Journal of European Integration History – Revue d'histoire de l'

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126Book reviews – Comptes rendus – BuchbesprechungenObwohl Megens auch Beispiele der Militärhilfe für Großbritannien und Frankreich vorstellt,die niederländisch-belgische Koproduktion von Turbostrahljägern untersucht undgenerell gern mit der vergleichenden Methode arbeitet, muß sie sich auf der Basis des Dutchcase Verallgemeinerungen zur Wirkung der Militärhilfe versagen. Dies darf als eine Aufforderungverstanden werden, weitere nationale Fallstudien zu wagen, vor allem für die Großempfängervon Militärhilfe, Großbritannien und Frankreich. Der methodologische und multiarchivalischeAnsatz von Megens wird hierfür einen verläßlichen Maßstab bilden. DieAussicht auf die Öffnung der Brüsseler NATO-Akten aus der ersten Dekade des Bündnissesmag ein weiterer Anreiz sein.Norbert WiggershausMilitärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt PotsdamGilbert NOËL. – France, Allemagne et “Europe Verte”. Euroclio, Série “Etudes et Documents”.Berne • Berlin • Francfort-s. Main • New York • Paris • Vienne, Peter Lang, 1995,217 p. – ISBN 3-906751-65-1. 46,00 sFR.The Common Agricultural Policy became the single most important policy of the earlyEuropean Community and agriculture the subject of the longest, most complex and mostacrimonious negotiations in the EEC's formative years. It is therefore surprising how littlehas been written about either the history or the pre-history of European agricultural cooperationin general and the CAP in particular. Gilbert Noël thus deserves much credit for sheddinglight on an understudied corner of European integration history.Noël's first study – Du pool vert à la politique agricole commune (Paris: Economica,1988) – concentrated specifically on multilateral European attempts to institute a degree ofcooperation in the agricultural sector; the new work, by contrast deals only briefly withEuropean discussions and focuses instead on narrower Franco-German collaborative efforts.It is thus as much about the roots of Franco-German rapprochement as about the origins ofthe CAP. Only this is Franco-German reconciliation with the usual cast list of Robert Schuman,Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle replaced by Andreas Hermes and Pierre Martin,heads of the principal German and French farmers' organisations, and Pierre Pflimlinand Wilhelm Niklas, ministers of agriculture in the two countries. High politics gives way toeconomic calculations of precise national interest.As a result, Noël’s book is an important complement to more traditional studies ofFranco-German relations in the post-war decades. It emphasizes the interests of France andGermany in close bilateral economic cooperation and highlights the fact that the idea ofFrance gaining a market for its agricultural exports in return for lowering its barriers towardsGerman industrial produce enjoyed widespread currency as early as 1950. The book alsodemonstrates that farmers' leaders in both countries shared similar views about the necessityof protecting traditional, family-based farms, if necessary by resorting to protectionist policies.This communality of view-point, especially when combined with the actual personalrapport that was to develop between farmers' spokesmen on either side of the Rhine, wouldlater prove its importance as the Community discussions about the CAP got underwaytowards the end of the decade. Also of interest is Noël's portrayal of the continual tensionsbetween intergovernmental and professional cooperation, and between bilateral Franco-Germaninitiatives and wider European projects. The way in which the Benelux countriesexpressed alarm at the emergence of too intimate a rapport between their two largest neighboursacts as a useful reminder that there was little new in the Belgian, Dutch or Italian anxietiesexpressed about Adenauer and de Gaulle's honeymoon in 1962.
Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen 127Unfortunately, the value of Noël's contribution is somewhat undermined by an almostexcessive attention to the details of Franco-German agricultural contacts and a reluctance torelate the specific points he is making about farm cooperation to wider developments inEurope. Rather than writing in a manner which is inviting to the non-agricultural specialist,Noël dwells over-long on the composition of individual committees or the precise reactionsof this or that particular economic expert. More general points, by contrast are overlooked.There is thus no mention of the way in which the waxing and waning fortunes of supranationalarrangements in the agricultural sphere mirrored their more general political acceptability;no investigation of how the decision by French farmers that the German market and notthe British represented their best hope related to the wider French choice of cooperationwith Germany rather than with the UK; and no discussion of how the German government'sdecision to over-ride some of Ludwig Erhard's economic qualms about agricultural protectionismin the interest of Franco-German political harmony constituted just part of Adenauer'striumph over his deputy and rival. The result, alas, is that a book which ought to havehad an impact on the general debate about the early stages of European cooperation willmost probably be thoroughly read only by those with an interest in Franco-German agriculturalrelations per se.Piers LudlowBalliol College, OxfordAnne DEIGHTON. – Building Postwar Europe. National Decision-Makers and EuropeanInstitutions 1948-63. New-York, St. Martin’s Press, 1995, 187p. – ISBN 0-312-12580-1.35,00£.Cet ouvrage édité par Anne Deighton, publié en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis, rassembledix articles. Il présente les travaux d’un groupe de recherche qui a apporté sa contributionau grand chantier international «Vers une identité et une conscience européenne au XX esiècle» dirigé par René Girault.Présentées au colloque d’Oxford en septembre 1993, ces communications s’intéressentau rôle des décideurs dans l’histoire de l’intégration européenne. Comme le souligne AnneDeighton dans une riche introduction, il ne s’agissait pas de suivre les différentes thèses surla naissance et le développement de l’intégration mais bien – en profitant de l’ouverture pluslarge des archives – d’approfondir ou même d’entreprendre l’étude de certains aspects sousestimésjusque-là. Le groupe a voulu examiner les motivations, les forces qui conduisent lesdécideurs à adopter telle ou telle attitude à des moments donnés. Le regard des auteurs s’estporté dans plusieurs directions. Sur la France, deux articles examinent l’un le rôle des élitesmilitaires 1947-1954 (C. d’Abzac et Philippe Vial) l’autre celui de la haute administration1947-1958 (Gérard Bossuat). S. Lee étudie le rôle des décideurs allemands pendant l’èreAdenauer. Trois contributions se penchent sur la politique britannique: l’attitude des militaires1945-1950 (Paul Cornish) celle de la haute administration 1944-1960 (John W. Young)alors que Anne Deighton et Piers Ludlow reviennent sur le jeu du gouvernement conservateurlorsqu’il cherche à faire entrer le Royaume-Uni dans la CEE entre juillet 1961 et janvier1963. Sur l’Italie Marion Miller analyse l’approche du ministre des Affaires étrangèresCarlo Sforza de 1947 à 1951. Sur le Benelux une étude large sur les décideurs belges 1945-1963 (Thierry Grosbois et Yves Stelandre) et un article plus pointu sur les Pays-Bas et lacoopération politique 1959-1962 (B. Bouwman) montrent que les petits Etats ne sont pasrestés passifs. L’article de Richard J. Aldrich examine le rôle d’un groupe de pression américainl’ACUE (American Committee on United Europe).
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Journal of European Integration History – Revue d'histoire de l'

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