"We are like the couple who have an engagement party," explained The Netherlands' Foreign Secretary Hans de Koster. "If over the next five years we don't get married, we return the gifts." The simile aptly described the momentous agreement last week by the six nations of the European Common Market—France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg—to move toward monetary union by Jan. 1, 1981. Though hedged with provisos and fraught with the danger of delayed decisions, the Brussels agreement nonetheless created specific plans to expand the Common Market trade...
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