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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 9, 1983
PAGE 7
she would veto any increase in the Community's spending to cope with the
relentless demands of European farmers.
Mrs. Thatcher said that "Germany
and Britain are the only net contributors to the Community's budget. All
the others are takers. I do resent it very much when others talk about
Britain's 'demands.'
We are only giving notice that we can't pay any
more."
Gaston Thorn, president of the Community's executive commission in
Brussels, said "the crisis was caused because member countries thought more
about their own than Community interests." This summit, ironically, was
one of the most extensively prepared in memory.
Foreign, finance and
agriculture ministers met in Stuttgart, West Germany 11 times since the
summer to prepare for the conference. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
said he would not hide his deep disappointment, but was convinced that the
10 member nations had learned their lesson. "We must grasp that� Europe
divided and exhausted
.2.Y
renewed nationalism will exert no influence in the
world and, indeed, can become a plaything of foreign interests," he said.
While the Common Market stands at another brink, the crisis within NATO
over the missile deployment deepens, writes Don Cooke in the December 5 LOS
ANGELES TIMES:
The European press is flooded these days with commentary columns
under headlines such as "The Deepest Crisis in NATO's History,"
"A Turning Point in East-West Relations" and "The Missile
Strategy That Could Misfire."•••
In none of the countries where the missiles will be deployed does
the majority of the public support their arrival, according to
opinion polls. More seriously, in West Germany, Britain, the
Netherlands and Belgium--four of the five NATO countries that
will receive the missiles--the major opposition parties are
opposed to deployment of the missiles. And they are committed to
their removal should the opposition parties be returned to power.
In every case these same parties were in power in 1979 when the
NATO plan was adopted, and supported--indeed advocated--the
alliance two-track policy to seek removal of the Soviet inter
mediate-range missiles through negotiations while at the same
time pressing ahead, in the absence of an agreement with the
Kremlin, with plans to deploy NATO's own missiles this month.•..
Where does NATO .9.2 from here...? It now seems almost inevitable
that when NATO foreign and defense ministers meet again in mid-
1984, the pressures in Europe for a voluntary moratorium on
further missile deployment will be strong (the planned deployment
of 572 American missiles is not scheduled to be completed until
1988) ....
More now on the re-emergence of the "German question" which haunts the
French in particular.
First of all, a report in the highly-regarded
"International Outlook" section of BUSINESS WEEK magazine, the issue of
December 12:
The "German question"--the urge for unity among divided Germans
that tormented 19th century European politics--has returned to
haunt Western Europe and the U.S. Looming up from beneath the