ON THE EVE OF THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE COMMUNITIES, THE problem of the institutions, their functioning and their development assumes particularly great importance.

In the twenty years since the European system was established, it has gone from one crisis to the next, thanks to extraordinary efforts or fits and starts of determination which enabled the difficulties to be overcome at the last moment and the Communities to be put in a position – once again – to respond to the hopes entertained around them.

This difficult life cannot be a normal state of affairs. After the enlargement of the Communities, when they will have reached their ‘cruising regime’ as regards their composition, it will be essential to give them structures which are equal to what is expected of them in our countries and outside our countries.

THE VEDEL GROUP HAD THE DISTINCTION OF BEING THE FIRST such working party set up by the Commission of the European Communities involving the ten countries of the proposed enlarged Community. The membership of fourteen reflected the model for the new Commission, one from the smaller and two from the larger countries. The decision was taken by the Commission on 22 July 1971 to set up a working party of independent experts to advise it in its preparations for the summit the following year, in which one of the headings for discussion by the heads of governments of the ten countries would be the institutions of the Community. The Group first met in October 1971 with a mandate ‘to examine all the implications of extending the powers of the European Parliament’. It reported on 25 March 1972.

As a member of the Group I shall attempt a personal assessment of the political implications of the report. I have not consulted with any of my thirteen colleagues; I do not purport to represent their views, nor are they to be taken as sharing or endorsing in any way my personal analysis in this article.

AFTER MORE THAN A DECADE IN WHICH DOMESTIC POLICY PROVIDED the major issues for party debate in West Germany, the determination of the Brandt government on taking office to engage itself in activities designed to ‘normalize’ relations with the Eastern Bloc has had notable effects on the West German parties. The political climate has altered; partisanship has been intensified; the Basic Law has been tested in novel circumstances; and the governing coalition and the apprentice opposition have both faced trials and tensions in terms of their party base.

The new Ostpolitik has had its effects on the political climate in terms of the first use of the constructive vote of no confidence, the erosion of the coalition majority, the pressures for a premature general election; but the short-term and longer-term effects on the West German parties are likely to be of greater significance. This article seeks to assess the significance of the Ostpolitik for the government and opposition parties. For, whatever the benefits or disadvantages which the Ostpolitik may bring to the Federal Republic in intrinsic terms, it is already clear that it has modified considerably the pre-1969 pattern of party politics.

BEFORE 1969 THE BELGIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE MAJOR POLITICAL parties used all sorts of determinants: linguistic, tribal, philosophical, legal, and administrative to elaborate norms – objective or not – for the allocation of university finance on the basis of the absolute rule of parity. For the Belgian universities, the reforms of 1969, the logical result of the ‘politicization’ movement of 1968, meant the introduction into the previous system of institutions and procedures such as constituent assemblies , elections, playing at politics, taking at least a minimal part in the general management and establishing techniques for the sharing of resources.

IT HAS BEEN ARGUED THAT FACTIONALISM WHILST APPARENT IN THE Labour Party has no counterpart within the Conservative Party. For example, the authors of a study on the opinions of backbench conservative MPs concluded that disagreements are amongst ‘ad hoc groups’ and that as new issues arise ‘the coherence of the former groups dissolves and new alignments appear. . . .’ A more recent survey of conservative backbenchers concurs with this and argues that the ‘criss-crossing pattern of cleavage (amongst conservative MPs) inhibits the development of Tory factions analogous to those in the Labour Party. Allies on one issue either become enemies on the next, or else simply do not feel strongly enough on the next issue to want necessarily to work together.’ A similar sort of conclusion has been reached by Richard Rose who states that the Conservative Party contains differing sets of political attitudes which remain constant whilst the party member will constantly shift from one attitude to another. Thus he concludes that the Conservative Party is a party of tendencies rather than factions; that it lacks a hard core of organized members within the party adhering to a set of principles which they are attempting to impose on the party in general. These conclusions are typical of a general belief about the political process within the Conservative Party.

DEATH IS A CONCISE, YET FAIRLY ACCURATE EXPRESSION TO DESCRIBE all that is unbearable in man's existence. In his youth a man may hardly realize that time has its limits. At this stage his destiny may seem to him too narrow rather than too short; as well as trivial, dull and monotonous. These causes of discontent persist, but as the years roll by with a speed which astounds each man in turn, the even more desolating prospect of the approaching end looms up. These two aspects of human finiteness are moreover linked, since perpetual youth would enable man always to appeal to the future, whereas the approach of death limits his destiny to its present mediocrity.