A Second Motive

The ceremony at Western Railway Station in Vienna last week recalled Austria's ancient grandeur. The Viennese Guards, clad in grey uniforms with silver fourra-geres, stood at attention as a trumpet blared. Beside them on the platform waited Austrian President Adolf Scharf and Chancellor Alfons Gorbach as the train slid in bearing West Germany's President Heinrich Liibke for a five-day state visit.

Not in 54 years had a German chief of state paid a formal call on Austria.* That was in 1908. when aging Emperor Franz Josef, surrounded by dragoons and hussars, stood on the same platform in plumed hat to receive Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The Kaiser came that day on more than a ceremonial mission; he sought unsuccessfully to keep the Emperor from angering Russia by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Similarly, last week's German visit had a second purpose. Accompanying Luebke was Bonn's Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroder. While the two Presidents went off to the opera and the Spanish Riding School, Schroder and Austrian Foreign Minister Bruno Kriesky were hard at it across the diplomatic table. Topic of their talks: neutral Austria's announced desire to join the European Common Market in some vague manner.

Under terms of the 1955 peace treaty with Russia and the Western powers which gave it independence, Austria cannot stray far from the neutral path. But down deep, the Austrians hanker for closer Western ties. As Chancellor Gorbach pointed out on a London trip a fortnight ago: "Our neutrality is simply a question of our having undertaken not to join any military alliance and not to allow foreign troops on Austrian territory. It goes without saying that we feel ourselves to be a part of the Western world." As such, the Austrians are eager to have "an economic connection" with the booming European

Common Market. The idea does not sit well with some Common Market members; they feel that the whole supranational concept--which may one day lead to Europe's political unity--would be watered down by allowing special terms and treatment for such neutrals as Austria, Sweden, Switzerland or Finland.

But the West Germans feel a "thousand years of common culture" with Austria, as Luebke put it last week. There is another subtle German motive. So long as little Austria exists as an example of neutralism, there will be those in every country who propose the same neutral solution for West Germany as a way to win reunification--or at least peace--from the Russians.

Thus, by easing Vienna's way into the Common Market, Bonn not only hopes to nudge Austria toward the West but to diminish the allure for West German neutrality.

* Not counting, as most Austrians do not, Adolf Hitler's triumphal arrival in the Austrian capital after the Anschluss, on March 14, 1938.

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