TAKING THE LEAD IN EUROPE The international politics of import controls, 1952–6

From the reimposition of quantitative controls over much of the United Kingdom’s trade with Europe in November 1951 and March 1952 and France’s reimposition in February 1952 of the controls it had removed, the OEEC Trade Liberalisation Programme was moribund until it began to be revived in 1953, when the United Kingdom, very cautiously at first, began once more to free from controls its foreign trade with Europe. Two tendencies explain its revival.