ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1939, less than 21 years after the signature of the armistice of November 11, 1918 which put an end to the fighting in the First World War, Great Britain and France were once again at war with Germany. Twenty-one years after the end of the Second World War, in May 1966, the only dispute dividing France and Germany was a technical question of finance in what was then known as the European Economic Community (EEC). Should part of the customs duties levied on agricultural produce entering the Community be allocated centrally by the authorities in Brussels, the arrangement preferred by the Belgians, the Germans and the Dutch? Or should all the money remain under the exclusive authority of the Community’s six member states, the idea inspiring French policy at the time?
