Orchestrating Europe (Text Only). Keith Middlemas

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СКАЧАТЬ approach to tariff cuts was condemned as too inflexible, making it more likely that countries would have difficulties in following the schedules. A less rigid programme, albeit with intermediate and final targets, was preferable. Secondly, the safeguard clauses were thoroughly disliked, by Germany and Belgium in particular. They argued that repeated backsliding followed by justification and appeals procedures would eventually destroy the community. Instead they urged far-reaching measures of policy coordination to prevent economies moving too far out of step, thereby removing the occasions for invoking these clauses. Thirdly, although the Dutch were heavily preoccupied with commodity trade, it became apparent to all that progress would be impossible unless capital and labour mobility were also dealt with. These were valuable insights, and all would eventually find their way into the Treaty of Rome. But there was one more factor in the summer of 1954: French politicians were implacably opposed to the idea of the EEC in whatever shape or form.²⁸

      The Dutch government was inclined, rightly or wrongly, to ascribe trenchant French opposition to the complexion of the government then in power. Once the Mendès-France cabinet had fallen, the Dutch considered that the main obstacle to persisting with the initiative (or indeed to expanding it by incorporating agriculture) had been removed. Thus, when the idea of a ‘relaunch’ of European integration gathered momentum, the Dutch government made its support for the Benelux memorandum conditional upon the inclusion of a customs union in the list of demands presented at Messina. However Monnet, especially, was reluctant to risk a prompt rejection of a new European initiative because it introduced an immediate challenge to French protectionism. Curiously, the German government had had similar reservations and its delegation to Messina came armed with negative instructions on the customs union in order not to isolate the French. In the event, after a particularly indecisive meeting, an agreement was reached to establish study groups, under the overall direction of Henri Spaak, to investigate all the components of the Benelux memorandum.²⁹

      Once the talks commenced, it became obvious that the French were primarily interested in atomic energy. However, the Germans, having been willing to back the French at a critical moment, entered the common market negotiations with conviction, as did the Belgians. Various pointers to the moment at which France decided to take the common market issue seriously have been offered by historians, but the most credible seems to be January 1956, when a new Socialist coalition led by Guy Mollet came to power. To dispel any tendency towards backsliding, from that moment the German delegation insisted that, whenever it was appropriate, there should be a ‘Junktim’ between the common market treaty and that for atomic energy.

      The second revelation during this early phase of negotiations concerned the position of the United Kingdom. Surprised at having been invited at all, the UK had joined the initial talks without a prepared position, other than to express a loose preference for a free trade area over a customs union. Opinion within the cabinet soon afterwards veered towards a rejection of a closer European entanglement and when, in November 1955, Spaak announced that the talks had proceeded sufficiently to start preparing a final report, the UK delegation elected not to take any further part, but to judge the report when it appeared. In reality, the decision had already been taken to reject the common market option and, at the prompting of the Americans (and to avoid being saddled with any blame when the negotiations failed), the announcement was made the following month. But the common market negotiations did not collapse.³⁰

      The ‘Spaak Report’ was approved by the ministers of the Six in May 1956 and negotiations proper were then able to start. But the French government’s conversion to the common market did not mean that it did not have to placate significant parliamentary opposition when the treaty came up for ratification. Thus a great deal of time and emotion was expended on what were ultimately peripheral items in the treaty. For example, France demanded that elements of its own expensive social legislation (equal pay for men and women, overtime pay for work beyond forty hours a week) be incorporated into the treaty to equalize competitive conditions. Once these demands had been conceded, the French delegation returned with a proposal for sharing some of its current colonial development costs in return for access to these countries’ markets. Even with such concessions in place, the government negotiated special provisions to allow France to commence lowering its tariff barriers later than the rest whilst still enjoying the benefits of market access elsewhere. None of these provisions added to the elegance of the treaty, but they all helped to condition acceptance by the French Assembly.

      A second circumstance also helped to shape the negotiations, although not as decisively as some authors have suggested. In October 1956, together with the British and in collusion with the Israelis, the French launched an attack on Egypt in order to wrest control of the Suez canal from Arab nationalists. The invasion outraged public opinion and attracted the condemnation of both the USSR and the USA. On the brink of achieving their military objectives, the British cancelled operations, leaving both powers tasting the bitter ashes of political defeat. In a gesture loaded with symbolism, Adenauer travelled to Paris for talks with Mollet in the course of which both leaders announced the outlines of the compromise (largely agreed before the Suez crisis) that would set the common market treaty back on its tracks. Suez did not rescue the common market, nor did it finally convince the French government to accept it, but it did convince Spaak that the days of the current French government were numbered. If any treaty were to be certain of ratification, it had to be concluded and presented quickly. As a result, many questions that had not been resolved or that looked unlikely to be resolved quickly were left for the community itself to work out later. This accounts for the odd mixture in the treaty between detailed provisions on some issues and more procedural outlines on others.

      At the core of the common market treaty lay the creation of a customs union in three steps, each of four years, with the possibility of a three-year overrun. Spelled out in precise detail, each phase would be marked by the completion of part of the removal of tariffs on intra-area trade and the erection of a common external tariff. With the exception of some troublesome items (list G), the new tariff schedule had also been calculated. By contrast, the details of the agricultural clauses concerned the way in which the steps towards a common policy were to be achieved but said little about the shape of the policy itself. This reflected a realization by the Dutch that if they pressed for more concrete clauses, they would be unlikely to be happy with the outcome. Yet the move was also viewed favourably by federalists, who saw the entrusting of future tasks to community institutions as a positive step towards supranationality. Few at the time paid much attention to the clause at the beginning of the treaty linking progress towards a common agricultural policy at each stage to further progress towards the common market. Yet this link was to form a ‘Junktim’ of its own and to underpin the implementation of both elements in the treaty.

      In order to manage the community and steer its future development, the Treaty of Rome modified the supranational structure agreed for the ECSC. A European Commission, headed by independent commissioners chosen by the member states, would have sole rights of initiative across a wide range of policy issues. Only when these had been approved by the European parliament could the Council of Ministers take decisions. Moreover, after the second stage, the Treaty foresaw that the ministers would reach decisions by majority vote rather than by unanimity.

      The Treaty of Rome, signed in March 1957, was the product of a society that had already reduced many of the cruder barriers to international trade, that wished to get rid of them altogether and that wanted to ensure they would not re-emerge in the event of a subsequent recession. In addition it reflected an ambition to deal with other competitive distortions (state aid to industry, restrictive practices and other invisible trade barriers) by eliminating them at source. This required a more sophisticated institutional structure than previous inter-governmental organizations. This implication was willingly accepted because the Treaty was seen as more than a simple economic agreement; for some, at least, it carried the hopes for a future federal European state.

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