9 Nations Sign Treaty Revisions for European Communities; Others Expected to Fall in Line

After more than a year of wrangling and negotiation, nine of the 12 governments of the European Communities on Monday signed a series of amendments to the 1958 Treaty of Rome designed to reinforce their unity and improve their decision-making process.

The remaining three, Denmark, Italy and Greece, declined to sign. The Danish Parliament has rejected the amendments because they go too far, while the Italian Parliament is against them because they do not go far enough. The Greeks are once again registering their independence with maneuverings by Premier Andreas Papandreou.

Final ratification of the amendments, which must be accepted by all the member states to become effective, therefore remains uncertain. But the general feeling at Monday’s signing ceremony was that, in the end, all members will fall into line, although probably not before the end of this year.

The states whose ministers signed on Monday were France, West Germany, Britain, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, the last two states having joined the European Communities only last month.

The amendments will be the first changes in the Rome Treaty since the founding of the Common Market nearly 28 years ago. The principal changes involve dropping a requirement for unanimous consent in the communities’ decision making, adopting a simple majority system instead, and a modest increase in powers granted to the European Parliament.

The communities are now also committed to sweep away the last of their internal market barriers by 1992, and a small secretariat is to be set up to improve coordination of foreign policy problems.

‘Step in Right Direction’

“I believe that when we stand back and reflect on the whole matter, despite unavoidable shortcomings, this European act definitely represents progress and a step in the right direction,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek, president of the communities for the current six months.

When the Danish Parliament turned down the amendments by a narrow vote three weeks ago, thereby forcing its foreign minister to decline to sign Monday, conservative Prime Minister Poul Schlueter decided to go over the heads of the legislators with an appeal to the country in a national referendum. This will be held on Feb. 27.

Anti-Common Market feeling has always been strong or at least more vocal and politically heated in Denmark. Despite the realities of trade and economics, the Danes feel closer to their Scandinavian partners, who are outside the Common Market, and exhibit resentment at being dictated to from Brussels.

However, if the latest public opinion polls are confirmed in the voting, then it looks as if Schlueter’s political gamble is going to pay off. When the referendum was called in Copenhagen, it looked as if it would be touch and go whether the voters would overrule Parliament. But vigorous campaigning by the government coalition parties backed by both the farmers and industry have now pulled things around. Polls published in Copenhagen over the weekend now show the pro-communities vote to be running ahead, 65% to 35%. However, these percentages do not reflect the don’t-know responses, which are well above 20% in the overall polling.

If the Danish vote goes through, it is expected that the Italian government will soon back off its refusal to sign. A survey of the Italian Parliament showed that its members want even more vigorous reforms, but there has been no Italian parliamentary vote that would prevent the government from adding its signature on its own timing.

As for the Greeks, as another small country, they have proclaimed solidarity with the Danes, and Papandreou can be expected to extract all that he can out of playing odd-man-out until the last moment. But if all goes well, this European Communities’ small step forward should be completed by the end of the year.