EUROPE: By Disunity Possessed

One area of the world that has so far resisted the global wizardry of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is Western Europe. Last April, Kissinger announced that 1973 was to be "the Year of Europe" and called for the U.S. and the European Common Market to establish a new and restructured Atlantic alliance. Internal bickering among the European Nine was largely responsible for the failure to bring Europe and the U.S. closer. Now the scramble for bilateral oil deals caused by the energy crisis threatens to destroy the modicum of unity that the Europeans have struggled to achieve since World War II. TIME'S chief European correspondent, William Rademaekers, reports:

A year ago the enlargement of the European Community from six to nine members, with the entry of the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland, was celebrated in Britain with a month-long "fanfare" of concerts, galas and enthusiastic speeches dedicated to the dream of a united Europe. Today that fanfare has become a cacophony of disenchantment. The bigger Community has emerged as nothing more than a bigger bureaucracy. There is no will to move forward, no consensus on what political form Europe should take or even how to begin to make unity a reality.

The truth is that a united Europe is now a more distant and fragile dream than ever before. After listening to the pompous rhetoric of the December Common Market summit in Copenhagen, one senior British official added a new word to the diplomatic vocabulary: Eurocrap.

Leadership for the Continent is no where on the horizon. Europe today is governed by political technicians who devote most of their energies to tinkering with domestic affairs to remain in power—and do even that badly. Every major leader is beset by crises. Some, like France's Georges Pompidou and West Germany's Willy Brandt, seem tired and bored; others, like Britain's Edward Heath, are fighting for their political lives. All of them are, essentially, afraid to make decisions that would promote the cause of Europe for fear that they might cause momentary domestic complications. As a result, governments indulge in a depressing litany of mutual recrimination and petty squabbles. The British are sniping at the Bonn government for not providing enough money for a regional fund to aid depressed areas like Scotland; the Germans are angry with the French for floating the franc and thus trying to underprice German exports; the Dutch are still seething over Britain's sauve qui peut attitude during the oil crisis; the French continue to deal with the Community in the same haughty way that they dealt with their colonies in the 19th century.

There is furious movement, to be sure — but it is caused by the selfish race to win special bilateral deals with the Middle East oil producers. Last week French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert toured the Middle East attempting to button down contracts that would ensure France oil for the next decade and beyond. He was followed closely by Italian Foreign Minister Aldo Moro, who jetted to Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi to guarantee supplies for Italy. In St. Moritz, the Shah of Iran took time between ski runs to listen to oil requests from German Economics Minister Hans Friderichs and British Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber.