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The Hague Conference of 1969 and the United Kingdom’s Accession 121
of that deadline which was the main reason why the Hague summit was eventually
held in that month. Foreign Office hopes strayed even further however. They
envisaged that even if Britain had not become a member-state by then it would have
travelled sufficiently far towards that goal that it would be allowed some say in
what the final settlement of the Community’s dispute over own resources would be.
Sir Con O’Neill, who had served for three years as ambassador to the
Community and had made several reasoned criticisms of the United Kingdom’s
earlier negotiating tactics told a Benelux committee luncheon at The Hague in
January 1966,
“I hold that the Common Market agricultural policy is difficult to be adopted by
Britain, but I do not say that it could never be adopted. In fact, we accepted it in
principle three or four years ago”. 3
His remark brought a speedy rebuke from Thomas Balogh, Wilson’s economic
adviser, and an opponent of Britain’s attempted entry into the Community. In a
hand-written note Wilson commented,
“I think this is very unfortunate esp[ecially] the reference to ‘accepting’ agricultural
policy. I never have: we attacked it, on import not farm grounds. There would be no
more speeches now”. 4
There seems to be no evidence that Wilson changed his mind about this. Rather
it appears to be the case that he persisted in thinking that to enter the Community
with no modification of Britain’s expected contribution to the Community budget
might be a risky venture, was certainly not to be undertaken without very careful
thought, and that every effort should be made to plot a negotiating procedure
through which that contribution could be modified.
When he initiated on 21 March 1967 what was in reality a series of Cabinet
meetings on the subject of a second application and its nature and objectives,
although the cabinet secretary did not keep written notes of them as was the normal
practice, the first meeting called for a list of further submissions on the likely
position of British agriculture in the Community, including one which should
attempt to show the probable impact on the balance of payments of the CAP, its
probable impact on agricultural production, and its probable impact on
Commonwealth agriculture. These were to allow some determination of how far
the CAP could be modified if all these “impacts” were to be made “tolerable”. 5 A
parliamentary Select Committee on Agriculture sought the same information. “It
was”, so the officials servicing the unscripted Cabinet meetings recorded, “fully
recognized that we could not hope to abolish the C.A.P., but, if we had entered the
EEC by 1968, we might be in a position to modify its operation when it came to be
renegotiated in 1969”. 6
3. PRO, PREM 13/893, Note of Sir Con O’Neill’s remarks.
4. Ibid., Note by Wilson, 19 January 1966.
5. PRO, CAB 130/316, MISC 143(67) 1 st meeting. ‘Cabinet. Europe.’ Minutes of a Meeting of Officials
held 2 March 1967.
6. PRO, CAB 130/316, MISC 143(67) 2 nd meeting. ‘Cabinet. Europe’, 3 April 1967.