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

Industrial Interest in West Germany´s Decision 47Lanka, if they were to achieve even the slightest reduction in trade impediments fortheir exports to the European market. For reasons of very advantageous factorendowments or very low labour costs, competition in these sectors was seen asunfair and protection was demanded. The German textile industry assumed that itsown protective interests vis-à-vis the Asian countries mentioned would be sharedby other European industries and that hence agreement on quantitative restrictionsagainst imports from there would easily be reached with the other European countries.During the accession negotiations these Asian countries in fact were grantedlarger quotas on the European market. Apart from the Asian competition the associationsof the textile industry feared that the divisions between EEC and EFTAmight endanger their very important export markets in the Seven and primarily theScandinavian countries.As before, statistical evidence will be used to assess on the one hand whetherthe expectations of the individual sectors were met by the development of trade andon the other hand to what extent opportunity costs and losses were visible and tangiblefor the industry and on which markets these costs and losses occurred.Textiles – ExportsAll European textile producers faced powerful competition from the developingcountries whose sales in Western Europe were entirely controlled by quotas. It wasnot therefore competitiveness that determined their patterns but trade agreements.The problem was that the UK appeared to give the best trade deals to India, Pakistanand Hong Kong. For the West German textile industry combined textileexports to the EEC and EFTA lie consistently below the imports from those countries.Toward the end of the period both imports and exports begin to grow moresteeply than before. These increases are however due only to trade with the otherEEC member countries, while trade with the EFTA countries largely follows the1953-58 trend also during the rest of the period. The value of exports to the EFTAmarkets in the years up to 1963 is persistently higher than those to the EEC. Until1959 exports to EFTA continuously more than double those to the rest of the Community.From 1959 onward exports to the EEC rise sharply to reach and surpass thevalue of exports to EFTA by 1964. Thus the increased export potential offered tothe German textile industry in the common market countries was not at all visibleat the time when the Maudling negotiations were under way. Instead, the fall inexports to both the EEC and the Seven in 1958, with figures remaining below the1953-58 trend well into 1959, did not suggest that there were any improvements onthe horizon, if trade with the Seven should be affected by tariff discrimination.