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

Dieses Dokument wurde erstellt mit FrameMaker 4.0.4.Challenge to the Community 7Challenge to the Community:The Creation, Crisis and Consolidation of the European FreeTrade Association, 1958-72Wolfram KaiserOn 15 December 1958, the negotiations over an industrial free trade area (FTA) inWestern Europe, which had been conducted in Paris in the Maudling Committee ofthe Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) since October1957, finally broke down. 1 One month previously, on 14 November, the FrenchInformation Minister Jacques Soustelle had declared publicly that the FTA wasunacceptable to France without extensive tariff harmonisation and substantial compensatoryconcessions in agriculture – all of which, however, were unobtainable inthe negotiations. At that time the British government was already aware of the finalFrench decision against the FTA. During a meeting in London on 6 November withthe British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd and the leader of the British delegationin the Paris negotiations Reginald Maudling, the French Foreign Minister MauriceCouve de Murville had rejected the FTA plan. 2 The following day Prime MinisterHarold Macmillan once more tried to persuade Charles de Gaulle in a private letterto continue the negotiations, but the French President merely replied in a very matter-of-facttone one day after Soustelle's statement, on 15 November:“Ceux-ci ne sauraient, évidemment, comporter l'établissement d'une zone de libreéchange dans les conditions où elle a été proposée du côté des onze. L'existencemême du Marché commun, les obligations qu'il comporte pour les Etats qui en fontpartie, la situation actuelle de leur économie, en tout cas, de celle de la France, seraientincompatibles avec la zone ainsi comprise.” 3The failure of the negotiations over the so-called Plan G for an industrial FTA,put forward by the British government in 1956, 4 had been anticipated for sometime. 5 The Mollet government had indicated even before the start of negotiations in1957 that industrial free trade among the OEEC states on top of increased competi-1. I would like to thank Werner Abelshauser, Mikael af Malmborg and Alan S. Milward for their helpfulcomments on earlier drafts of this article, as well as the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo for supportingmy research into the history of EFTA and its relationship with the EEC and the USA duringthe 1960s.1. Reported from the British perspective by Heathcoat-Amory to Macmillan: Public Record Office(PRO) PREM 11/2826 (16 December 1958).2. Cf. M. COUVE de MURVILLE, Une politique étrangère 1958-1969, Paris 1971, p.49.3. De Gaulle to Macmillan: PRO PREM 11/2532 (15 November 1958).4. The origins of Plan G are discussed in W. KAISER, “Selbstisolierung in Europa. Die britische Regierungund die Gründung der EWG”, in: C. WURM (ed.), Wege nach Europa. Wirtschaft undAußenpolitik Großbritanniens im 20. Jahrhundert, Bochum 1992, pp.125-53.5. On the economic and technical aspects of the FTA negotiations the best work remains K. KAISER,EWG und Freihandelszone. England und der Kontinent in der europäischen Integration, Leiden1963.