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

Challenge to the Community 31The Austrian government, on the other hand, insisted that its neutrality statusabsolutely required the retention of the right of autonomous rather than automaticadaptation to EEC legislation. Then, as in the EEA Treaty twenty-five years later,however, this demand was rejected outright by the Community, which regardedsuch a legal arrangement as a serious threat to its constitutional integrity and, moreover,as an undeserved reward for a country that was not prepared to join as a fullmember. Figgures, the General Secretary of EFTA, had already anticipated the defacto exclusion of associate states from EEC decision-making in a personal memorandumon association which he submitted to EFTA governments in March 1962. Itstated “that it is certain that the Neutrals will have to pay a heavy price in that theywill de facto, be bound to follow decisions over a wide range of economic andcommercial matters in the making of which they may have played little part”. 92Yet, despite the importance of the association dispute for the EFTA neutrals, thekey issue for the Community during 1961-3 was enlargement. The analysis of thedebate among the Six about the economic benefits of enlargement reveals that substantialprotectionist interests existed which tried to prevent enlargement or at leastto stiffen the entry conditions. In the Federal Republic, for example, the wood pulpand textile industries were concerned about additional competition from the EFTAstates and the Commonwealth. The coal industry, too, intervened frequently inBonn, arguing that before enlargement could take place, it wanted improved conditionsof competition in comparison to the nationalized coal industries of France andthe prospective new member state, Britain. 93 German agriculture, too, feared negativeconsequences of enlargement, mainly in the form of lower CAP prices, forexample in cereals, which the more competitive French and British producerswould largely determine. In contrast, the German government rightly expected positivefinancial consequences of the EEC's enlargement by Britain as another netcontributor to the budget. 94While Adenauer instrumentalised these protectionist economic interests in theEuropean debate in his government and his party, however, they were clearly outweighedby the long-term interests of German export industry, which was unequivocallyfor enlargement. The BDI leadership strongly supported enlargement. Moreover,enlargement was not debated exclusively or even mainly as an economicissue. Instead, the debate was in a much wider political and cultural sense aboutwhat constituted Europe and how this Europe ought to develop in future. With hisconception of a more tightly-knit core Europe based essentially on the Franco-Germanalliance and paying little attention to the interests of EFTA and other WestEuropean states, Adenauer was increasingly isolated. The emerging political consensuson the desirability of enlargement encompassed not only the oppositionSocial Democrats and the Liberal Free Democrats, who had been Adenauer's92. Figgures (Geneva) to EFTA governments: PRO FO 371/164703/119 (8 March 1962).93. Unternehmensverband Ruhrbergbau to Bundeskanzleramt: BA B 136/2561 (13 December 1962).94. For the economic analysis of the consequences of enlargement at the governmental level in the FederalRepublic see the joint Cabinet memorandum of four ministries “betr. Verhandlungen über denBeitritt Großbritanniens zu den Europäischen Gemeinschaften”: BA B 136/2560 (25 July 1962).