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

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26Wolfram KaiserThe BDI subsequently also opposed acceleration in spring 1960. 77 According toone report of a conversation between Berg and Schaffner, the BDI at one point eventhreatened to withhold campaign funds from the CDU. 78 The BDI position wasalso supported, among others, by the influential Speaker of the Executive Board ofthe Deutsche Bank, Hermann Josef Abs, who argued in a personal letter to Adenauerthat it was wrong and politically dangerous to believe that the intensificationof trade relations with third countries could wait. 79The opponents of Adenauer's one-sided emphasis on close Franco-German relationscould point not only to the Federal Republic's extensive trade with the EFTAstates, which equalled that with its EEC partners, but also to its substantial surplusin this trade. In 1960-1 all EFTA states recorded deficits in their trade with the EECtotalling 2.2 billion US dollars, 80 of which more than half resulted from their tradewith the Federal Republic. Significantly, these German surpluses were far in excessof those the Federal Republic recorded in trade with its EEC partners. The EconomicsMinistry was less concerned about the effects of EFTA on German tradewith Austria and Switzerland, where German industry possessed important non-tariffadvantages over its British or Scandinavian competitors, such as its long-standingtrade contacts, language and geographical proximity. In contrast, the EconomicsMinistry calculated that German exports to Sweden and Norway – primarily inmotorcars, electrical equipment, machine tools and chemicals – could be replacedby British, Swedish or Swiss products. Thus, exports to Scandinavia would sufferfrom rising tariff barriers, as would German exports to Britain. Moreover, the EconomicsMinistry assumed that the German negotiating position vis-à-vis the EFTAstates was weak because in trade policy – as one official put it – “it was not the surplus,but the deficit partner who had the greater leverage”. 81Another facet of the intensifying public debate about the Federal Republic's longtermeconomic interests was the regional disparity in trade patterns. As Table 3 shows,the North German Länder had a much greater stake in trade with the EFTA states.While 27.5 per cent of total German exports went to the EFTA states and 25.6 percent to the EEC in 1958, the figures for the four so-called Küstenländer in the northwere 33 per cent and 17 per cent respectively. Of their total exports, in Schleswig-Holstein 45.7 per cent went to EFTA states, in Bremen 38.1 per cent, in Hamburg35.2 per cent and in Lower Saxony 27.9 per cent. These Länder also had very closecultural ties both with Scandinavia and with Britain. As a result, the parliaments andgovernments of the four Küstenländer – of which Schleswig-Holstein was at that timegoverned by the CDU under Minister-President Kai-Uwe von Hassel – demandedfrom the government in Bonn that absolute priority be given to securing a trade settle-77. Berg to Adenauer: BA B136/2553 (11 March 1960).78. Note Holliday on talks Schaffner-Berg: PRO FO 371/150161/191 (12 May 1960).79. Abs to Adenauer: BA B136/2553 (14 November 1959).80. EFTA, EFTA's Foreign Trade During the First Year of Operation, 1st July 1960 – 30th June 1961,Geneva 1962, p.19.81. Meyer-Cording to Carstens: PA AA/353/Ref. 200-I A2 (16 July 1959).
Challenge to the Community 27ment between the EEC and EFTA to avoid tariff discrimination. In November 1959,the four Ministers-President argued in a joint letter to Adenauer that they only hadsupported the EEC Treaty in the Bundesrat, the Federal Council, in 1957“in der Erwartung, daß ein größerer europäischer Wirtschaftszusammenschlußzustande kommen wird. Die norddeutschen Länder verfolgen daher mit größter Anteilnahme,ja mit Sorge, die Bildung einer von der EWG abgesonderten EFTA. Die Entwicklungbringt die Küstenländer, die bereits jetzt an der Peripherie der EWG und ander Grenze des Ostblocks liegen, in eine neue Randlage zur Kleinen Freihandelszone.”82TABLE 3: Exports of the Federal Republic and of the Four Küstenländer in Per Cent ofTotal Exports (1958)FederalRepublicFourKüstenländerDenmark Norway Sweden UK EFTA EEC3.0 2.9 6.1 3.9 27.5 25.64.5 7.7 7.2 5.3 33.0 17.0Bremen 5.0 6.8 8.2 12.2 38.1 13.7Hamburg 6.1 10.6 5.5 4.9 35.2 20.8LowerSaxony3.5 3.6 7.3 3.8 27.9 16.3Schleswig-Holstein5.4 21.0 9.3 4.7 45.7 16.2Source: ”Die wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen der norddeutschen Küstenländer zur EFTA”,BA B136/2553 (1959)The protagonists of a trade settlement between the EEC and EFTA in the FederalRepublic undoubtedly played up the dangers of the economic split in WesternEurope. Yet, their concern was real and it increasingly reflected growing and widespreaddoubts about the direction of Adenauer's European policy with its almostunconditional support for de Gaulle irrespective of the dominant long-term economicinterests of the Federal Republic or the rest of Western Europe. Even beforethe British EEC application of 1961, which politicized the debate even more, theremaining supporters of Adenauer's line of policy in the government and the CDUwere increasingly on the defensive. It is indicative of this trend that officials of theAuswärtige Amt were unable to get anywhere during interdepartmental talks on82. Minister-Presidents of Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen, Hamburg and Lower Saxony to Adenauer: BAB136/2553 (7 November 1959). The European issue was widely debated in the respective Länderparliaments, leading to further interventions by the Länder governments in Bonn during 1959-62 infavour first of a trade settlement and later of EEC enlargement.
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