Common Market: Down on the Farm

How small is a small tomato? How does a chicken lay an egg? How much Italian Chianti would Frenchmen drink?

For the past four weeks in Brussels, such questions have engaged and enraged delegates from the six Common Market nations—France. Italy. West Germany, Belgium. Luxembourg and The Netherlands. After four years of remarkable headway, the Common Market had momentarily stalled. The obstacle was agriculture in all its earthy details and behind it the sturdy, stubborn European peasant.

Push for Change. The 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established the Common Market, provided for gradual tariff reductions, and industry quickly adjusted to the newly freed competition. Some inefficient mines and marginal businesses had to shut down, but the Common Market created so much new prosperity that such dislocations were rare.

The Rome treaty called for similar stabilization of agricultural markets, but in this field the six nations proved far less flexible. After centuries of striving for national self-sufficiency in food production, each country had its own weird system of import restrictions, government subsidies, artificially maintained price levels to protect its farmers, and these were far harder to change than industrial tariff walls.

The push for change came from France. With the support of Italy and The Netherlands, the French began to pressure for an agricultural accord before the end of the Common Market's first four-year stage, during which each member had an absolute veto. Deadline for the end of the first phase was Dec. 31. 1961. The French warned that unless the substance of a new farm program was worked out by that date, they would veto passage of the Common Market into its second four-year stage, in which majority rule would prevail on all but specific major decisions. Forewarned, delegates of the Six gathered in Brussels' Palais des Congrès in mid-December to haggle over the complicated terms of the agreement.

Major antagonists were the French delegation, headed by Agricultural Minister Edgard Pisani. and the West German group, headed by West German Agricultural Minister Werner Schwarz. Chairman of the conference last week was West Germany's Alfred Muller-Armack, who was kept so busy trying to keep peace among the two warring delegations that he had to retire at one stage because of his heart condition.

Heated Sessions. Before the delegates was a proposal that called for gradual abolition of agricultural subsidies in each member nation, and the establishment of an agricultural support fund for the whole Common Market area. The question: How to finance the new system? The French wanted payments from each nation assessed according to the size of its food imports; this would put the main burden on West Germany, which is a heavy food importer. The West Germans, on the other hand, wanted assessments made on the basis of each country's present contribution to the running of the Common Market; this would let Bonn off more easily.