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Portugal's European Integration Policy, 1947-72 33
IV. From Veto to Trade Agreement, 1963-72
French President Charles de Gaulle’s veto to British EEC accession on 14 January
1963 led to the collapse of the attempt by EFTA members to reach an overall agreement
with the EEC. Thus, Portugal sought to obtain from its EFTA partners the
advantages it had sought in becoming an associate member of the Community. 31
Initially, Portugal had not sought financial aid from the EEC to increase its chances
of successfully reaching an agreement. With the demise of these negotiations, the
Portuguese government considered that its position as a member of EFTA had been
strengthened and therefore that its request for agricultural concessions as well as
for financial aid would have to be heeded by the other members, and in particular,
by Britain. The satisfaction of these needs did not conceal the fact that British
membership of the EEC only was a matter of time, and that Portugal and other
members of EFTA would then have to reach an agreement with the EEC.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, an important sector of the ruling elite was in
favour of democracy and European integration. During the celebrations in 1966 of
the forty years of the regime, the keynote speech on the Portuguese economy openly
defended EEC membership for the EFTA countries because it was a better European
“concept” and, in economic terms, integration was superior to cooperation. 32
In 1972, the Minister of State, João Mota Campos, publicly declared that Portugal
should seek to extend the EEC trade agreement so “that we can someday overcome
present impediments and occupy the place we are entitled to have among the people
of Western Europe”. 33
If important sectors of the Portuguese elite were in favour of European integration
by the early 1970s, the dominant trend within the regime was opposed to this
policy option. Initially, the defenders of the Estado Novo argued that the European
and colonial options were complementary and the first strengthened the second.
The main advocate of this view within the government was Corrêa d’Oliveira, with
the argument that the fact being a co-founder of EFTA in 1960 did not impede Portugal
launching the following year the project of a free trade area with the colonies,
known as the Portuguese Single Market (PSM). 34 By the end of the 1960s, however,
the apologists of a continued colonial policy were to deem European integration
31. PRO, FO 371/171328, Record of conversation, Barclay to FO, 19 February 1963.
32. D. BARBOSA, Novos Rumos da Política Económica, in: Celebrar o Passado, Construir o Futuro,
Ciclo de Conferências Promovido pela Comissão Executiva das Comemorações do 40º Aniversário
da Revolução Nacional, Lisbon, 1966, pp.241-243. Barbosa was a prestigious economics
professor and member of Parliament, having served briefly as Economy minister from 1947 to
1948. From the beginnig of his career, Barbosa was in favour of rapid industrialisation as a means
of achieving rapid and sustained economic growth.
33. Quoted in M. PORTO, Portugal: Twenty years of change, in: A. WILLIAMS, Southern Europe Transformed.
Political and Economic Change in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, London, 1984, p.98.
34. PSM was little more than a propaganda device and a stratagem to maintain trade preference once
Portugal joined GATT in 1962 at the request of its EFTA partners; see LOPES, A economia portuguesa
…, op.cit., p.283 and J.B. MACEDO, C. CORADO and M. PORTO, Trade Liberalization
Episodes in Portugal: An Overview, Washington, 1986, pp.168-169.