When it became Britain's turn on 1 January 1977 to fill the presidency of the European Community for six months, it should have been the moment she had been waiting for, so long had been the struggle to join the Common Market in the first place. Much depended on how Britain filled the role. How much might be implicit at the end of this discussion of the state of the world economy as it approaches the 1980s. The world economy is in a serious malaise, but the malaise in the European Community has been of longer duration.