Is There a Joker Hiding Behind Soviet Bid to EEC?

For two years representatives of the European Economic Community and its Soviet Bloc counterpart, Comecon, have been exploring the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations. The latest word is that differences are being papered over, and a formal agreement should be signed later this year.

That isn’t the most exciting news that ever came down the pike, but for U.S. policy-makers it bears watching.

The EEC was created 30 years ago. For a long time the Soviet Union and its East European satellites ignored the community’s existence. That position began to soften during the Leonid I. Brezhnev era, and in 1985 Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened the way for negotiations when he expressed willingness to “consult the EEC on practical and international issues.”

Gorbachev obviously hopes that formal ties between the two trading blocs will facilitate Soviet efforts to gain greater access to West European capital and technology. The EEC also is interested in expanded trade ties with the East.

Some Western analysts are convinced, however, that Gorbachev is motivated by more than a desire to increase trade with Western Europe. They suspect that he also hopes to use the EEC-Comecon tie, which would provide an institutional framework for discussions without an American presence, to pursue his political goal of splitting the Europeans from the United States.

The Atlantic Alliance already is under strain as a result of European misgivings over the quality of leadership provided by the Reagan Administration. The French and West German governments in particular are distressed by what they see as an unwise U.S. rush toward nuclear-reduction agreements without considering the full consequences for European security.

There is a growing tendency in the West German left to believe that Western Europe’s close ties with Washington create unnecessary strains in European relationships with the Soviets, and constitute a major impediment to German reunification.

Gorbachev is visibly trying to exploit the frictions between Washington and the European allies by speaking of the area from the Atlantic to the Urals as an “all-European home” where problems are best solved by Europeans. There is a certain logic in such talk. So far, however, the major allies have not allowed themselves to take Moscow’s we-are-all-Europeans-together gambit very seriously.

The Soviets have also toyed with the potentially explosive issue of German reunification.

The division of the former Reich into the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic is a direct consequence of Hitler Germany’s defeat in World War II.

The West German constitution specifically commits the three Allied powers to cooperate in efforts to achieve a unified Germany by peaceful means. The Soviets vocally reject the idea of German unification. And, truth to tell, the West European victims of Nazi aggression are in no hurry to see the Germanys reunited, either.

The West Germans, however, take the so-called “German question” very seriously. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the educational wing of the conservative Christian Democratic Party, has sponsored three meetings on the subject in the United States over recent years; the most recent was held in Los Angeles a week ago.

The Christian Democrats, the dominant partner in West Germany’s ruling coalition, counsel patience. The CDU says that the division of Germany is part of the postwar division of Europe, and that a reunification of Germany can come only with the end of a divided Europe, which in turn cannot happen until a different type of Soviet government evolves in Moscow. Meanwhile, the Christian Democrats say, West German self-interest is anchored solidly in the Western alliance.

But the CDU is sensitive to the charge, heard especially among young West Germans, that this is pie in the sky, that after 40 years reunification is more remote than ever. It is seemingly this sensitivity that causes the Christian Democrats to agonize so much over the “German question.”

Gorbachev’s open, accommodationist posture makes it tempting for Germans, even more than other Europeans, to dream that a new day is dawning in which all sorts of things are possible in the context of Soviet-European cooperation.

A few weeks ago a member of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee fanned such hopes by referring to the existence of a “common German people.” A sensational West German newspaper told its readers to expect a major initiative from Gorbachev on reunification, perhaps during his late-May visit to East Berlin.

The idea was picked up by a CDU politician, who issued what a colleague called a “how-to” manual on how to bring about reunification. The French, concerned that the deep German hunger for reunification could override common sense and feed what Paris sees as a tendency toward neutralism in West Germany, asked Bonn what the hell was going on.

The excitement has now died down. An East German official called the unification speculation a “pipe dream.” High officials in Moscow let it be known that a powerful, reunified Germany is the last thing that the Soviet Union wants to see in Europe.

German participants at the meeting in Los Angeles last week unanimously agreed that although Gorbachev is a distinct improvement over previous Soviet leaders, there is no indication whatsoever that he is prepared to preside over the dissolution of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe.

While it is undoubtedly true that the Soviets have no intention of playing the so-called German card in order to lure West Germany out of the Atlantic Alliance, the brief sensation in West Germany proved how potent a card it is. Further Soviet mischief-making with German nationalism cannot be ruled out.

It is this sort of Soviet gamesmanship in Europe that makes you wonder whether there’s a joker in the seemingly innocent establishment of formal political links with the European community.