International: The Green Pool

First came the Marshall Plan, to set Western Europe's business on its feet. Then came the Schuman Plan, to pool six nations' coal and steel. After that came the Pleven Plan, to give Western Europeans a common army. Last week a new phrase was added to the lingo of international planners: the Green Pool.

Delegates of 15 nations met in Paris to draft plans for a Europe-wide farm cooperative—that would do for farm produce and dairy products what the Schuman Plan would for coal and steel. There should be a single selling area: no tariffs, no transportation stickups, no currency restrictions, no shortages here and gluts there. All this would mean a central authority, which in turn would mean that each nation would have to yield some sovereignty. There was the rub.

At week's end, the delegates, as delegates will, turned over everything to a committee. This committee will draw up a plan, to be discussed at a full-dress conference this summer. As a start, it was not much—except a start. But the idea had been planted, and it might yet grow to greenness. "Another essential block in the edifice of a united Europe," said France's Good European Robert Schuman.