the U.S. in NATO councils. For while France alone might not be able to speak with the voice of a major power, France backed up by West Germany could scarcely be ignored.