Make or Break

After 13 arduous months of negotiations, Britain's hopes of membership in the European Common Market hung in the balance last week. At Common Market headquarters in Brussels, Belgium's Deputy Foreign Minister Henri Fayat said somberly: "The atmosphere is steadily deteriorating, in the conference room as well as outside." In a make-or-break effort to overcome their differences, West Europe's Six suddenly decided to hold intensive, nonstop conferences from Jan. 10 until Feb. 1.

Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan desperately needed a swift settlement. Buffeted by defeats in recent by-elections, Macmillan's Tories now faced a redoubled onslaught from the Labor Party, whose leader, Hugh Gaitskell, declared last week, "There is no overriding necessity for Britain's entry." Gaitskell charged that the U.S., which is not prepared to see the "disappearance of America as an independent nation," is acting hypocritically in urging Britain to surrender its sovereignty in a united Europe.

In British eyes, Europe's assumption that the country will come in at any cost disregards the political dangers to Macmillan's government. The biggest single obstacle now is the Community's insistence that Britain must immediately raise most food and farm prices to the higher Common Market level if it is admitted in 1964, rather than postpone the increase until 1970. The British maintain that they need the transition time, both to raise the housewife's grocery bill by easy stages and to cushion the effect of high European tariffs on Commonwealth economies. European diplomats reply that Britain would do better to join the Community as fast as possible and then help influence its evolution from within.

The decision may not depend on technical issues such as farm prices, but on the outcome of Macmillan's talks with Charles de Gaulle this week. Despite his reluctance to admit a competitive Britain to Europe's cozy club, De Gaulle may finally be swayed by the grander vision of a united Europe whose power and prosperity can only be augmented by. British membership. In any event, said a British official last week, "the moment of truth will have to come soon."

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