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

The Western European Union Armaments Pool 55
wise come to her, that it should not prejudice "OSP" or other military arrangements
with the United States. Likewise, the Italian representatives rejected discrimination
against Germany or holding up the development of the Coal and Steel Community.
On his way back from Rome to Paris, the French Premier met Adenauer at
Baden-Baden. He emphatically stressed the tentative character of the 3 January
draft and French readiness to delay, soften or otherwise change its terms. Adenauer
ostensibly appreciated the French initiative, he had in hand a counter memorandum
and promised that Ludwig Erhard would personally submit it to the Paris conference.
57 Even though Adenauer minimized objections, lest they hold up ratification
of the Paris Agreements, he and his main colleagues in the government remained
unwilling to yield to French pressures. Despite their differences, Blank, Ludwig
Erhard and Walter Hallstein, Secretary of State in the Auswärtiges Amt, supported
Adenauer's refusal of any arrangement which would exclude the Benelux countries
and stress the inconsistency between national control over troops and budgets and
international control over armaments production – a joint budget appeared to them
to be a necessary complement. 58
The supposed victims of the three-power entente vocally stigmatized the plan.
Spaak severely attacked the French. Since September he had been encouraging studies
by the Belgian administration for relaunching integration in the economic
field. 59 While he was possibly influenced by a vague distrust of Mendès France, he
consistently stuck to the position which Belgium had assumed in the autumn of
1951 during the EDC negotiations when Van Zeeland had joined forces with his
Dutch and Luxembourg colleagues in order to curb the major powers' hegemony. 60
Whilst he recognised the theoretical value of an armaments pool, he maintained
that the project was unworkable and unacceptable to the United Kingdom and Germany.
Belgian, as well as Dutch, industrial circles supported their governments'
objections to the pool. 61
57. DDF, 1955, Annexes, pp.23O-232, also for the Rome meetings; in his weekly report to the Foreign
Office, R. Allen expressed surprise that Mendès France had not bluntly asked Adenauer for concessions
on the Armaments Pool in exchange for French concessions on the Saar; instead, Mendès
France did not appear to be in a hurry to reach an agreement on the Armaments Pool: PRO: FO
371/118151, WG 1013/3 R. Allen (Bonn), no.36, 20 January 1955.
58. NA, RG 59, box 3114, 740.5/1-1255, tel. US Embassy (Bonn), no.1986, January 12, 1955, secret;
see also B. THOSS, "Sicherheits- und deutschlandpolitische Komponenten der europäischen Integration
zwischen EVG und EWG 1954-1957", in L. HERBST, W. BUHRER, H. SOWADE, Vom
Marshallplan zur EWG. Die Eingliederung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in die westliche Welt,
München 1990, pp. 476-499:484.
59. P. GERBET, "La relance européenne jusqu'à la Conférence de Messine", in E. SERRA (ed.), Il
rilancio, pp. 61-92; M. DUMOULIN, La Belgique et les débuts de la construction européenne: de
la guerre aux Traités de Rome, Louvain-la-Neuve 1987.
60. In autumn 1951 the Foreign Ministers of the Benelux had agreed to resist the major powers'
attempts to impose upon them a settlement of the Defence Community which underplayed their
role. American pressures finally won them over; see e.g. E. FURSDON, European Defence Community,
pp. 130-132.
61. NA, RG 59, box 3114, 740.5/1-1355 CSA, tel. G. Alger (Brussels), January 13, 1955, no.614,
secret. 45 NA, RG 59, 3114, 740.5/1-1355 CSA, tel. Alger (Bruxelles), no.615, January 13, 1955,
secret.