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From the archive / The Economist / 23 March 1957

A Palace for Europe

FROM the Valhalla where good Europeans at last lay down their tired heads, Henry IV of France and Navarre, and the Duc de Sully his minister, should be looking with gratification upon Mr Selwyn Lloyd. Henry, after his death, was said by the Duke to be the father of the first plan for a united Europe, a “Grand Design” for a confederation of fifteen Christian states governed by a great assembly. Now Mr Selwyn Lloyd has paid him the compliment of borrowing both the title of his scheme and something of its spirit for a sensible plan to bring some order to the multitude of European organisations which are mushrooming all over Europe, by gathering them under one roof and under the control of one parliamentary assembly. The practical king might have liked a recent French suggestion that the new “Grand Design” might find a home in the Palace of Versailles. So far the great assembly exists only in Mr Lloyd’s imagination, but here at least is the very roof he needs. The palace itself could house the great assembly, the sprawling stables the secretariat. The Six could hatch their schemes in the seclusion of the Grand Trianon; in the more rustic Petit Trianon Benelux could quietly meet. For jaded parliamentarians, punting on the Grand Canal could provide a wholesome substitute for the wine feasts of Strasbourg, and the hall of mirrors a visual bonus for those who visit European assemblies to hear their own voices.

Yet the vision of a Palace of Europe just falls short of emulating on a continental scale the glories of the court of Louise XIV. One vital element is missing: the Sun King himself and his great ministers whose polices were the hard diamond beneath the glitter of Versailles. Mr Selwyn Lloyd many combine the Council of Europe, Western European Union, the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, the European Coal and Steel Community, the common market, the free trade area, Euratom (and perhaps any other bodies he can think of, like the European commissions for inland transport, plant protection and foot and mouth disease), give them new names and house them in any palace under the sun; it is doubtful whether there will be any new sparkle of constructive life unless there is a driving force behind them. Indeed, with so many “good Europeans” gathered together in one place, it is easy to imagine their vices growing worse, not better—the empire builders, like royal mistresses who have lost their patron, expanding their little domains in the park more jealously than ever, the sectarians and cranks waging a new battle of the books among the trees, hurling at each other those frightful abstract epithets of which they are so fond. Parkinson’s law is bad enough at home; on a European scale it is multiplied by a special factor B derived from the tower of Babel. If the European bureaucracies are to be, in all seriousness, not idle retainers but disciplined servants with a practical job, they need to be directed with a firm hand by something like a European cabinet.In form most of the plethora of European institutions are already headed by councils of ministers from the member countries; the trouble has been that there are too many councils and that some of them have done little or nothing at all. Most of them consist of the very same men, hopping from meeting to meeting and capital to capital. But if the Grand Design is to prove more than another empty sketch, the new grand council which emerges must become something more than the sum of these parts. It must be a policy-making body, dovetailing, say, the collective effort in atomic development, defence and economic policy; evolving common European policies towards the world outside the realm of Europe. Some questions will interest only six of the countries, or a dozen, or perhaps only three; the ministers who do not wish to be involved can drop out without fuss or formality. The same can apply to the parliamentary delegates when the Assembly discusses matters which are taboo to them. Thus, the Swedes will want to keep clear of military topics. But though the council might vary in size, it should remain in permanent session and have permanent cabinet offices.

Already the ministers are being given new specific tasks—to run the common market and Euratom, for instance; these will force them into more continuous activity. But there is one institutional change which could greatly enhance their stature in a valuable broader sense. The titular heads of the council should be the prime ministers of Western Europe, who have never met together since the war. Their deputies, the ministers of finance or foreign affairs, can execute a policy, steer it to port, as Mr Thorneycroft’s group is doing in Paris for the free trade area. But only the heads of governments can set the course. Only they, meeting regularly, can carry into the separate national cabinets an authoritative European voice; only they can frankly discuss and quickly overcome the deeper policy differences, as M. Mollet and Dr Adenauer have done with the common market. A council of premiers could ensure that the great problems before Western Europe, like the Suez Canal and the twisting pattern in Eastern Europe, are met by a common European policy, within the broad Atlantic framework. Common policies are wanted before, not after, an individual member of the partnership runs amok to the loss of all.

So much for the ministers; what about a king? There are some unkind people who hold that M. Monnet was altogether too much like the Grand Monarch when he slipped from his role of grey eminence of Europe to the throne of its first shadow state, the coal and steel community. The truth is that at present an autocratic supranational boss (“L’Europe, c’est moi”) could achieve less lasting and solid progress towards greater unity in Europe than more flexible and modest bodies. But the Grand Design might well have a constitutional monarch, a secretary-general of considerable power as well as tact. His first job as top civil servant will be to pull together and discipline the sprawling European “ministries”; to wrestle with the inexorable Parkinson. His second task, still more important, will be to keep the ministers on the go, to formulate the details of new plans within Europe, to suggest the compromises which may form the basis of a common foreign policy. He must be able to beard any foreign minister in Europe in his national den. A Hammarskjöld of Europe, but with more effective power because representing a true community of interest, he must play the sort of part M. Spaak hopes for in Nato.

Once council and secretary-general take on a real importance, Mr Selwyn Lloyd’s assembly may become more than a mere debating society emitting fine resolutions into the blue. It will have policies to criticise, an active executive to push and pull. Ministers and Assembly will in turn reflect importance on each other, until in time national electorates may even wish to exercise a better control over them through direct votes. This is a distant prospect. A palace of Europe could still prove as much of a white elephant as the lovely museum piece beside Lake Geneva. Yet a new tide of awareness of the need for strength through greater unity is in flood in all the separate European countries. It would be a tragedy if it were dissipated. The setting up of a permanent council of the heads of European Governments might canalise it to lasting purpose.

Из архивов журнала The Economist 1957 года  http://www.economist.com/node/8765144?story_id=8765144