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

10Wolfram Kaiserother levels of integration. Secondly, EFTA provided a point of comparison for theEEC and its member states. By exerting considerable economic and political pressurefor a solution to the economic split of Western Europe into Sixes and Sevens,as it was then called, EFTA and its member states decisively influenced the controversyamong the Six – and particularly in the Federal Republic – over the EEC'sexternal economic policies and its political role in the world, and over the futuredirection of European integration.ISince the negotiations in the Maudling Committee had stalled in the spring of1958, there had been talk among the outer Seven – particularly in Britain, Norwayand Sweden – of possible retaliatory trade measures of the non-Six OEEC states,should France finally veto the FTA. When visiting London in March 1958, forexample, the Norwegian Trade Minister Arne Skaug was already “breathing fireand slaughter”, according to Norwegian officials, because of French obstruction ofthe FTA negotiations and gave the British the impression that “he was anxious topropose new alignments between the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countriesshould the Free Trade Area fail”. 14 Macmillan, too, was extremely concernedabout possible British exclusion from a common market of the Six and frequentlyreferred to the possibility of retaliatory measures in a West European trade war. InJune 1958 Macmillan wrote in an internal memorandum for Lloyd and the Chancellorof the Exchequer, Derek Heathcoat-Amory:”If little Europe is formed without a parallel development of a Free Trade Area weshall have to reconsider the whole of our political and economic attitude towardsEurope. I doubt if we could remain in NATO. We should certainly put on highly protectivetariffs and quotas to counteract what little Europe was doing to us. In otherwords, we should not allow ourselves to be destroyed little by little. We would fightback with every weapon in our armoury. We would take our troops out of Europe.We would withdraw from NATO. We would adopt a policy of isolationism.” 15Three days later Macmillan told de Gaulle during their first encounter in Paristhat “if we were to be threatened by a trade war by the Six we would be driven backon ourselves and would have to seek our friends elsewhere. (...) [It] might evenspell the end of NATO.” 16 And in October Macmillan threatened the German Chan-14. As reported by Ellis-Rees to Bretherton: PRO BT 11/5648 (6 March 1958).15. Macmillan to Lloyd and Heathcoat-Amory: PRO PREM 11/2315 (24 June 1958).16. PRO PREM 11/2531 (29 June 1958).