journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

44
Birgit Aschmann
Spain expected the EEC Council of Ministers to authorise the Commission to
take up now regular negotiations with Spain within the next months. The German
delegates promised that the Federal Government would adopt the Spanish request.
At the inter-governmental conference of 13 June 1966, the German Foreign minister
actually tried to speed up the handling of the Spanish application by proposing
to ask the Commission to present an account on the course of the exploratory talks
with Spanish-government officials by the end of July. When the Commission refused
this deadline too short to draw up a written account, Foreign minister Gerhard
Schröder could at least achieve, that an oral general report should be demanded
for July. 30 The Federal ministry of Foreign affairs did not intend to overrate this
procedural success, after all Italy and the Benelux-countries had not changed their
disapproving attitude. 31 At least the delegate of the EEC Commission gave the
Council as agreed an account on the state of the negotiations on 22 July, but again
the written report promised for October was a long time in coming. When at the
end of October high-ranking Spanish officials called on secretary of State Lahr, the
account was not yet available. The Spanish handed over a memorandum to the secretary
of State with which the Spanish government had tried to bring its influence
to bear on the work of the Commission. They withheld from their German interlocutor
the request of the Commission, not to pass on this document to the governments
of the member states, so as not to tempt them to influence the judgement of
the Commission. 32 The secretary of State thanked the Spanish officials for their
confidence and promised to ask at the Council session the following day that the
Commission’s report should be presented without delay and that the issue should
be handled at the next Council meeting in November. The German proposals apparently
fell on fertile ground: On 23 November 1966 the Commission actually presented
to the EEC Council its account on the exploratory talks with Spain.
With regard to further proceeding the Commission brought up for discussion
three models, with the first proposal amounting to an association – without explicitly
mentioning it. The German ministry of Foreign affairs classified this solution as
“unquestionably the best”. 33 As the possibility of an association would have found
no support among the EEC partners, it had to be ruled out. The third model, which
proposed a limited trade agreement, was rejected by the Germans as well as by the
29. PAAA I A 4/391: “Arbeitsbesprechung im spanischen Aussenministerium am 29.3.1966”, note by
Richard Breuer, head of the economic section of the German embassy in Madrid, attached to a report
from the embassy of 13 April 1966.
30. PAAA I A 4/342: “Spanien und EWG”, report by Stempel, 15 June 1966.
31. PAAA I A 4/342: Stempel to the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Washington, 7
July 1966.
32. PAAA I A 4/343: “Das Gespräch des Herrn Staatssekretärs mit Herrn Generaldirektor für Wirtschaftsangelegenheiten
im spanischen Aussenministerium, Don Faustino Armijo, Herrn Generaldirektor
für Internationale Organisationen, Marqués de Nerva, und dem spanischen Botschafter in
Bonn, Herrn [José Sebastián] de Erice, am 25.10.1966 im Auswärtigen Amt”, minutes by Stempel.
33. PAAA I A 4/343: “Beziehungen EWG–Spanien. Stichwortartige Stellungnahme zum Bericht der
Kommission an den Rat über Sondierungsgespräche mit Spanien vom 23.11.1966”, note by Stempel,
2 December 1966.