Europe Leaders Weigh Four Main Problems

Leaders of the 12 nations that make up the European Communities gathered here Friday to consider the four major problems facing their people--drugs, terrorism, unemployment and AIDS.

Under the theme “Safeguarding the Open Society,” the leaders are expected to commit themselves to community-wide programs to deal with the problems.

Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who took over the communities’ rotating presidency last July, has urged tough collective action against terrorism. Last month the Common Market invoked a series of sanctions against Syria after evidence was brought out in a London courtroom linking Syria to an aircraft bomb plot. More recently, evidence produced in a West Berlin trial implicated Syria in a bombing there.

At the present meeting, which is to continue through today, Thatcher is expected to call for new security measures to strengthen cooperation between law enforcement agencies of member countries, facilitate the exchange of police information and tighten border controls.

Protecting Reagan

Thatcher, who met last month with President Reagan in Washington, is likely to be pressed for details of the U.S.-Iranian arms deal. But she is expected to stifle any move for formal criticism, arguing that it would be damaging to Reagan.

Many Europeans have expressed anger at disclosures that the Reagan Administration, which pressed them to take a hard line against nations that support terrorism, was at the same time negotiating with Iran.

The addition to the agenda of AIDS--acquired immune deficiency syndrome--represents increased awareness of and concern over a problem that only a year ago was seen as an affliction confined largely to Africa and the United States.

The British government recently began a public awareness program, including full-page newspaper ads and television commercials, and plans to distribute leaflets to every home in the country warning of the dangers of AIDS.