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

84
Wolfram Kaiser
IV
Anglo-French differences over the future direction of European integration, which
were often played up for domestic political reasons, seem to have been much less
significant in the early 1960s than at least the existing studies on British European
policy suggest. 85 In many respects British and French views on European integration
issues were actually very similar. This is certainly true for the question of the EEC's
future institutional development. "Federalist ideas", de Gaulle told Dixon before the
summit at Champs, "do not correspond to reality and are fit only for school boys and
political theorists". 86 To this view, frequently repeated between 1961 and 1963, Macmillan
could easily subscribe. Arguably, the British were even slightly more flexible
in this respect after the executive had resolutely thrown the traditional constitutional
definition of sovereignty overboard during the internal deliberations about possible
EEC membership in Spring 1961. 87 More surprisingly perhaps, the analysis of the
British policy making process in 1960/61 also reveals an increasing government interest
in participation in a European system of agricultural protection. It was initially
hoped that Britain could accede to the Community early enough to influence the
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and that the switch from the system of
deficiency payments could be made almost entirely at the expense of third countries,
such as the US, and those Commonwealth producers who were not so dependent on
the British market. As a result, the scope for imports from within the EEC, particularly
from France, would increase without necessarily damaging British farming. 88
These expectations later proved to be largely unrealistic, but it does exemplify that
the British government, far from following a coherent global approach, was definitely
beginning to think and act communautaire in a way largely compatible with the
evolving and sometimes rather narrow West European regionalism.
The Anglo-French conflict in the early 1960s reflected less differences over
important policy issues, and much more a national rivalry about the political leadership
of Western Europe which by then seemed to both sides to be the most suitable
institutional vehicle to recover or secure a prominent role in world affairs. It is
in this context that the EEC entry negotiations between 1961 and 1963 have been
looked at from the perspective of the evolving British thinking and policy on a possible
bilateral package deal in order to establish whether and under what conditions
a wider European settlement involving British accession to the EEC could have
been reached at that stage and why it did not materialize.
The analysis of Anglo-French relations in this period seems to substantiate the
more traditional interpretation of de Gaulle's European policy which emphasizes his
85. For a good example of this historiographical school see ST. GEORGE, Britain and European Integration
since 1945, Oxford 1991.
86. Dixon to Home and Macmillan: PRO PREM 11/3775 (22 May 1962).
87. W. KAISER, "Appeasement", p. 148. Cf. PRO CAB 134/1821/6 (26 April 1961), and already PRO
CAB 129/102,I/107 (6 July 1960), questions 19-21 and annex F.
88. See in connection PRO MAF 155/430 (6 February 1961); PRO CAB 128/35,I/24th meeting (26
April 1961); PRO CAB 134/1821/13–14 (12 May 1961); PRO MAF 255/961 (15 May, 5 June
1961); Soames to Butler (31 July 1961): R.A. Butler's Papers F 123.