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

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Alan S. Milward
To accept the cost burden and adapt the economy to meet it, the brief argued,
would in fact increase the cost in resources above the amount of the transfer itself
and would
“greatly minimise the prospect of securing the ‘dynamic’ advantages hoped for from
entry”. 19
What could be done? Britain was likely to be asked at an early stage in the
negotiations whether it accepted the Financial Regulation which the Community
had adopted. To succeed in gaining entry it would have to go as far as possible in its
reply to indicate its acceptance of it. After that, in the course of the negotiation, the
tactics should be, the brief suggested, to insist that Britain’s contribution would be
limited for “a very long period”. This was envisaged as a transitional period of five
to six years followed by a further period of seven years over which Britain’s
contribution from levies, duties, and taxes would be governed by a ‘corrective’. The
corrective would be a stated limit to the amount by which Britain’s proportionate
contribution could rise above its basic key contribution. After those twelve to
thirteen years there would have to be a review of the system of financing ‘own
resources’. 20 The implication of these negotiating tactics was that the United
Kingdom would permanently escape from paying the burden which France had
sought to impose on it and which it would not, up to that point, have paid.
This tactical approach to the negotiation was inherited by Edward Heath and the
Conservative Party after their narrow and unpredicted victory in the general
election of 18 June 1970. The tone of Heath’s first serious cabinet discussion of
negotiating procedures, held on 10 December 1970, reveals a government which,
whatever the difference of personal attitude of its leader towards the Community,
was by that date still basing its tactics on the official negotiating briefs drawn up for
the Wilson government. New Zealand’s export position and the provision of
markets for colonial sugar producers were clouds of anxiety bigger than a man’s
hand, but the central and dominating issue remained the link between the CAP and
‘own resources’. Heath’s ministers came to the same conclusions as Wilson’s about
the unreliableness of calculations of future advantage based on dynamic gains.
Geoffrey Ripon, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who was to be the head
of the negotiating team, emphasised the need to insist on the right “at every point”
to a review of Britain’s payments to the Community. Others thought a review at any
point was an insufficient safeguard. The costs of entry, unless ameliorated, were
variously described as requiring “drastic” or “severe” measures. 21 Twelve months
after the Hague summit the United Kingdom’s road to accession to the European
Community, although the initial barrier to it had been opened, was strewn with as
many obstacles as in 1966.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Cabinet secretary’s notebooks [Sir Burke Trend], 10 December 1970.