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

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Lise Rye Svartvatn
peared in spring 1955. Hanns Jürgen Küsters argues that it was the Suez crisis that
“… tipped the balance for the French government’s decision to join the EEC …”. 3
Wilfried Loth stresses that Guy Mollet’s pro-European policy aimed to tie the Federal
Republic of Germany to the West and to further Europe’s independence from
the USA. 4 Pierre Guillen sees France’s participation in the common market as a result
of her wish for co-operation on research into the use of nuclear energy. 5 Thus,
there has been a tendency to emphasize the impact of geopolitical factors. Others
attach more weight to economic considerations. Frances Lynch argues that the decision
to sign the Treaty of Rome resulted from the need to find a framework that
would enable a continued modernization of the French economy through the exposure
to increased, but limited, competition. 6 Lynch downgrades the impact of the
Cold War. So does Andrew Moravcsik, who claims that commercial considerations
were decisive for the French government’s decision to sign the Treaty of Rome. 7
Explanations of the claims for social harmonization have emphasized domestic
political imperatives. Alan Milward retraces the claims for social harmonization to
demands from French industry, arguing that the claims were necessary for parliamentary
reasons. 8 Likewise, Hanns Jürgen Küsters writes that
„In Wirklichkeit waren die Diskussionen um die soziale Harmonisierung ein reines
Politikum zur Befriedigung französischer Verbandsinteressen. Die Regierung hatte
sich die Forderung teils notgedrungen, teils willkommen zu eigen gemacht, um
zusätzliche Garantien und Schutzklauseln einzuhandeln“. 9
Another view, presented by Paul M. Pitman and in line with the contemporary
justification used by the French government, is that the claims were made in order
to compensate for the country’s advanced social legislation, the costs of which put
3. H.J. KÜSTERS, West Germany’s Foreign Policy in Western Europe, 1949-58: The Art of the Possible,
in: C. WURM (ed.): Western Europe and Germany: The Beginnings of European Integration,
Berg Publishers, Oxford, 1995, p.69.
4. W. LOTH, Deutsche und französische Interessen auf dem Weg zu EWG und Euratom, in: A. WILKENS
(ed.), Die deutsch-französischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen 1945-60, Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen,
1997, pp.171-187, p.177.
5. P. GUILLEN, La France et la négociation des traités de Rome: l’Euratom, in: E. Serra (ed.), The
Relaunching of Europe and the Treaties of Rome, Bruylant and Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Brussels
and Baden-Baden, 1989, p.515.
6. F.M.B. LYNCH, Restoring France: The Road to Integration, in: A.S. MILWARD (et al.), The
Frontier of National Sovereignty. History and Theory, 1945-1992, Routledge, London and New
York, 1993; F. M. B. LYNCH, France and the International Economy: From Vichy to the Treaty
of Rome, Routledge, London and New York, 1997, pp.214-215.
7. A. MORAVCSIK, The Choice for Europe. Social purpose & State power from Messina to Maastricht,
UCL Press, London, 1999, p.103.
8. A. S. MILWARD, The European Rescue of the Nation-State, 2 nd Edition, London 2000, p 212.
Milward traces the demand for harmonized overtime pay back to complaints from the French manufacturing
industry that the working week in France was only forty hours whereas it was forty-eight
in Germany and Belgium. See also A. MORAVCSIK, The Choice for Europe …, op.cit.,
pp.109 and 114. According to Moravcsik, French industry considered these claims the second best
solution to devaluation.
9. H. J. KÜSTERS, Die Gründung der Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft,
Baden-Baden, 1982, p.376.