ABSTRACT
Created in January 1949, the Soviet-sponsored Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) has been widely interpreted as Stalin's answer to the establishment of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). From its very beginnings, CMEA members, and especially the Soviet Union, viewed the European Economic Community (EEC) with distrust, hostility, scepticism, and derision. East European members of the CMEA were perhaps less concerned with politics, but saw a more immediate economic threat to their exports in the creation of a customs union in Western Europe. In 1966, the Hungarians suggested that "horizontal" contacts between the EEC, CMEA, and European Free Trade Association might ripen rather quickly. The Soviets apparently argued that any such co-operation with the West would weaken the bloc; no major contacts followed the Hungarian initiative. A new CMEA-sponsored International Investment Bank began operations in 1971 to provide funding for the envisaged multilateral intra-bloc industrial projects.
