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

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Lise Rye Svartvatn
an sectoral integration into the fields of energy, transport and atomic energy. 15 In
France even pro-Europeans were sceptical of the part of the memorandum concerning
a common market. Pinay, for instance, feared the consequences of a more liberal
policy for French enterprises. 16 He was, again according to Robert Marjolin,
«profondément gêné par ce qu’il savait des sentiments français, ceux des élites
industrielles ou administratives, comme ceux du peuple lui-même, à l’égard des problèmes
discutés». 17
The prevailing attitude within Pinay’s own ministry was in accordance with this, that
acceptance of the proposal for a common market was very unlikely. The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs argued that such a solution would demand the surmounting of very serious
technical and social problems. The fact that European agriculture was not ready to confront
free trade was one of these. The French Union, Benelux’s insistence on a low common
external tariff, regional imbalances and disparities in prices and productivity constituted
the rest of the problems. Additionally, one would have to deal with the social
problems resulting from the above listed problems. 18 The Ministry also had political objections
to entering a European common market. If Germany regained her sovereignty
and the right of disposing an army, the fear was that integration would further German
economic and political hegemony on the continent and that this in turn would imply the
loss of all freedom of action and diplomatic independence for France. 19 Another concern
of political character was that any development that could be interpreted as federal would
frighten away large segments of the French public opinion. 20
While there were plenty of objections to the proposal for the common market,
France was simultaneously unable to reject it. Already twice in two years time the
country had prevented the process of European integration from progressing. First in
August 1954 with the National Assembly’s rejection of the EDC proposal, and secondly
in 1953, when the government had turned down an earlier version of the proposal
for a common market. 21 Since the new proposal included concessions to the objections
raised by France in 1953, another rejection would raise serious doubts about
the country’s will to integrate. 22 The fact that the principle of a common market also
figured in the agreement on the Saar recently entered into with Germany, made a re-
15. F. M. B. LYNCH, France and the International Economy …, op.cit., p.169.
16. P. GERBET, La ‘relance’ européenne …, op.cit., p.83.
17. R. MARJOLIN, Le travail d’une vie …, op.cit., p.279.
18. Documents diplomatiques français (DDF) 1955, I, no.288, Note de la Direction des Affaires économiques
et financières. 18 May 1955.
19. MAE, DE-CE 1945-60, 611, Note, 20.04.55.
20. MAE, DE-CE 1945-60, 611, Note, 14.04.55.
21. In September 1953 the Dutch foreign minister Jan Willem Beyen proposed that tariff reductions
were to take place within the six ECSC countries, and were to lead to a full customs union. On the
1953 proposal, see R. T GRIFFITHS and A. S. MILWARD, The Beyen Plan and the European
Political Community, in: W. MAIHOFER (ed.), Noi si mura, Selected Working Papers of the European
University Institute, Florence, 1986, pp.596-623.
22. The new proposal emphasized that the speed of the process of integration was to be determined by
intergovernmental agreement. It also posed the principle of harmonization of social charges and
production costs. DDF, 1955, I, no.308, Note du Département, May 1955.