Road to Brussels

It was to have been Edward Heath's big moment. Britain's Prime Minister and the Premiers of Ireland, Denmark and Norway had just arrived in Brussels' Palais d'Egmont to sign a Treaty of Accession to the European Common Market, thus officially marking the end of 18 months of tough negotiations. The occasion, the next-to-last formal step before the four nations become full members of the Common Market next Jan. 1--if all goes according to schedule--was being carried live on Eurovision. Then, just as Heath walked through the Palais doors, a blonde woman stepped out of a group of photographers and threw a canister of black printing ink in his face.

The incident delayed the signing ceremony for only 50 minutes; it turned out that the woman, a 31-year-old psychologist named Karen Cooper, was protesting the government's handling of an urban renewal project in London's historic Covent Garden market, not Britain's joining the Common Market. But on a day devoted to symbolic ceremony, the affair could be viewed as an unhappy omen of the sort of political accident that can still upset the plans of Britain and its partners on their way to market in Europe.

Each of the four heads of government must win approval for the treaty at home before the documents signed in Brussels last week take effect. That will be no easy task, as Norway's Trygve Bratteli cautioned: "The distance must not be too great between vision and reality. It is of little use to find solutions in Brussels to common problems if we do not succeed in convincing our peoples that the common goals are also theirs."

The wisdom of Bratteli's observation was evident in counter-ceremonies staged last week in Ireland and Norway. In Dublin, all the ghosts of Irish nationalism are being dragged out by the anti-Marketeers ("Mansholt, the second Cromwell" reads one slogan, a reference to Sicco Mansholt, Dutch author of the Mansholt Plan to halve the number of Europe's agricultural workers by 1980). While the ceremonies were going on in Brussels, Dublin demonstrators read out a declaration of allegiance to the 1916 proclamation of the Irish Republic. In Oslo, anti-Marketeers staged a torchlight parade through the city's snow-covered streets and almost mobbed Bratteli at the airport as he left for Brussels. And in Brussels itself, 50 Britons demonstrated against the Market, with signs reading NON, NEIN, NO.

The odds are that each country will eventually vote to join the Common Market, and that Europe's Six will become the Ten on schedule. But the odds are not long, and whether the treaty will be ratified is still a betting proposition. Each government faces a different set of political and constitutional hurdles. A brief survey:

> In Britain, the opposition Labor Party raised a howl last week because the treaties signed in Brussels by Heath had not first been presented to Parliament. The issue was a spurious one, since the agreements will not take effect until Parliament votes approval. But the protest was a token of the opposition's serious intent to fight "clause by clause and line by line," as Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson puts it, the legislation that will define the terms of membership. Playing on Britons' fears of losing their sovereignty to faceless Eurocrats and of having to conform to continental laws, three Labor M.P.s last week lugged into the Commons three huge bundles of documents to demonstrate the size of the 42-volume mass of current EEC laws and regulations. Even so, Heath's Tory government won a mandate for signature by a 21-vote margin. That was considerably less than the 112-vote majority that last fall favored the principle of membership; it was enough to indicate that Heath's legislation can probably survive major parliamentary tests.

> In Ireland, EEC membership hinges on a constitutional amendment that must be approved by referendum, probably in April. Ireland would gain immensely from membership--particularly the country's beef producers, who are blessed with the best grazing land in Europe and now will benefit from higher EEC prices. The Dublin government predicts that if Ireland joins the EEC, farm-family incomes will double within five years, the country's growth rate will rise from 3% to 5%, and 50,000 new jobs will be created. In spite of that prospect, some Irishmen see a threat to small landholdings in the EEC's program of farm consolidation. They also worry that higher prices for farm products will bring a rush of foreigners to buy up the Irish countryside and fret over a possible loss of Irish neutrality. The government may gather a majority in favor of membership on the bread-and-butter benefits alone, but the vote is likely to be close.

> In Denmark, the final decision will also rest with the voters, in a referendum that will probably be held next summer. The Danes can hardly afford to stay out if Britain, their best customer for butter, bacon and cheese, joins their second best customer, the Common Market. Nonetheless, they--like the Irish--worry that membership will spur land speculation by foreigners. Latest straw polls show a narrow margin of 37% of voters in favor of joining and 31% opposed, but Premier Jens Otto Krag counts on increasing the pro-Market vote before the referendum is held. In Brussels, Copenhagen managed to negotiate special arrangements for Danish-owned Greenland and for the Faroe Islands, an autonomous outpost under the Danish crown that lies some 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The 38,000 Faroese will have three years to gauge the effect of Denmark's entry into the EEC before making up their minds on membership or independence.

> In Norway, the final decision will be made by the Storting (Parliament), and 75% of its 150 members must approve the step--meaning that a negative vote by only 38 M.P.s can keep Norway out. Anti-Market groups last week claimed that they had that many M.P.s on their side. However, since both major parties are in favor of joining, as well as most newspapers and businesses, opinion may well swing some of the antiMarket M.P.s to the pro side. Norwegian worries focus on a Common Market rule that the waters of any member are open to the fishermen of all. That poses a direct economic threat to the farmer-fishermen of Norway's rich northern fjords and coastal waters. In Brussels, Norwegian negotiators demanded a permanent twelve-mile fishing limit, but finally settled for a ten-year guarantee of exclusive fishing rights along some parts of the coast, a provision that will be subject to review by the EEC after 1982.

Probably the most powerful reason for any of the four nations to vote yes is a negative one: the prospect of isolation and economic decline if they remain outside the Common Market. But despite the euphoric words spoken in Brussels last week, it is clear that several statesmen will have to do some persuasive marketing of arguments at home in the next few months if the Six are indeed to become the Ten.

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