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

Industrial Interest in West Germany´s Decision 45from Britain were still more than twice those from France or Italy, within two yearsimports from France surpassed British imports and Italian imports assumed a valuesimilar to those from Britain in the same time-span.Machinery – ExportsAfter the Second World War the machinery sector ranked among the most successfulGerman industries and had nothing to fear but everything to gain from either theEurope-wide free trade area or the accession and association of the EFTA membersto the EEC. When in 1964 imports from the EEC and EFTA together reach theirhighest point during the period that is analysed here, they still only make up a thirdof the value of German machinery exports to these markets, which demonstratesthe dominating position of German industry in Western Europe in this field. Howeverduring a period from the beginning of 1958 to mid-1961 German machineryexports to the EEC and EFTA visibly fall and remain below their 1953-58 trend,while they afterwards pick up again and remain consistently above the trend for therest of the period.The deviation from the trend for export to EFTA is less pronounced than forexports to the other EEC partners.The values of exports to EFTA remain at a level which is roughly 20% lowerthan the one for exports to the EEC in the early 1960s. With the exception of Austria,exports to EFTA are well above the 1953-58 trend for all other members of theSeven with the most pronounced increases in exports to Britain and Switzerland.With exports to the Netherlands and to Belgium-Luxembourg stagnating throughout1958 and 1959 and rising only slightly above the trend afterwards, France andItaly become the most important export markets for the German machinery industryfrom 1960 onward, with a particularly steep increase of exports to Italy.Thus quite similar to the exports of chemical products, there is no visible differenceat all between the EEC and EFTA as far as the changes in growth rates areconcerned, suggesting that exports to the EFTA market not only were unhampered,but entirely unaffected by both arrangements, whereas the lowering of internal tariffsand quantitative restrictions within the EEC had a strong impact on exports toFrance and Italy, but hardly affected those to the already relatively open markets ofthe Netherlands and Belgium-Luxembourg.Machinery – ImportsMachinery imports from all important European markets except Switzerland aremarkedly above the 1953-58 trend after 1959, whereas the values for Switzerlandclosely follow the trend-line. Values of imports from both EFTA and the EEC reacha very similar level at the end of the period. The graphs could suggest that importsfrom the other EEC partners, after starting off from a very low level and rising only