ABSTRACT
As with France in September, the agreement reached in Brussels broke down due to obstinacy driven by domestic politics. President Havel signed in Paris a Friendship and Cooperation Treaty between France and Czechoslovakia in which the French government committed itself, as it had done in similar treaties with Poland and Hungary, to support Czechoslovak membership of the Community. Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy wanted the Commission to respect the mandate of November 1990 and consider Central Eastern Europe a special exemption from the Economic Communities (EC's) policy on Voluntary Restrain Agreements. In the final stage of the negotiations, the breakdown of the different countries' exports to the EC would have a great influence on what each country would seek and what the Community would offer. There was the twin-track policy of exchanging EC technical assistance for capacity reduction and the enforcement of EC regulations on competition and state aid.
