In Brussels last week, Eurocrats debated the merits of the largest international merger in the Common Market's six-year history. The merger unites two firms whose trademark on roll film is familiar to the millions of camera-carrying tourists who have visited Europe. The two: Belgium's Gevaert Photo-Producten, also the world's biggest producer of X-ray film, and Germany's Agfa, Europe's biggest camera maker, which will join in a company that will control 12% of the world's photo business, more than any other firm except Kodak.
Many Europeans, fearing a resurgence of the powerful prewar cartels,...