Common Market: Medium-Range Planning

The eight-year-old Common Market is based on some specific economic agreements and a lot of long-range, far from fulfilled hopes. Last week in Brussels, the Common Market presented a "mediumrange plan" that would give more substance to the hopes.

This plan has been developed almost secretly over the past year and a half under the guidance of Commission Vice President Robert Marjolin, who has long labored to mesh the diverse policies of the Six. It is a projection of where the Common Market should go economically in the next five years, and as such is the first attempt to apply to the Common Market family the kind of planning that is used by the individual members, especially France, in their domestic economies.

A 190-page report, printed in four colors, one for each of the four languages of the Common Market, projects an annual growth rate of 4.3% in the gross national product of the Six in the period 1966-70, compared to 4.9% for 1960-65. Germany, because of its labor shortage, will be well below the average with a growth rate of 3.5% .

The plan does not spell out in detail how Europe is to achieve this growth—as, for instance, is done in the French national plan—but it does make some suggestions. Since labor is short in Europe, increased productivity will have to come from other sources. Unless they put more effort into research and development, the Six would remain "the principal importer of discoveries and the leading exporter of intelligence," said the committee, and "condemn themselves to a cumulative underdevelopment which would soon make their decline irreversible." The report also urges less consumer spending and more private and public investment, a firm defense against inflation, and indicates that higher taxes may be needed to achieve these goals.

Shaping the plan was not easy. First of all, German opposition had to be overcome because the free-enterprise government of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard has an aversion to government planning. To get German cooperation, the drafting group pretended it was talking about something else, never used the word planning, and called itself the "Medium Term Economic Policy Committee." The committee also had to avoid appearing to move toward European political integration, which would arouse the wrath of French President Charles de Gaulle. What resulted fell short of being a real blueprint for Europe's economic future, but as an exercise in keeping European functionaries and politicians in tune with each other, it was convincing.