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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 8, 1984
PAGE 11
individual countries. The American domination of NATO has fueled
the rise of the anti-nuclear movement
in
Europe. The Danish par
liament has just cut off all funds for the new American missiles
in Europe.
The man who is most aware of these arguments is France's Presi
dent Mitterrand. He has proposed that an old institution should
be revived as the vehicle for the new European defence community:
the Western European Union.
The WEU••.membership--Britain,
France, West Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Luxembourg--is
better geared to defence than the European community.
Next month, a ministerial WEU meeting is to be convened in Paris
to discuss how it might be developed further. As a first step,
the WEU could serve •.•to rationalise the duplicating European
arms industry. Further ahead, it could actually develop into a
military command.
If it is to succeed, it is vital that it should be seen as a com
plement, not as a rival, to NATO. If the WEU looks to Washington
1ike an anti-American alliance of grumbling Europeans, it will
only encourage congressional pressure to pull American troops out
of Europe. Equally, however, it will need to be politically in
dependent of NATO if it is to appeal to those who lean towards
neutralism in northern Europe as well as to nationalistic French
men.
The British news magazine THE ECONOMIST picked up on the same theme in its
May 19 issue. It further stresses that the 10-nation European Community
cannot be the vehicle to encourage greater military cooperation, such as
joint weapons development and production.
It humiliates Europeans, and irritates Americans, that Europe
needs so much American help to defend itself, while America's
defence gets no similar help from Europe.•.•
This American presidental year has shown that Americans are
growing impatient with the anomaly.
They will grow more
impatie � t, as economic opportunities in the Pacific and political
alarms 1n Central America turn their eyes westward and southward
away from Europe. If the trouble in Central America spreads to
Mexico, American impatience could snap. Self-interest--not to
mention self-respect--requires Europe to do more for itself.
Putting more effort into defence cannot be done simply by putting
more young men into uniform. The parents of the 1960s did not
produce enough baby boys to make enough 18-year-olds for the
1980s: ..•the only solution is to get more defence out of roughly
the existing amount of defence money. That means rationalising
Europe's arms industries: in other words, making more and better
weapons in fewer factories employing fewer people. This sort of
rationalisation is something Europe is very bad at.
The best way of tackling it is pretty certainly not through the
machinery of the European community. In the EEC, each member
government tries to protect its own country's interests. That is