ABSTRACT
This chapter describes United Kingdom objectives and tactics in the negotiations. It is concerned with a number of general matters relevant to the negotiations as a whole. The chapter focuses on the major objectives that is to say the author's strategy and those major tactical considerations which influenced, especially at the start of the negotiation. Given the general objectives, it became a very important matter of tactics to work for decisions on the major issues in the early summer of 1971 and to communicate to the Community the conviction that this was the right course to adopt. Mr. Rippon's phrase about 'breaking the back of the negotiations in the summer of 1971'. This chapter also brings out the fact that the distinction between strategy and tactics in a European Community negotiation is rather unreal and that many of the most farreaching decisions taken in such negotiations are foreshadowed by the procedural handling of them.
