Passing the Torch to Europe : Summit: If Malta seemed an anticlimax, it’s no wonder. The impetus for change no longer is reserved for the superpowers.

Ordinarily, summit meetings between Soviet and American leaders are newsworthy events in and of themselves. But the summit this past weekend in Malta was almost an anticlimax.

After a month of such remarkable change in Eastern Europe, nothing that Presidents Bush and Gorbachev could have produced would seem as important as it might have been otherwise.

The two leaders made some progress on arms control and regional conflicts, but disagreements on these issues persisted. Although President Bush offered a number of concessions on trade and economic relations, he apparently got little in return. Still, the lack of concrete results did nothing to jeopardize the recent improvements in East-West relations. The main impetus for change, it now seems, has passed from the United States and the Soviet Union to the Europeans.

This is not to say that the role of the two superpowers has been unimportant. On the contrary, the rapid transformation of Eastern Europe has stemmed directly from the changes in Soviet policy under Mikhail Gorbachev. So long as previous Soviet leaders were determined to maintain orthodox communist regimes in Eastern Europe, no prospect for far-reaching change in the region could exist. Once Gorbachev showed that he was willing to accept the effective demise of the Soviet Bloc, all the recent developments suddenly became feasible.

The United States, for its part, has contributed to the ongoing changes by having persevered for 45 years in supporting the cause of democracy in Europe. The Western alliance, as President Bush noted on Sunday, “remains the bedrock of peaceful change in Europe.”

For at least the next few years, Soviet and American influence in Europe will be just as important as in the past. Progress toward democracy and independence in Eastern Europe, for example, will almost certainly depend on a continuation of domestic reform in the Soviet Union. If things go disastrously awry in Moscow, there is bound to be a spillover into Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe.

That is precisely why the European governments, in both East and West, should move as rapidly as possible to consolidate changes that will not easily be reversed. By acting promptly, the Europeans can determine their own fate.

The integration of the 12 members of the European Community, to be completed by 1992, offers the best model for the whole of Europe within the next 10 to 15 years. The aim would not necessarily be to achieve a fully integrated political unit. Instead, the European states could retain their political independence while binding their economies ever more closely on the basis of free trade and market-oriented reforms.

It will take some time, of course, before the East European countries are legitimate candidates for membership in the European Community. The rigidity and pervasive inefficiencies of the East European economies are so deeply entrenched that radical reforms, including severe austerity measures, will be needed for many years. There is no guarantee that such reforms will succeed, and it is always possible that austerity programs will engender violent social unrest.

Hence, economic assistance from Western Europe, particularly from West Germany, will be crucial during the transition. West Germany for some time now has provided large subsidies to East Germany, but the East German government under Erich Honecker merely used those subsidies as a means of avoiding genuine reform. In the future, West European governments and banks will have to make their economic assistance contingent on far-reaching economic liberalization. That will also be the best way to promote continued political change in Eastern Europe.

Over time, as economic and political integration of all the European states becomes more feasible, they could rely much less on their respective superpower allies. This would not, however, mean the exclusion of the United States and the Soviet Union from an expanded European Community. The United States will remain a natural trading partner for the European countries and will retain close political ties on the basis of shared democratic values. The Soviet Union’s influence in an integrated Europe will depend on how far Gorbachev’s economic reforms and political liberalization ultimately proceed, but Soviet geographic proximity and resource wealth offer the potential for a major role.

It may still be premature to suggest, as Gorbachev did, that “the world is leaving an era of Cold War and entering a new era.” But if this new era is indeed at hand, it should pave the way for an expanding European Community that will eventually take its place as a power alongside the United States and the Soviet Union.