Euratom

Six nations in the European community: France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries, have been asked to ratify, by the close of this year, two treaties which promise to remodel them into a compact industrial unit. An outgrowth of existing West European agreements, the Common Market Treaty plans to eliminate all tariff walls and erect a common rate among its signing nations. To further this common economic endeavor, a second treaty, "Euratom," will set about overhauling Europe's industrial power, replacing by 1967 present coal and oil energy with 15 million kilowatts of unclear power. While the Common Market Treaty will produce tensions and stresses when attempted (Germans are already complaining about their disproportionate contribution to proposed French West African development), Euratom is the more ambitious of the two projects.

Initial stimulus for nuclear power development stems from the crisis in Suez oil shipment. Europe now imports twenty-five percent of its fuel and, with industrial reconstruction and expansion, will be forced to increase this proportion yearly. Euratom promises both to stabilize conventional fuel usage at fifty percent of its present figure and correspondingly institute enough atomic power to handle the remainder--plus whatever growth will require.

Many advantages are expected from such a revised European economy. As well as relieving a fuel shortage, Euratom should help ease political pressure upon Middle Eastern oil suppliers. Europeans have seen, at home, ineffectual results from attempts at political and military unification without a preliminary economic solidarity. With the proposed plan for a common economic future, colonies, arms, and atoms will prove common problems with collective solutions to European nations.

By 1967, Euratom nations are expected to outstrip Britain, Russia, and ourselves in nuclear power development. The fast-moving Europeans will quickly establish a system in which our own unclear inventions and schemes can be tested. We are providing one half of the reactors and will observe, from Euratom's experiments, what techniques U.S. industry can adopt.

There is much which the United States can do to see Euratom's goal realized, although it remains for the six member nations to overcome the first barrier--ratification. The United States has helped the treaty along, however, by offering one-half of needed reactors (Britain will provide the rest) and technical assistance on a payment or license basis. Euratom deserved this initial gesture on our part--encouragement and aid should follow it to completion.