Summit Therapy

The communique signed by the leaders of seven industrial nations after their Venice summit meeting on the world economy is a promissory note. It mentions a long list of problems without getting specific enough on how to solve most of them. Nevertheless, it points the world in the right direction.

The summit seven agreed, for example, that economic growth is essential without saying who should grow faster or how. The rules of diplomacy obviously ruled out any mention in writing of the way in which the United States has been growling at Bonn and Tokyo over the need for faster growth in West Germany and Japan to put more money into the hands of consumers, who then might buy more goods--including American exports.

They saluted the “courageous efforts” of Third World countries to work their way out from under enormous national debts without offering a solution to the crippling debts, but they did promise levels of aid that would indeed accelerate development in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

They expressed “grave concern” over efforts in various unnamed countries to raise or keep barriers to world trade, reaffirming the commitments made at the ministerial level to pursue “with all due dispatch” the new Uruguay Round of negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. And, within the context of trade, they endorsed the May agreement of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to begin, on a global basis, the long and painful process of dismantling farm subsidies, and including farm products in the new round of trade negotiations.

And they ventured into the area of public health, acknowledging the need for international cooperation in fighting the spread of AIDS--acquired immune deficiency syndrome--and endorsing the United Nations World Health Organization as the central coordinating body in that effort. Their measured and constructive language will strengthen political leaders struggling to resist political extremists seeking to convert the pandemic into political grist.

There was, inevitably, disappointment that more was not accomplished. The industrialized democracies, notably the nations represented at the economic summit meeting, face uncertain futures in a rapidly changing global economy. It would have been nice had a clearer blueprint emerged. It is evident, however, that none of these nations are clear in their own minds about plans with which to face the future, and at least four of the seven were facing elections that could affect profoundly how they pursue the course.

In any event, the reaffirmation of the commitment of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on farm subsidies, the strong commitment to the new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade negotiations, the renewal of the commitment to Third World development, and the agreement on AIDS were certainly worth the price of admission. The very existence of the annual meeting of the seven nations serves as an incentive to expedite work on these problems. Generalities are a poor substitute for firm and specific agreements, but they can provide a constructive context for negotiating those specifics. Beyond that, it was a chance for world leaders, hemmed in by massive security forces, to exchange small talk on very big problems. British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe described it as “international group therapy”--no small thing in a world as full of strains and tensions as the one to which they are trying to bring stability.