Basic HTML Version
WOBLDWA!OB
An Overview of Major News Event s and Trends
COMMUNISTS
NEARPOWER
IN ITALY-
AS EUROPE'S
UNITYDRIVE
FALTERS
Amid unprecedented economic a nd
socia l chaos. ltaly is preparing for
an early general electioo that could
ma rk a major turning point in mod-
ero European hi story.
~
The collapse in late April of the
!
wobbly Christian Democratic gov- ,._
ernment of Premier Aldo Moro -
~
llaly's 38th government since the
end of World War
JI -
has forced
President Giovanni Leone to dis–
solve parliament and caU a nat ional
elect ion to break the political im–
passe.
The election is to be held June 20
and 2 1 - a year ahead of schedule.
The upcoming ba lloting could
open the door for Communist Party
participatio n in the next Ita lian gov–
ernment - a prospect whjch is send–
ing shock waves throughout the
Wcste rn a lliance.
At the same time a "Red Tide" is
surging in lra ly, the dream of a
"U nited States of Europe" has al–
mos! faded from view, eclipsed by
the forces of economics and un–
qu enchable na tiooalism .
"European unity is now a pune–
tu red tire , likely to stay flat and un–
re paired for a long time to come."
Such is the observation of long-time
European affairs expert Don Cook,
writing in the
Los Angeles Times.
"Tber e is no use denying it," adds
Thei Sommer, a leading West Ger–
man newsman. "Europe is in bad
sha pe ... in severa ! respects the
Nine [Common Ma rket members]
have reached the eod of the easy
6
FADING DREAM:
Jean Monnet, "'fa–
ther" of the Common Market. Europe·s
unity momentum
has
al/ but stopped.
road to a more perfect union."
Reasons for the gloomy assess–
ments a re clear and unavoidable.
One need look back no further than
the most recent Common Market
Summit Conference this past April
1 and 2, which ended up as a total
fai lure. Convened originally to try
to reach a formula on how the nine
states wer e to be representcd in a
popula rly elected European Parlia–
ment. the conference ended up dead–
locked on this key issue.
Ne itb er cou ld d ec i s ions be
reached on other outstanding prob–
lems sueh as inflation, unemploy–
ment. and - most critica! of aU -
how to deal wi th a moun ti ng fiscal
crisis brough t on by the sinking Brit–
ish pound and ltalian lira .
The mood of the nine heads of
sta te at the meeting was variously
described as "gloomy," " bleak,'' a nd
"morose." "The sense of frustration
was in tense," wrote the
New York
Times'
Flora Lewis, " not oo ly be–
ca use there are no prospects now for
European unity but a lso because
DREAM COMING TRUE:
Enrico
Berlinguer. head of ltaly's Communist
Party, which
is
nearing national power.
they (the heads of state] feel that,
wh ile the might of the Soviet Union
is growing, the Uruted States is leav–
ing a vacuum that Europe cannot
fil l.,
Writing in the April 12
New
Yorker,
analyst WiUiam Pfaff makes
it plain that the step-by-step method
of uniLing Europe via the process of
economic integration has reached a
dead end. The leap from customs
union to political union is appar–
ently unbridgea ble. He writes: "Eu–
rope pla inly has all the unity it
wants - or a ll the unity it can bear.
The ca lls regu larly heard for new
in itia tives, the plans and studies
made, th e t imetables proposed serve
as universa lly acceptable substitutes
for action tha t no one intends to
take.
"Europe will not form a politica l
union, because Europe cannot pos–
sibly agree on what
it
wants to be–
come. A un ited Europe has one, and
only one. obvious form to take: tha t
of a federation domin::tted by West
Germany and France. . . . But
The
PLAIN TRUTH
June
1976