TV REVIEWS : ‘The New Europeans’: Road to Unification

If the three-part PBS series “The New Europeans” (at 10 tonight, KCET Channel 28 and KPBS Channel 15; 9 p.m. KVCR Channel 24, and continuing Nov. 24 and Dec. 1) has anything to teach American viewers, it is that working out the kinks in a North American free trade agreement with Mexico will be nothing compared to tying up the jungle of loose ends that impede a unified Europe.

The theme running through producer-director Peter Swain’s survey of the effort to economically and politically link the 12-nation European Economic Community is that opportunities dance with dangers, and that European unity is far from being a fait accompli .

Witness, for instance, the latest sparks of a potential trade war in which the U.S. has hiked tariffs on European white wine as a response to inaction on what the U.S. views as excessive and unfair subsidies for European farmers. Or the latest concerns that borders between EEC countries may not come down by 1993. Both issues have emerged since “The New Europeans” was finished, and illustrate how volatile is the forging of such a huge political and trade bloc.

Tonight’s segment, “The Road to Unity,” charts how constant warfare between European nations proved no longer viable to the industrial machine, with World War II’s end prompting an aggressive effort for unification. A key voice for this, Jean Monnet, is strangely never mentioned; then again, Swain’s report bypasses several key stories in the new European saga.

In his coverage in the second segment, “Global Agendas,” of how new technology and pop culture phenomena like MTV are already dissolving borders, Swain might have looked into the area of European film production as a sign of what works and doesn’t work in cooperative efforts. While there’s the stunning rise of Dutch film producer Kees Kasander, a master of finding money throughout the EEC for experimental projects, there are also the “Europudding” spectacles in which an international cast is badly dubbed into English.

This segment, though, sensitively explores the problems of new immigrant waves hitting Italy and Germany with the same force as in California--and how trained African newcomers are caught between changing international laws. In the final “Regional Dreams” segment--as in all three hours--specific economic and business ventures (a Catalan designer business, the success of Benetton in Venice) are better profiled than political problems like the rise of the white-supremacist right and its anti-immigration agenda.

Swain’s fluid transitions (his shift from Dutch waste disposal to Dutch marijuana bars is dazzling) suggest, in video terms, what vanished borders would look like. And it looks good--if it really happens.