Orchestrating Europe (Text Only). Keith Middlemas

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СКАЧАТЬ coordination. The Italians, however, were willing to accept the idea that the creation of a common market was one of the tasks of the EPC (which left open the option that the EPC might do nothing) but were not willing to countenance it as a separate protocol. But the French were unwilling to accept it at all. With an economy lurching into deficit because of colonial wars, while government abandoned many of the ‘liberalization’ measures that had previously been adopted, the time was evidently not ripe for discussing the automatic removal of protectionism.²⁵

      The EDC was never a very stable construction. It was also utterly inadequate to carry either the ambitions of the European federalists or Dutch designs for a permanent and fair removal of trade barriers. When the EDC collapsed in August 1954 on the French refusal to move to ratification, it seemed at the same time to dash all hopes that the Six might move towards further integration.

      In the wake of the EDC’s collapse, there was an intense surge of diplomatic activity to resolve outstanding sources of Franco-German conflict. One success of this was the decision, based on a British initiative, to create a German army under the umbrella of NATO and under the auspices of the Western European Union (WEU) which was now to embrace all six ECSC countries, as well as the UK itself (ironically, this was a solution that could have been reached almost four years earlier). Another potentially thorny issue in relations between the two countries had been the disputed status of the Saar, pre-War German territory under French administration, later incorporated into a customs union with France. The French government had wanted to give this area ‘European’ status but, under a new agreement, France accepted that it would be bound by a plebiscite to be held in October 1955. In the event, the populace rejected the European option and the territory was transferred back to Germany in January 1957.

      Another source of inconvenience, if not tension, had been the French desire to secure markets for its agricultural produce in Germany. This question had become trapped into the so-called ‘green pool’ negotiations for the creation of some form of European agricultural organization but, after their failure and the transfer of the agricultural brief to the OEEC in January 1955, the first bilateral agreement to emerge was the Franco-German wheat agreement. Among the other agreements dating from this period, possibly the next in importance was that to canalize the Moselle river, thereby improving trade between the two countries. France’s partners reacted to this flurry of activity with some ambivalence. Whilst they could see the potential gains in easing relations between the two countries, they could also see the danger that if France no longer needed ‘integration’ to control Germany, their own interests could easily be ignored in the ensuing rounds of bilateral dealing. Under these circumstances, the Benelux governments began to consider ways of relaunching the ‘European agenda’.

      At the headquarters of the ECSC in Luxembourg, Jean Monnet was also concerned at the drift in events. Unaware that the French government was indifferent to his fate, he decided to make his continuance as chairman of the High Authority contingent upon progress on the European front. Rather than start afresh, or pick over the wreckage of the EDC disaster to see what could be salvaged, he considered that the best approach would be to build outwards from the existing community. This could be extended into inland transport in general, into other classical energy forms (particularly electricity generation) or, and this was to be the key to its success, into atomic power. Nuclear energy was seen as an exciting new prospect where there had been little time for entrenched interests to emerge; yet the costs of developing it were too heavy for a single country to bear. This last consideration, however, had not prevented most industrial nations from embarking on experimental programmes of their own. The French government, especially, was extremely keen on developing nuclear cooperation and particularly wanted jointly to construct an isotope separation plant, a necessary but expensive component in developing enriched uranium for future reactors and nuclear bombs. Unknown at the time, it was in December 1954 that the French nuclear energy agency began to implement a five-year programme to manufacture a French nuclear bomb.²⁶

      The question of a nuclear community, EURATOM, was one of the items on the agenda when the foreign ministers of the Six met in Messina in June 1955 and it was adopted for further study alongside a patchwork of other initiatives (the main one of which was a common market, which we will return to below). The first results of this study envisaged that EURATOM would acquire a monopoly of all nuclear material and its transformation into products for fission. EURATOM would also build and control its own nuclear installations, including an isotope separation plant, financed from a common budget. Finally, it would administer a common market in all these materials and equipment. The one point it did not touch on was the relation of this structure to national military programmes, such as the one already underway in France. At this juncture the French suggested a moratorium on the manufacture and testing of nuclear weapons for five years, which did not affect the French programme because it would not be ready for such tests until after this period. The military problem was part of a wider one that, mid–way through the negotiations, was beginning to sap EURATOM’s rationale. It was never envisaged that EURATOM would be the sole European nuclear programme, merely that it would assist and facilitate (and to some extent control) parallel national programmes.²⁷

EURATOM’s future was further enfeebled by the intervention of the United States. Back in 1946, the McMahon Act had tried to limit the spread of nuclear technology by classifying the fruits of US atomic research as secret. Paradoxically, by prohibiting collaboration of any kind, it had effectively prevented the Americans from exercising any control over developments that were already taking place. In his famous ‘atoms for peace’ speech to the United Nations in December 1953, Eisenhower had signalled a change in US policy which held out the prospect of the United States providing ‘fissionable material’ for projects designed to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In February 1956, it offered 20 tons of enriched uranium to EURATOM at half the cost at which any European venture could hope to supply it. Aside from the noble aim of promoting peace (and deflecting attention from the fact that the ‘new look’ strategy could turn much of central and western Europe into a nuclear battlefield), the offer would displace UK competition and provide an outlet for the surplus of three US separator plants. It would also demonstrate American backing for a new supranational initiative. Finally, it would ensure that EURATOM would not build its own separation plant.

      If EURATOM was not to build a separation plant (and right to the bitter end France tried to ensure that it should), then the French were determined to retain a separate national programme, keeping both peaceful and military options open. Moreover, France was only willing to surrender the sovereignty necessary to run a parallel operation, which in reality was not very much. The only limitation on its freedom of action was a four-year moratorium on testing. Parallel to these developments was a move in the OEEC for nuclear cooperation. Thus when EURATOM was formed, robbed already of most its substance and denuded of much supranational responsibility, one of its first acts was to pay the subscription of the six for joining the OEEC’s ‘Dragon’ scheme, to build an experimental reactor, an act which also absorbed much of its operational budget.

      EURATOM had carried all the hopes of – and been the target of favourable propaganda by – the Action Committee for a United States of Europe, founded by Monnet in October 1955. It was only a ‘success’ in the sense that a treaty was signed at all. The other treaty signed in Rome in March 1957 was that establishing the European Economic Community (EEC). It was lucky to get onto the Messina agenda in the first place and, ironically, it was EURATOM that helped keep it there.

      During the EDC negotiations, the Beyen Plan for the creation of a customs union had received varying degrees of support from five of the six governments. The Beyen Plan had at its core the creation of a customs union according to a rigid timetable over a period of 10–12 years. In order to accommodate countries in economic difficulties, the plan contained provisions for temporary escape clauses whose implementation and execution rested with the institutions of the EPC. There would also be an adjustment fund to assist countries with structural problems. Although the Beyen Plan failed because the French Assembly rejected the EDC treaty, the discussions about its merits had served to test the range of political opinion and to anticipate many of the technical problems. СКАЧАТЬ