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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, OCTOBER 2, 1981
PAGE 8
turning up able, dedicated men who understand what needs to be done
and can be done, and then strips them of the power to do it. The
Community has provided itself with all the requisite institutions--an
executive, an administration, a parliament, and a court. But they
don't work with each other.
The executive is called the European Council, but in fact it is simply
the representatives of member states, sometimes assembled heads of
government and more often foreign ministers acting strictly £!!
national instructions.•.•The Council refuses to talk to the Parlia
ment, so as to prevent its developing any pretensions of legislative
power or influence. That task is left to the Commission, the adminis
trators•...In theory, the Commission is responsible to the Parliament,
but the only power the legislative arm holds is to dismiss it en
bloc...which they've never dared to do because it would provoke a fun
damental crisis and quite possibly shatter the whole European struc
ture.
There's nothing really new about these blockages. The house of Europe
is unfinished, with shafts but no elevators, cubbyholes but� corri
dors, a skeleton without articulation. But like any half-made build
ing, it risks crumbling for lack of completion....
Europe may� itself
_ey
sheer fright when it actually looks over the
precipice it has been approaching for years. The United States may
bring it cowering into an awareness that it must work and spend
instead of pray for its security.
And maybe not.
[Mr. Thorn's]
willingness to see the landscape rather than posture against the sky
can be an important help in the hard time ahead. But the job requires
the muscle of power, and not only will it not be given to him, it isn't
even there to seize. That is the drama of Europe, its frustrations,
its impotence, and its major problem of survival.
The idea of achieving a United Europe "by degrees" is dead. The "final ten"
(Rev. 17:12) will likely arise at a time, as indicated by the above report,
when �urope will have to "save itself by sheer fright." Western Europe,
propelled by neutralism and pacifism, drifting away from its protector, the
United States, is edging ever closer to the den of the bear. At the same
time, Russia is confronted with agonizing decisions over what to do with
Poland and the rest of its East European empire. Not since the days shortly
before World War II has Europe been in such a state of flux. We must
continue to watch all the political crosscurrents.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau