ABSTRACT
In September 1955, Macmillan as Foreign Secretary commented on the proceedings of the Spaak committee: ‘This is our second string – we may need it. The “one world approach” isn’t going with a swing at the moment. It may even bankrupt us.’1 Six years later, and as Prime Minister, Macmillan pursued the ‘second string’ and applied for EEC membership. The failure of this attempt and also of the second application by the Wilson Labour government of 1966-70 was followed by the third and successful application undertaken by the Heath Conservative government of 1970-74. This chapter focuses on the diminishing appeal of alternatives to EEC
membership under both the Conservative and Labour governments. It examines the reappraisal of British policy towards the EEC including the assumptions, expectations and actual policies pursued by the government of the day and the particular reasons for seeking membership. It also highlights some of the features of the successful application for membership that were to leave a lasting legacy. Three common expressions may be said to capture the change of mood among those political leaders who came to espouse the idea of British membership of the EEC over the period 1956-72. These were in order of timing: the panic-ridden ‘We’ve been caught out’, the galvanizing ‘We must do something’, the fatalist ‘There is no alternative’. The Eden government had no sooner decided to withdraw from the Spaak
committee than doubts, fears and anxieties began to creep into Whitehall assessments of the implications of the Six’s plans for Britain. Within a matter of months, in fact, Treasury officials speculated that on a longer view the question might become not whether Britain should go into Europe to save Europe but whether Britain might have to move closer to Europe in order to save itself.2 Here was an early indication of an important tipping point in official opinion away from the popular view of Britain helping to rescue Europe during and after the Second World War to the increasingly common view in the 1960s that EEC membership was the panacea for Britain’s political and economic ills. More immediately, however, British policymakers believed that they were
increasingly on the horns of an acute dilemma in the wake of the Six’s decision to forge ahead with the common market idea. Peter Thorneycroft,
President of the Board of Trade, succinctly described the dilemma: ‘On any analysis it seems clear that we cannot afford that the Common Market should either succeed, or fail, without us.’3 In effect, a common market without Britain would immediately have damaging effects on Britain’s trading ties with the Six. It would also put at risk the preferred British approach to trade negotiations via the GATT. In the longer run, such a prospect presented the threat of a narrow, regional, German-dominated power bloc. Furthermore, a common market without Britain would seriously undermine the country’s traditional role and influence in Europe whether in maintaining a balance of power or in mediating in Franco-German conflicts. Such a project would also jeopardize Britain’s standing in the US and in the western system at large. On these grounds alone, Britain could not join the Eisenhower Administration in Washington in positively encouraging the Six’s efforts. However, it was also reckoned to be the case that the collapse of the common market project would have dire consequences. It would weaken west European unity, resulting in an isolationist France and German revanchiste adventures in Eastern Europe. It would divide the western alliance and possibly realize the worst security fears of the British in the form of the withdrawal of the US from Europe, while also leaving Britain exposed to European and US criticism for jeopardizing the project.4 On these grounds, British policy could never actively or passively encourage the disruption of the Six’s unity. Nor could Britain remain completely isolated from this process, for the further European integration advanced the less Britain could afford to be excluded from it. How to overcome this dilemma was one of the main problems confronting policymakers over the next few years. The opening period 1956-59 was to demonstrate how this dilemma could not be resolved by pursuing the policy of association between Britain and the Six which, as noted earlier, was established at the time of the Schuman Plan. This period also served as the prelude to the major reappraisal of Britain’s European policy in 1960-61. Any assessment of the main thrust of British policy towards the Six during
this period bristles with problems, some confined to the period while others have continuing significance as evidence of a deep-seated British ambivalence towards the Six’s model of European integration. It is important to emphasize several general points before tracing the rise and fall of a British proposal for a European free trade area (FTA) during this period. First, the political landscape of European integration underwent rapid
change. The Spaak report favouring the creation of a common market was published in March 1956. The report was approved by the foreign ministers of the Six in May 1956. It was then subjected to intense intergovernmental negotiations in February of the following year resulting in the Treaties of Rome (March 1957). These treaties came into force in January 1958 and established the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC). The EEC was designed to form a common market with free movement of goods, capital, labour and services. Phased progression towards a customs union was a major goal. The
introduction of a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) also emerged as an immediate priority. The underlying political purpose to create ‘an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’ accommodated different views about integration and avoided any specific reference to the supranational principle contained in the ECSC treaty. The EEC’s first tariff reductions were made in January 1959 and later that year (November) the Six agreed to accelerate their tariff cutting programme. Meanwhile, seven member states of the OEEC including Britain signed the Stockholm Convention (July 1959) establishing the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). By the end of 1959, therefore, Western Europe was divided into two trade blocs, a Europe at Sixes and Sevens in the newspaper headlines of the day.5
