journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Lise Rye Svartvatn
France where the demands of war had created price-disparities. He also stressed the
strong political will to see a common market come true that included France. In order
to obtain this he suggested a special agreement for France allowing the maintenance
of her system of import duties and export support as long as price disparities
existed. 80 When a few days later the French delegation presented the terms on
which it would be possible for France to participate in the common market, the demands
were even more extensive. The decision to pass from the first to the second
stage of the transitional period was to be unanimous, and only to be taken when the
objectives decided upon had been reached. In the field of social harmonization,
France demanded the realization of equal pay within a period of two years. Within
this period, measures also had to be taken to ensure the harmonization of the length
of the working week and corresponding overtime pay at the end of the first stage, as
well as the harmonization of paid holidays. During the following stages, measures
were to be taken in order to harmonize total wage charges. 81
The French terms met vivid opposition. This was particularly the case with the
claim for the harmonization of total wage charges. As far as the question of equal
pay was concerned, the countries agreed that this seemed to constitute a specific
distortion that could find its solution through the system of safeguard clauses as
proposed in the Spaak-report. In the matter of paid holidays, the countries agreed
that this was unproblematic. To the question of harmonized overtime pay, a solution
was still to be found. The heads of delegation seemed ready to accord France a
regime of export-subsidies and import-taxes on special conditions. The French delegation
argued on its side for the additional possibility of introducing safeguard
clauses in case of a deficit in the balance of payments. This did not please the other
delegations. It appeared, however, as if some solution was to be reached. 82
On October 20 and 21 the six states met to deal with the questions on which
agreement had not yet been reached. At this meeting the question of social harmonization
brought the negotiations to a point that threatened to break them off in
their entirety. This was not due to the other five, since they showed considerable
will to reach a solution, but to the French who constantly came up with new demands.
The five agreed that France could maintain export-subsidies and import-taxes
in the transitional period under certain conditions. Safeguard-clauses
were furthermore to be invoked in case of problems with the balance of payments.
It was when discussing the terms for passing from the first to the second stage
of the transitional period that a critical point was reached. France insisted that the
decision had to be unanimous. The other delegations favoured qualified majority.
After a long break and the intervention of the French Prime Minister a compromise
was reached. This said that the first stage was to last for four years. If a country
found that the targets set for the first stage were not reached, it would be able to
80. BA, B 146/593, Brüsseler Integrationskonferenz; Delegationsleiterausschuss, Sitzung vom 13. September.
81. MAE, DE-CE 1945-60, 610, Mémorandum du Président de la Conférence Intergouvernementale
pour le Marché Commun et l’Euratom, 12.10.56.
82. Ibid.