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

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Juhana Aunesluoma
man” as a head of the permanent organisation in 1947-49. 19 Their approach towards internal
financial problems was remarkably similar too, save perhaps Denmark's lesser preoccupation
with full employment policies. 20 Otherwise the domestic economic policy of
maintaining price stability in a full employment economy by Keynesian demand management
using budgetary means was common to these countries. Despite disagreements
from 1950 onwards on the most suitable instruments of trade liberalisation, in numerous
cases, the British could find the Scandinavians on their side in OEEC discussions on economic
policy. This convergence of the basic economic outlook of the British and the
Scandinavians was compounded with a more deliberate policy of co-operation among the
OEEC delegations in Paris. At the same time when the Treasury and the Foreign Office
considered the Uniscan-scheme in October 1949, the British representative to the OEEC,
Edmund Hall-Patch, suggested that their co-operation should be deepened by some special
arrangement within the Paris organisation too. 21
When the Uniscan-plan was introduced in Whitehall in the autumn of 1949 enthusiasm
was most pronounced at the Treasury and the Bank of England. 22 Foreign
Office officials saw the merits of the plan too, and when Uniscan was established in
January 1950, the Foreign Office support for it was based on calculations of the political
usefulness of a special channel to the Scandinavians in policy-making, and
when economic benefits failed to materialise from its work, the Foreign Office interest
proved to be decisive to its continuance.
Above the official level perhaps the most consistent proponent for closer Anglo-Scandinavian
economic association in Britain during the Labour government
was the Chancellor of Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps. Whereas Hall-Patch in the
OEEC was an ardent supporter of closer Anglo-Scandinavian co-operation in organisational
and practical questions of European economic co-operation, Cripps
took a somewhat broader view. His assessment was based on what he saw to be the
fundamental unity of interest Britain and Scandinavia shared towards the “general
problem, which was included in the talk of “economic integration” or “unification
of Europe”. 23 It seemed
“that England and the Scandinavian countries had to a large degree a common conception
of the question of economic policy and that we often distanced ourselves
from the Latin peoples in these questions”. 24
Cripps's rather optimistic views of the fundamental similarity of outlook between
the British and the Scandinavians in economic and social thinking reflected views that
19. A. S. MILWARD, The Reconstruction …, op.cit., pp.171-211.
20. 'The Internal Financial Policies of the Uniscan Countries', report by the Economic Section of the
Cabinet Office, May 1950, FO 371/87090.
21. Interview with Erik von Sydow (OEEC), 7 July 1970, Harry S. Truman Library, Oral History Interview
Collection, Independence, Missouri. See further on relations between Hall-Patch and Dag
Hammarskjöld, I. HÄGGLÖF, Drömmen om Europa, Norstedts, Värnamo, 1987, p.51.
22. The Bank of England held that Treasury and FO enthusiasm behind the scheme was entirely based
on political considerations. Lithiby minute, 8 November1949, OV 29/31, BEA.
23. Cripps minute, 2 November 1949, T 236/5370, PRO; Östen Undén promemoria, 3 November
1949, HP 64 Å. vol.HP 2216, RA.
24. Ibid.