ABSTRACT
A central part of the European Union (EU) is its creation of a single
market. The European Economic Community (EEC), agreed in 1957,
contained the plans for a core element of this market-the customs
union. In 1957 the six signatories of the Treaty of Rome, in common
with other European states, had tariffs on many of the imports from
other countries; they subsidized some exports and also had quantitative
restrictions (QRs) on some imports that determined for that product a
limit in value or amount to what could be allowed in. There was a twostep element to a customs union. The first was the eventual abolition of
tariff barriers and QRs on the trade between the member states,
creating a free trade area between the six states. The second element
was that these states should have the same tariffs-a Common External
Tariff (CET)—and QRs for imports from all other countries, forming a
customs union. Once the CET and free trade area eight-year timetable
was agreed in the Treaty of Rome, the creation of a customs union was
a fairly automatic process. Before the governments agreed an accelerated timetable-as wanted by business-they first had to put in place
the EEC’s agricultural policy. France, in particular, insisted that if there
were to be a customs union-which was thought to benefit mostly
Germany-then the politically important French farmers should also
be assisted by an agricultural common market.
