number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

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Elena Calandri
c) Permettre une utilisation rationnelle des crédits militaires par répartition des
taches, cette conception étant économiquement saine, militairement satisfaisante
(pas d'autonomie du potentiel militaire allemand), et politiquement opportune puisqu'elle
montrera que la construction d'une Europe unie n'est pas abandonnée".
In addition he considered four caveats to the effect that there should be no
supranationalism, no new technocracy, no obstacle to France's freedom of action in
nuclear matters, no automatic machinery leading to a general common market or a
single currency. Wormser, therefore, envisaged an agreement fixing the number, the
type and the actual arms for each country's divisions together with the establishment
of a Common Armaments Agency empowered to deal with control and production
i.e. a study of financial allocations, the distribution of orders, the
redistribution of products and the administration of foreign aid. The Agency was to
be directed by a Council of Ministers and Deputies and consist of a secretariat plus
technical and control offices. The Agency would exercise its authority by distributing
production orders and would be open to participation on the part of all West
European non-neutral states. Two clauses indirectly discriminated against Germany
by stipulating that the member states would be allowed to manufacture only those
armaments requested by the Agency, except as regards the needs of forces overseas.
The Agency would also control the establishment of new industries. 16
Later on Wormser's further elaborations with a view to the London conference
threw light on the ambiguities, difficulties and arrière-pensées of the plan. 17 He put
standardization in the forefront, perhaps echoing a Defence Ministry recommendation
to push European strategic-cum-technical arguments and aims, instead of turning
obsessively around limitations and national interests. 18 He sketched out the
secretary general's powers and made them at least as wide as those of the corresponding
body in the OECD Even after the official governmental line had taken
shape, which appeared to be that "selling" the armaments agency as possessing
supranational character was the right thing, Wormser persistently ruled out supranationalism
and envisaged a "juxtaposé" budget consisting of allocations voted by
each Parliament and a majority voting procedure which would be qualified and
weighted so as not allow a veto by either the major powers or one major power plus
one minor power. However, his handling of budget and voting procedures which
are as it were the litmus paper for supranationalism, remained embryonic.
Both questions interlocked with the problem of Britain's position, obviously
one of the knots in the plan and a revealing test for France's economic ambitions. In
fact, Britain's accession to the Agency was fraught with difficulties and perils for
France. On the one hand Britain notoriously refused to accept majority voting rules
and any a priori brake on national independence. On the other, Britain's policy for
the arms trade was to sell to West European states but without supplying her own
needs on the Continent for which she pleaded strategic and technical reasons. The
16. AMAE, Wormser, 23, O. Wormser, Note pour le Président, 15 September 1954.
17. AMAE, Wormser, 23, service de Coopération économique, Notes 1 à 6, 23-25 September 1954,
"peu complet".
18. AMAE, Wormser, 23, ministère de la Défense nationale, cabinet du ministre, Fiche, undated.