ABSTRACT
The Council of Ministers seemed ready to approve the Commission's recommendation and order the opening of talks to investigate the solution of a preferential trade agreement. The French representatives in the working group, on orders from above, stubbornly opposed any additional gesture towards Israel beyond slight improvements to the existing trade agreement. Interestingly, the French chose to base their opposition to the Commission report not on a political excuse, but rather on pure economic logic. Yet despite the severity of the political considerations, the French based their opposition to the Israeli arrangement on economic foundations. The rejection of Israeli requests could be easily justified using economic and legal arguments, thus avoiding any exposure of the political motivation. When Germany joined the camp of Israel's supporters, this constituted the most significant development in the balance of powers between the European Economic Community's members since the negotiations with Israel had begun.
