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

Challenge to the Community 25of-payments problems to reduce tariff barriers, a policy that eventually led theKennedy government to introduce the Trade Expansion Act and subsequently to theKennedy Round of the GATT of 1963-7, 72 but EFTA clearly provided an additionalexternal stimulus.The creation of EFTA also initiated a debate among the Six about their longtermeconomic interests and political aims in Western Europe, particularly in theFederal Republic where European integration turned into the dominant domesticpolitical issue of the early 1960s. Within the government and the governing ChristianDemocratic Union (CDU), Erhard – continuing his long-standing argumentwith Adenauer about German European policy that went back at least to the Messinainitiative and Plan G in 1955-6 – led the campaign for a wider trade settlementbetween the EEC and EFTA in the form of a FTA or a customs union. 73 In 1959 hewent public yet again when the Economics Ministry paid for advertisements in thenational press. Employing the slogan “6+7+5=1”, they argued that a trade settlementof the Six, the Seven and the OEEC peripherals was indispensable. 74 Erhardsubsequently opposed acceleration, and when this proved impossible to pushthrough the cabinet against Adenauer, who gave absolute priority to strengtheningthe EEC's cohesion, they negotiated the compromise formula which the Council ofMinisters eventually adopted in July 1960.The debate in the Federal Republic of Germany, however, was not confined tothe government and the political parties. Increasingly, the German industry federation,the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI), and individual industrialistsand bankers, who were mostly close to the CDU, intervened in the debate aboutSixes and Sevens. 75 BDI President Fritz Berg, for example, wrote to Adenauer inSeptember 1959 that the forthcoming creation of EFTA was greatly increasing theanxieties among German exporters about the continued absence of a wider FTA.Berg concluded:“Die EWG mit ihrer politischen und wirtschaftlichen Zielsetzung muß als Kern dereuropäischen Integration erhalten bleiben; sie ist aber nur lebensfähig, wenn siedurch den größeren Zusammenschluß mit den übrigen OEEC-Staaten ergänztwird.” 7672. On the external economic policy of the Eisenhower and Kennedy governments see W.S. BORDEN,“Defending Hegemony: American Foreign Economic Policy”, in: T.G. PATERSON (ed.),Kennedy's Quest for Victory, Oxford 1989, pp.57-85 and T.L. ILGEN, Autonomy and Interdependence.U.S.-Western European Monetary and Trade Relations, 1958-1984, Totowa 1985.73. On the confrontation between Adenauer and Erhard see D. KOERFER, Kampf ums Kanzleramt.Erhard und Adenauer, Stuttgart 1987.74. U. LAPPENKÜPER, “Ich bin wirklich ein guter Europäer”. Ludwig Erhards Europapolitik 1949-1966”, in: Francia 18/3 (1991), pp.85-121 (88).75. On the BDI's European policy in the 1950s see W. BÜHRER, “German Industry and European Integrationin the 1950s”, in: C. WURM (ed.), Western Europe and Germany. The Beginnings of EuropeanIntegration 1945-1960, Oxford 1995, pp.87-114, first published in German as “Der BDI unddie Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik in den fünfziger Jahren”, in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte40/2 (1992), pp.241-61.76. Berg to Adenauer: BA B136/2553 (30 September 1959).