Hallstein Notes Political Goals of Common Market

Political rather than conomic goals are pre-eminent in the six-nation union of the Common Market, Walter Hallstein told a large audience in Dunster House last night.

"We are not in business at all," the president of the Commission of the European Economic Community declared. "We are in politics...Our aim is to rid Europe of the crippling anomalies of the past;...our goal is a United States of Europe."

"The modern world is a world of continents, of markets and economies on the grand scale," Hallstein stated. "Divided economies and divided markets mean small-scale efforts, which in turn mean waste and relative poverty." Thus, he maintained, the creation of a European "home market" on the scale of the United States is essential.

EEC Formed in 1958

The EEC, comprising Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, was established in 1958 to achieve the economic and political integration of the member states.

In its efforts to establish an integrated European economy, the EEC is removing customs duties on goods circulating among members and establishing a common external tariff for non-member nations. Hallstein remarked that these steps toward greater economic unity are producing unprecedented political co-operation, with the six Common Market nations pushing toward the same goal in the heads-of-government meetings instituted by deGaulle last February.

Hallstein also noted two other conditions which he said impose a dynamic political character on the six-nation venture: the need to make Europe's weight felt in world affairs, and the military, economic, and ideological challenge posed by the Communist world.

With respect to the Communist challenge he said, "Call it, if you will, 'competitive co-existence.' What is clear is that this kind of competition is no more friendly rivalry but a political and economic challenge that must be met by economic and political means." "We have to prove that our free system not only is better, but works better," he continued.

In a world of great powers like the United States, Russia, and, increasingly, Communist China, Hallstein concluded, Europe faces "a challenge of scale, a challenge of size.... In a world of giants we can't afford to be midgets."