The Reunion

In Rome last week statesmen of six European nations assembled in a vast, frescoed hall atop Capitoline Hill. All about them were reminders of the age when Europe all the way from Hadrian's Wall in the south of Scotland to Roman outposts on the Black Sea acknowledged the law of the Caesars. Before them on a damask-covered table lay the latest instruments for reunifying Europe--the treaties that would establish the Western European Common Market and the European Atomic Energy Community.

Within 15 years or so, under the first treaty, there will be no tariff walls between the six nations, and a common tariff rate will be set up between them and the rest of the world (TIME, Jan. 28); under the second treaty the six will enter the nuclear age together in one big cooperative (Euratom) of nuclear research and production.

One by one, the statesmen signed--first Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak, who presided over the drafting of the treaties, then Christian Pineau of France, Konrad Adenauer of Germany, Antonio Segni of Italy, Joseph Bech of Luxembourg and Joseph Luns of The Netherlands. Hardheaded politicians all, the signers were only too aware that the treaties might yet fail to win ratification in one or another of their parliaments (particularly the French), but even that realization could not dim the drama and promise of the moment. "If we succeed," said Belgium's Spaak, "today will be one of the most important dates in European history."

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