ABSTRACT
After 1957, the Common Market gradually consolidated itself as the lynchpin of European integration. Numerous offi cials in the British government – among them Edward Heath – began to ponder whether Britain should join the Common Market. 1 They eventually ‘converted’ Eden’s successor, Harold Macmillan, to apply for membership. 2 Macmillan did so rather reluctantly in 1961, as did Labour’s Harold Wilson again in 1967, 3 but both attempts were rejected by France. Charles de Gaulle blocked Britain’s bid to join the Common Market out of the fear that the UK would dilute its cohesion and challenge France’s central role in Europe. 4 In the early 1960s, the ‘qualifi ed guess’ among British policy-makers was that France and de Gaulle constituted the ‘main obstacle’ which had to be overcome if Britain was to enter the Common Market.’ 5
Against this background of an entrenched disparity between a British-Atlanticist and a French-Gaullist vision of European integration, 6 it is surprising that Britain’s accession to the Common Market unfolded so smoothly between 1969 and 1973. 7 As Douglas Hurd – then the Prime Minister’s Political Secretary and later Britain’s Foreign Secretary – recalls: ‘Anyone who considers soberly the characters of General de Gaulle and Mr Wilson must marvel not that Britain entered the Community so late, but that she ever managed to enter at all.’ 8
Enlargement eventually came about in no small part due to a change in leadership. Between June 1969 and July 1970, new governments were elected in France, West Germany, and the UK. Georges Pompidou assumed the Presidency in June 1969 and Willy Brandt became West Germany’s fi rst social democratic chancellor in September of the same year, while Edward Heath won an unexpected victory for the Conservatives in June 1970. 9 In contrast to their predecessors they set their eyes on enlargement, albeit for different reasons. 10 On European integration, Pompidou, Brandt, and Heath – each in his own way – felt strongly about the need to break the cycle of Europe’s economic stagnation and diminishing political infl uence in international affairs. 11
The chances for British membership were clearly improved by these changes at the top. 12 Pompidou, Brandt, and Heath were more inclined than their predecessors to see enlargement as a solution rather than a threat to their interests. 13 Their change in tone and attitude towards European integration cannot be
enlargement seemed remote and unrealistic) and mid-1970 (when British membership was clearly on the political agenda). The economic conditions in France and Britain at the time did not leave Pompidou and Heath with an obvious desire for enlargement. 15 Neither was there a clear commercial case for France and West Germany to include the rapidly deteriorating British economy into the Common Market. 16
It is therefore imperative to understand why Pompidou, Brandt, and Heath came to favour enlargement over other initiatives for institutional reforms, and economic and monetary integration, that were prominent at the time, 17 and how they managed to fi nd a personal rapport to break the deadlock that characterised the integration process in the late 1960s.
