Journal of European Integration History – Revue d'histoire de l'

Dieses Dokument wurde erstellt mit FrameMaker 4.0.4.Association or Trade Agreement? 103Association or Trade Agreement?Spain and the EEC, 1957-64Fernando GuiraoIn any debate over the first attempt to widen the European Economic Community(EEC) Spain should be considered, given that the Spanish government formallyapplied for association in February 1962. The Spanish authorities shared the anxietyof other West European countries vis-à-vis the discriminatory effect of theTreaty establishing the EEC (the so-called Treaty of Rome) and reacted by defininga specific policy to defend their interests.That membership was excluded from the set of options at hand did not meanthat the Spanish administration would disregard the threat that the EEC implied.Previous involvement in European economic affairs had shown that any attempt atcooperation had an immediate effect on the domestic economy. 1 The concern thatthe Spanish authorities felt about the EEC, however, did not lead to any directapproach. In defense of their interests, they considered it more appropriate toincrease their weak bargaining position vis-à-vis the EEC by adhering to the strategythat the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was elaboratingto abort the threat of division generated by the Treaty of Rome.When this tactic finally failed during the autumn of 1961, Spain was forced todeal with the EEC threat on a bilateral basis. At that point in time Spain's policytowards the EEC should not be considered as purely diplomatic action envisaged toenhance the international prestige of the Franco regime, but as a matter of strategicimportance in the broadest sense of the term. The attempt to secure long-lastingstable relations with the country's most dynamic trading partners, which was theessence of this policy, was part of the effort to assure long-term economic growthand thus the survival of the Franco regime.Despite the importance of this subject, Spain's early policy towards the EEC hasreceived the specific attention of only one scholar. 2 Existing memoirs refer to negotiationsleading to the Spanish-EEC trade agreement of June 1970. 3 These negotiationsare presented as part of a surreptitious strategy to advance political liberalisationunder the Franco regime. In the striving for democracy, the question of Europe,as it was ambiguously called, attained the dimension of a myth, which has lived oninto the 1990s. 4 This has made it difficult to see the topic in another perspectivethan that of its significance in the struggle against Franco.1. F. GUIRAO, Spain and European Economic Cooperation, 1945-1955. A Case Study in Spanish ForeignEconomic Policy, doctoral dissertation, European University Institute, Florence 1993.2. M. T. LA PORTE, La política europea del Régimen de Franco 1957-1962, Pamplona 1992.3. A. ALONSO, España en el Mercado Común. Del Acuerdo del 70 a la Comunidad de Doce, Madrid,1985; and R. BASSOLS, España en Europa. Historia de la adhesión a la CE 1957-85, Madrid 1995.4. See for instance J. SATRUSTEGUI (ed.), Cuando la transición se hizo posible. El «Contubernio deMúnich», Madrid 1993.