ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the ideas and interests German elites expressed as they discussed the negotiations leading to the signing of the Treaty of Rome of March 25, 1957. More so than in France, where national elections had been held in January 1956, in Germany, where elections where due to be held in the autumn of 1957, domestic politics and positioning intruded into the debate about the European Economic Community. The topic of the harmonisation of social benefits attracted much less attention among German elites than it did in France. The European idea and European institutions, agriculture, social policy and the association of the overseas territories - will be examined. In the cases of some leading members of the Christlich Demokratische Union, notably Adenauer, Brentano and Furler, this flight forward consisted of the belief that economic integration would eventually lead to a common European social policy.
