ABSTRACT
Principally due to its failure to exact entry into the EEC in 1963, the Irish government quickly set about enhancing the country's trading position with its crucial UK markets, as well as its bilateral relations with other states. However, once Anglo-Irish discussions got under way, it was clear that Ireland favoured the idea of an FTA with the UK rather than just enhancing bilateral agreements of old. There was a simple interlinked set of motivations behind this decision. An FTA was chosen primarily because it was seen as a viable intermediate step in preparations for its ultimate aim, achieving a position of full European economic integration, but also because it would solve a more immediate economic problem as well, keeping Ireland a feasible trading entity. Apart from considerations about the future, an innovative free trade area arrangement solved an immediate problem, because of the UK's overwhelming importance to its economic position, providing a concrete and fresh impetus for plans held by Dublin. Additionally, it marked a tenable step in Ireland's actual - rather than heretofore provisional - course of European integration. The 1965 Anglo-Irish FTA (AIFTA) agreement was in fact a means to an end, not necessarily an end in itself, as was made readily apparent at the time of these bilateral talks. Thus, the main reason behind negotiating an AIFTA, as far as Dublin was concerned, was to facilitate Ireland's full membership of the EEC when that became possible, although these changes were worth implementing in their own right too. These new trading arrangements with the UK were in no way intended to impede that ambition; rather, they were wholly intended to expedite it.1
