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

Association or Trade Agreement? 115EFTA offered little scope for any significant export expansion. The preference forEFTA was not geared to traditional exports; it was determined by the unwillingnessto accelerate the liberalisation of the domestic economy. 37 The EFTA, like theOEEC up to 1960, was perceived as a safer environment for progressive economicliberalisation than any formal linkage to the EEC.The British application to the EEC knocked Spanish authorities' expectations ofreaching a working arrangement with EFTA. 38 It was then that they had to face thefrustrating results of their early intentions to diminish trade dependence on theEEC. Despite the lack of institutional discrimination before 1961 exports to the Sixdid not compensate for the soaring imports from these same markets which followedimport trade liberalisation. Even in 1959 and 1960, in the midst of the stabilisationrecession, imports from the Six continued to grow, while exports to thesesame markets did not. This happened even despite the 1960 tariff levels whichshould have discouraged imports. The trade deficit with the EEC increased at ahigher speed than the country's overall deficit (Table 3).TABLE 3: Spain´s trade balance, 1960-62 (in millions of dollars and percentages)1960 1961 1962Overall Deficit (a) +5 -383 -833Deficit with the EEC (b) +97 -18 -192(b) as % of (a) 5 23 31Percentage of imports from theEEC covered by exports to theEEC93.6 59 42.5Source: PRO, FO 371/177361: “Déclaration de la Délégation de l'Espagne à la première de ses conversationsavec la Commission de la Communauté économique européenne”, Brussels, December1964.A reversal of this tendency could only be obtained by expanding exports to theEEC markets, because any significant reduction of imports from the Six would37. MAE, Leg. 9392, exp. 2: “Parte del Informe de 4 de Mayo, relativo a la posible adhesión de Españaal grupo de los Seis o al de los Siete” by the Director General of Economic Relations. The difficultiesthat, from the perspective of import trade liberalisation, any rapprochement to the EEC representedare exposed in MAE, Leg. 5331, exp. 18: “Puntos a dilucidar en relación con una eventual Asociaciónde España a la CEE”, n/d. [probably, June 1960].38. MAE, Leg. 6916, exp. 6: Directorate General of Foreign Policy, “España y la CEE. Necesidad deuna decisión política de principio frente al Mercado Común”, 31 October 1961, and “Posible nuevaorientación española en cuanto a la Integración Europea”, 2 November 1961.