G-7 Members Show a Capacity for Compromise : Issues: Despite their different points of view, the participants manage to pull together on most of the important matters.

LONDON —  European delegates attending the economic summit agreed Wednesday that Europe, the United States and Canada have developed a reassuring capacity for pulling together, rather than apart as some had feared only a few months ago.

The economic summit was “friendly and frank,” according to the host, British Prime Minister John Major. “There was very strenuous discussion on a number of aspects of it. People did speak their minds clearly, comprehensively and on occasion in an unforgettable way.”

The summit partners could claim no immediate resolution of their divergent views on major environmental issues or the deadlocked effort to negotiate a new free-trade agreement. And continuing points of dispute on some of the hotly contested issues had to be papered over, diplomatic sources said. But, they added, the United States and European allies eventually saw eye to eye on many of the most important matters.

European officials were agreeably surprised by the extent of the accord that emerged from their discussions, particularly over the knotty problem of how to respond to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s plea for help with his country’s failing economy.

“All the agreements reached through compromise might seem a sign of weakness,” a European Community diplomat said. “And we’ll have to see whether deeds match words. But it means that the world’s top leaders--on both sides of the Atlantic, Europe and America--can sit around a table and sort out their differences. And that is no bad thing for the rest of the world.”

“So many different inherent points of view were overridden,” said another European official who participated in the talks. “The summit showed that the member countries on both sides of the Atlantic and Japan realize they must reach forward-looking decisions.”

As an aide to European Commission President Jacques Delors, who participated in the sessions, put it: “The G-7 leaders showed they realized they have a responsibility to the world at large to lead the way out of recession and provide renewed economic growth.”

One of the toughest problems the seven nations faced was the impasse over the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. Germany and France favored continued high subsidies to farmers; the United States, Britain and Canada were opposed.

Wednesday’s economic declaration delivered no specific way out of the impasse, but it also did not let the industrial democracies off the hook. It emphasized that all the leaders of the so-called Group of Seven would personally involve themselves in seeking a compromise solution before the end of the year.

Similarly, the United States and Japan originally took a much tougher line than Germany and France over the extent of aid to be offered the Soviet Union, but those differences were thrashed out, and the G-7 leaders spoke with one voice.

On the environment, Germany’s Chancellor Helmut Kohl went into the summit pushing for tougher measures. Washington has resisted such measures, particularly controls on auto emissions, which are subject to tougher standards in Europe.

But on this issue, too, compromise was achieved, even though environmental groups complained that the resulting statement was a “watered-down sellout.”

Kohl also got agreement on his desire for a statement calling for a halt to the destruction of the Brazilian rain forests.

France and Germany campaigned successfully to allow the Soviet Union to become an associate member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“Our expectations were fulfilled,” a senior German official commented Wednesday. “This was a historic meeting.”

European delegates said that in addition to concord, another notable feature of the summit was the emergence of Japan.

“Japan has finally begun to speak out clearly on the major issues rather than just going along,” one said. “It may be that it has the most money needed to finance some of the proposals--but in any event, Japan is no longer the silent partner at these meetings.”