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32Wolfram Kaisersmaller coalition partner since 1961, but also the clear majority of the CDU itself.Contradicting sceptical public remarks by Adenauer on British EEC entry, theExecutive Committee of the CDU Parliamentary Party in the Bundestag issued astatement in August 1962 which underlined their support for enlargement. 95 Thepolitical reasoning of the ageing Chancellor, who showed no interest in the economicsof integration, seemed as much out of place as Macmillan's comparisonsduring 1958-60 of the Community with Napoleon's continental blockade. Adenauer'shistorically motivated key argument against enlargement was revealed during aheated Cabinet discussion on 8 August 1962. At this meeting Lahr gave an overviewof the state of the entry negotiations. When he criticized French obstructionpolicy, Adenauer exploded and stated:“Handelsabkommen [werden] hinter politischen Fragen zurückstehen. Die politischeFrage ist für uns nicht das Verhältnis zwischen uns und England, sondern zwischenuns und Frankreich. Denn nur wenn Frankreich und wir so fest zusammenhalten, daßweder eine französische Regierung es unternehmen kann, gegen Deutschland einenVertrag mit Sowjetrußland zu schließen, noch eine deutsche Regierung es unternehmenkann, einen Vertrag mit Sowjetrußland gegen Frankreich zu schließen, könnenwir annehmen, daß (...) dieser politische Damm in Europa wirklich hält. (...) Es handeltsich (...) darum, wer bis auf weiteres die Führung in Europa haben soll. Daß wirsie nicht beanspruchen können, das ist wohl klar; nach alledem, was in den letzten20, 30, 40 Jahren geschehen ist, kann das nicht eintreten. Die führende Rolle inEuropa wird Frankreich oder England haben. (...) Wenn die beiden sich auf unseremRücken einigen könnten, wäre das das Schlimmste, was überhaupt passierenkönnte.” 96Although there was little enthusiasm in the Federal Republic for British policyover Berlin, NATO or stationing costs – to name but a few contentious issues - 97 fewagreed with Adenauer's intellectual construction of a simple alternative betweeneither French or British leadership of Western Europe. Just how marked the consensuson the desirability of enlargement was by then, became clear over de Gaulle'sveto of 14 January 1963 which showed how little the French President cared for theinterests of the other Five in the EEC. After the veto the CDU did not start a revoltagainst Adenauer, who anyhow left office later that year. 98 They also ratified theFranco-German Elysée Treaty, concluded only two weeks after the veto, albeit withthe Atlantic preamble which made it largely meaningless. 99 The general preferencefor enlargement did not suffice for the government or the CDU to rid itself of Ade-95. “England muß beitreten”, Die Welt, 23 August 1962.96. BA B 136/2561 (8 August 1962).97. On Anglo-German relations over Berlin see S. LEE, “Die zweite Berlin-Krise: Deutsch-britischeBeziehungen und die Neudefinierung internationaler Bindungen”, in: G. SCHMIDT, ZwischenBündnissicherung und privilegierter Partnerschaft: Die deutsch-britischen Beziehungen und dieVereinigten Staaten von Amerika 1955-1963, Bochum 1995, pp.81-139. On the financially importantand psychologically interesting issue of stationing costs see W. KAISER, “Money, Money,Money: The Economics and Politics of the Stationing Costs, 1955-1965”, in: ibid., pp.1-31.98. Adenauer's tacit support for de Gaulle's veto only accelerated the decline of his authority within hisgovernment and the CDU. Cf. H.-P. SCHWARZ, Adenauer. Der Staatsmann: 1952-1967, Stuttgart1991, pp.826-39; H. KÖHLER, Adenauer. Eine politische Biographie, Berlin 1994, pp. 1206-21.
Challenge to the Community 33nauer early or to break-up the EEC. Next to close relations with the United States,Franco-German cooperation remained one of the two main pillars of German foreignand European policy also under Adenauer's successor Erhard. 100There would, however, be life after de Gaulle. The enlargement debate of 1961-3and the abrupt French veto determined the formation of long-term preferences inGerman European policy, including EEC enlargement at the earliest possiblemoment, which of course was also strongly supported by the Netherlands and Belgiumand increasingly by Italy. On 14 January 1963 it became clear that littleprogress could be made in European integration until de Gaulle's departure fromFrench politics. The veto largely paralysed the Six, who concentrated first on devisingconsultation mechanisms with the British and then on balancing their industrialand agricultural interests in preparation for the Kennedy Round of the GATT, onlyto slide into the constitutional “empty chair” crisis of 1965-6, which illustrated oncemore the deep divisions within the EEC.❋What EFTA and its member states established during the 1960s was, most of all,that the contradiction between widening and deepening of the Community constructedby the protagonists of a tightly-knit core Europe was artificial. At the verylatest, this became clear when the Benelux governments linked progress in the talksabout political cooperation among the Six with French support for EEC enlargementand full British participation in political cooperation, which led to the failureof the Fouchet negotiations in April 1962. This episode showed very clearly that inorder to manage internal interest mediation and succeed in enhancing the cohesionof the inner core of European integration, the Community needed to address itsresponsibility for all of Europe and to allow for the economic and political interestsof other European states on the periphery – a linkage of two issues which wouldcontinue to play a prominent role in European integration, not least over the MaastrichtTreaty and northern enlargement and yet again over the 1996-7 IntergovernmentalConference and eastern enlargement.Wolfram Kaiser99. On German European policy after de Gaulle's veto see W. HÖLSCHER, “Krisenmanagement inSachen EWG. Das Scheitern des Beitritts Großbritanniens und die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen”,in: R.A. BLASIUS (ed.), Von Adenauer zu Erhard. Studien zur Auswärtigen Politik derBundesrepublik Deutschland 1963, München 1994, pp.9-44 and G. SCHMIDT, “Test of Strength:The United States, Germany, and de Gaulle's “No” to Britain in Europe, 1958-1963”, in:SCHMIDT, Zwischen Bündnissicherung, pp.281-348.100. For an introduction to the European policy of the Erhard government of 1963-6 see H. MÜLLER-ROSCHACH, Die deutsche Europapolitik 1949-1977. Eine politische Chronik, Bonn 1980,pp.141-80.
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