ABSTRACT
With the exception of one dismal period in the autumn of 1967, it had always been accepted by all concerned that a principal, if not the principal, feature of any agreement on the admission of new States to the European Community would be the negotiation with them of transitional measures and periods to ease the adjustment to membership of the Community. M. Harmel said: 'The transitional measures must be conceived to ensure an overall balance of reciprocal advantages. With this in mind, it will be necessary to ensure an adequate synchronisation of the progress of freedom of movement of industrial goods, with the achievement of the agricultural Common Market. The periods agreed for transitional measures, whether in the classic step-by-step form or as a 'temporal adaptation', varied very widely. Although transitional measures and 'temporal adaptations' were agreed in so many fields, there was one field of the greatest importance in which the Community refused to grant any transition at all.
