Spain

The national election turned over Spain's government, but the remedy on the way -- fiscal austerity as pushed by Berlin and the European Central Bank -- will only make Madrid's problems worse. Cutting will not save the euro.

From history, climate, the cultivation of the olive and other aspects of a common civilization, the Mediterranean region has a certain unity. One can see it on the map. Yet it is too much a part of Europe, too much a part of the larger strategic concerns of non-Mediterranean powers, too diverse in the nations which encircle its waters, to constitute a subject of specifically regional politics, economics or security. A Tunisian foreign minister may call plaintively for a Mediterranean freed from the presence of superpower navies. A Soviet leader may float a suggestion for its denuclearization. A Yugoslav may propose a system of Mediterranean security to complete the work of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. A president of France may speak of a community stemming from his nation's historic and cultural ties with nations on both sides of the inland sea. Such proposals have had an occasional echo. But the Mediterranean area is not ready for a big international conference on security, for a negotiated set of principles of coexistence, or for the withdrawal of American and Soviet naval forces. Everyone sees a crisis there, but none agree on its description and no regional solution, no regional procedure for getting a solution, is at hand.

As part of this effort, conversations have been started in Brussels, on the initiative of the Spanish Government, in order to study the problems faced by the Spanish economy as a result of the operation of the Common Market. On February 9 last, the E.E.C. authorities presented a questionnaire to the Spanish Government asking specifically about important aspects of the relations between the Six and Spain which had been studied in a Spanish report of December 9, 1964. The Spanish Government's answer to the questionnaire was handed to the E.E.C. in June.

In 1963 the United States can renegotiate her alliance with Spain. If neither party were to raise new conditions, the ten-year-old alliance would be automatically extended, to last another ten years. However, General Franco has already hinted that he wants to bargain for further military aid. The political structure of the country with which the U.S. Government is now probably preparing to confirm its friendship is at an especially interesting stage.