IT was a long night at the Common Market's Charlemagne Building in Brussels. On the top floor of the glass-sheathed, 15-story headquarters, the Foreign Ministers of the six member nations struggled to define the conditions for British entry on London's third attempt to gain admission to the European Economic Community. One floor below, the British team, headed by Chief Negotiator Geoffrey Rippon, passed the time playing bridge and working on position papers. On the ground floor, some 200 newsmen waited amid a litter of empty beer bottles, empty coffee cups and sandwich crusts...
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