Orchestrating Europe (Text Only). Keith Middlemas

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Dillon Round immediately promised it a prominent role in the national policies of the Six.¹⁴

      The Dillon Round was delayed by the need firstly to construct the CET and then to get it approved by the GATT. Once underway, the Commission suggested a 20% ‘linear’ reduction in the CET, subject to reciprocal concessions by other countries. This idea foundered on the inability of the US to react to an offer framed in this way, but it is far from certain whether it would have been endorsed by the Six anyway. Thus the negotiations proceeded bilaterally on a product-by-product basis. No less than 4400 bilateral deals were made covering trade worth $4.9 billion and resulting in tariff cuts of about 7%. This outcome, however measured, was twice a good as that of the previous ‘round’ in Geneva in 1956 but was still considered disappointing. However the Dillon Round did have one important side-effect in that it convinced the Kennedy administration, in framing the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, not only to reopen tariff negotiations but to empower the US to negotiate across-the-board tariff cuts.

      The Kennedy Round lasted from May 1963 to June 1967 and resulted in the largest tariff cuts in modern history, although the across-the-board method was not employed, since the EEC argued that the disparity in US tariffs, compared with those in Europe, would lead to inequitable results should that method be used. Nonetheless, over 8000 deals were made with a trade coverage of $40 billion and an average reduction of 35%. In over two thirds of cases, with the steel and chemical sectors especially heavily represented, tariffs were reduced by more than half. Textiles, on the other hand, recorded only minor gains. Equally, little progress was made in grains, meats and dairy produce which were rapidly being embraced by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and where the French, especially, were reluctant to make concessions. The need to conclude the CAP, and the ‘crisis’ that had accompanied it, served to delay progress. More importantly, it prevented the tradeoffs that might have made deeper cuts possible elsewhere. Nonetheless, despite the tensions that inevitably accompanied the process of establishing a single position, the Commission emerged from the exercise with its international status considerably enhanced.

      The Commission also suceeded in making the EEC the focus of international relations with the wide range of African territories that had made up the previous French and, to a lesser extent, Belgian and Dutch empires. These countries were overwhelmingly dependent on Community markets for both exports and imports, and on the metropolitan countries for much of their capital. Their future had been introduced at a late stage into the Treaty of Rome negotiations as a way of reducing the burden of their upkeep on the French budget in return for France’s renunciation of its bilateral preferences (or, more to the point, the multilateralization of those preferences). Thus the Six would remove tariffs and quotas on imports from these areas in the same way as those on intra-trade. By March 1963, tariffs had been reduced by 50% for manufactured products, by 30% for most of the liberalized agricultural products and 35% for the remaining agricultural products. It was not foreseen that these reductions would be strictly reciprocal, but protection retained by the overseas territories had to be applied equally to the Six.¹⁵

      After a five-year period, the association agreements were put on a new basis with Yaoundé I, negotiations for which lasted from mid–1961 to July 1963. These negotiations were difficult insofar as many territories had ambivalent feelings towards their colonial and excolonial masters and towards the prospect of neo-colonialism on a European scale. Moreover, the European member states were far from identical in their views of these countries. Whilst France shared with the Commission a desire to renew and extend the association, the Dutch were rather critical. Large Dutch economic interests in Commonwealth Africa led them to demand an agreement that could accommodate these territories and they linked the outcome of Yaounde I to the question of British accession. Only when the French veto blocked this possibility could real progress be resumed. The principles of the agreement were:

      * Free trade area, dismantling of tariffs and quotas

      * Technical and financial aid payments and capital liberalization

      * Freedom in rights of business establishment and services

      In 1969, after only six months’ negotiations, Yaoundé II was concluded to govern the relationship for another five years. These talks were much easier since many of the earlier problems had passed, though not without traumas: in essence, France and Belgium had accepted their post-colonial status. The issue of widening the association had been resolved by the Arusha Convention of July 1968 which put relations with Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda on a new footing. Finally, and most tellingly, the agreements had had positive effects on the development of the African territories concerned.

      The preferences established by the association clauses and by Yaoundé I and II have prompted much criticism. Non-associated countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America were opposed to the arrangements. So too were the United States and the United Kingdom. From the very beginning, the arrangements were condemned as incompatible with GATT and this discussion remained alive throughout the period. George Ball, then US secretary of state, suggested that it ‘tends to result in a poor use of world resources’. What he said was true, but efficiency in the global allocation of resources had not been the Commission’s main objective. Its first General Report defended its association policy in unambiguous terms:

       It was the duty to promote the economic and social development of the Overseas countries and territories associated with them by letting these countries and territories share in the prosperity, the rise in the standard of living and the increase in production to be expected in the Community.

      The trade-off between access to industrial and agricultural markets had been a central cornerstone in negotiating the EEC. Yet there was so little chance of agreeing on the form of the policy or the level of protection during the negotiations that, unlike the sections on the customs union, the clauses on the Common Agricultural Policy remained largely procedural. Ehrard, who was anyway opposed to much of the Treaty of Rome, argued that the vagueness of the clauses proved that they were designed to be forgotten. The key to ensuring that this did not happen lay not in the paragraphs concerning agriculture but in article 8 which made progress through the three stages towards the customs union contingent upon equivalent progress in agriculture.

      As commissioner in charge of agriculture, Sicco Mansholt started his work by rallying national agricultural pressure groups behind a European policy. In June 1960 he submitted his first proposal to the Council of Ministers. This foresaw free trade in agricultural products within the Community but with uniform target prices and variable levies on imports. In addition there would be structural policies designed to raise productivity. In 1962, after intense negotiations, market unity, Community preference and financial solidarity emerged as the principles of a future CAP. However, this still left important issues such as the level of support prices and the financing of the system to be settled before the CAP could become operative. Meanwhile a regulation was passed establishing the FEOGA (Fonds Européen d’orientation et de garantie agricole) whose provisions extended until mid–1965.¹⁶

      The level of common prices as well as the financing of the CAP proved to be very controversial and the fierce negotiations almost brought the EEC to the brink of collapse. It took until the end of 1964 before German reluctance to accept a target price for grain below their prevailing national level could be overcome and before a common price level for cereals could be introduced. Proposals for common financing of the CAP were submitted in March 1965. Since these envisaged augmenting the EEC’s institutional powers, through increasing the budgetary competences of the European Parliament and the introduction of majority voting, France flatly opposed the move. In summer 1965, it withdrew its representation from all EEC meetings and, with this ‘Empty Chair’ policy, precipitated a major crisis within the Community which was only resolved in January 1966 with the Luxembourg Compromise – usually described as an ‘agreement to disagree’.

      The Luxembourg Compromise stipulated that the Commission would consult with governments before adopting any important proposal, notwithstanding its rights of initiative enshrined in the Treaty СКАЧАТЬ