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

In Search of the Greatest Common Denominator 69procedure harshly criticised by the Commission and its president Jean Rey. 30 Thefirst encounter in such a setting took place on 15 September during the Council ofministers meeting in Brussels. There, Brandt was equipped with a paper that madethe enlargement issue the most prominent on the agenda. As this paper made clear,the German government was eager to decide on a starting date for enlargementnegotiations in order to achieve the first successes. The paper partially attracted theFrench, by suggesting an agreement between the Six on this issue before startingnegotiations with the potential applicants. It clearly stipulated that all other issuesshould be subordinate to the question of enlargement. Completion, which dealtwith linking the financing of agriculture to the reform of agricultural policy, was tooccupy second place, while deepening, which according to German terminologyreferred to the establishment of an economic union in particular, took third place. 31The enlargement question did not appear on the agenda of the official Councilmeeting since the Commission had not yet submitted a formal statement. Butduring an informal meeting of the Foreign ministers, the issue of British entry wasdiscussed. 32 As opposed to his Benelux colleagues, Willy Brandt proceeded verycarefully. Whereas those, Joseph Luns in particular, clearly insisted on fixing a datefor starting negotiations with the applicants, only the German Foreign minister waspleased to point out the readiness of the French to discuss the British entry after all.He mentioned the importance of a timetable that would indicate how many monthsthe EC member states would need “to make contact with the applicants”. 33Furthermore, he obviously supported finding a solution to the WEU crisis, but atthe same time suggested that discussing political questions should go beyond apossible “regularisation” of the WEU. 34 The enlargement question was not the onlyhighly controversial issue up for discussion. The Benelux member states, inparticular, expressed their scepticism towards the French refusal to accept a linkagebetween completion and enlargement. Brandt did not mention this sensitive issue atall, but he left Luns’ assumption unchallenged that the Five would accept “a sort ofparallelism”. The meeting finally resulted in a date and place of the summitconference being fixed as well as the topics for discussion: the famous triptych ofcompletion, deepening and enlargement. The Commission was designated toparticipate in the conference and the sensitive issue of enlargement postponed untilthe publication of the Commission report on this issue. This was quite adisappointing result compared to the maximum demand of linkage and a fixed datefor entering into negotiations. But it was at the same time a good result for a30. See the complaints of Rey on the occasion of the third meeting, AAPD, 1969, vol.II, documentno.356, p.1258.31. WBA, Bestand Publizistische Äußerungen 322, Vorschläge zu Verfahren und Themen der geplantenEWG-Gipfelkonferenz in Den Haag, 15.09.1969, draft of 1 September 1969.32. Aufzeichnung des Staatssekretärs Harkort, 18.09.1969, betr. Arbeitsessen der EWG-Außenministerin Brüssel am 15.09.1969, in: AAPD, 1969, vol.II, document no.294, pp.1025-1030.33. Ibid.34. „Mögl[iche] Au[ßenpolitische] Zus[ammen]arbeit + Konsultation, Mehr als NormalisierungWEU“, WBA, Bestand Außenminister und Vizekanzler 18, Handschriftliche Notizen anl. SitzungEWG-Ministerrat in Brüssel am 15.09.1969.