IN Luxembourg's Kirchberg European Center this week, a meeting is taking place that may well mark a watershed in Europe's torn and often tragic history. For the fifth time in six months, the foreign ministers of the six members of the European Economic Community are meeting with Chief British Negotiator Geoffrey Rippon to clear the last hurdles on the terms for Britain's entry into the Common Market.
Only two major issues remain unresolved: a guarantee for sales of New Zealand's dairy products to the Common Market, and the amount of Britain's initial contribution to the $4 billion EEC budget. No one expects either issue to block British progress. In 1963 and again in 1967, British hopes of joining Europe foundered on Charles de Gaulle's imperious no. This time the French mood is different, as was obvious during last month's summit meeting between President Georges Pompidou and Prime Minister Edward Heath. "They are bantering and joking with us," reports a delighted British negotiator. "Their orders clearly are 'Get it through.' "
Barring an unforeseen snag, the British are almost certain to leave Luxembourg by the middle of this week with an attractive set of terms, including probably an initial British payment of just under 10% of the EEC budget. With Norway, Denmark and Ireland poised to join Britain in entering the Market, the Six may thus become the Ten by 1973 (the target date for formal British entry), giving Europe its greatest unity since the beginning of the breakup of Charlemagne's empire in 814.
The irony is that this time it is the British who may keep themselves out of the Common Market. British sentiment has turned sharply against a linkup. Aware of the strong antiMarket tide, Heath said last week that he would not submit the entry issue to Parliament until after the summer recess and the annual party conferences in early October. By that time he hopes that an extensive government publicity campaign will have rallied grass-roots support for EEC membership, but it is just as possible that the opposition will have become more deeply entrenched. Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson has accused Heath of "trying to bounce Britain into Europe," and he may very well lead the Labor Party into an antiMarket position.
Negative Results. What would happen if Britain did not join the Common Market? Many Continentals find the prospect so depressing that they dislike even thinking about it. When they do, they use words like disaster, tragedy and unthinkable. The Market, of course, has endured for 14 years without British participation, but it has gone about as far as it can without enlargement and greater political integration. If Britain does not join, neither will Denmark, Ireland and Norway, since their own trade patterns are dependent on London. Such developments as the creation of a common currency and a joint foreign policy might not materialize, since they require a political will that the Six alone, due to their old rivalries and animosities, are unable to muster.