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The European Challenge: Britain's EEC Application in 1961

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Kristian Steinnes
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Extract

In mid-July 1961 the Conservative government in Britain, headed by Harold Macmillan, decided to apply for full membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). Successive British governments had persistently opted for intergovernmental co-operation instead of supranational integration as in the case of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the EEC. Thus the application, which implied the intent to join a supranational structure and a customs union, marked an unexpected and somewhat surprising break with the well-established British post-war policy.

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Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1998 , pp. 61 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

A preliminary version of this article was published as a Working Paper for ARENA in April 1996. The views and conclusions are to some extent deduced from my thesis submitted for the candidatus philologiae degree at the University of Trondheim, spring 1995: Kristian Steinnes, ‘Outside Europe's Magic Circle. Macmillan og den britiske regjeringa – den første søknaden om medlemskap i EEC i 1961’ (University of Trondheim, 1995).

I wish to thank professor Svein Dahl and associate professor Gudmund Stang at the Department of History at the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim for critical reading and helpful suggestions for improvements; thanks to grants from ARENA under the Norwegian Research Council. I would also like to acknowledge the research group working with European history at the Department of History at the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

1 West Europe and Canada, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961–1963, Vol. XIII (Washington 1994), 1042;Google ScholarYoung, John W., Britain and European Unity, 1945–1992 (London: Macmillan, 1993), 76;Google ScholarLie, Bjarne, ‘A Gulliver among Lilliputians … A History of the European Free Trade Association 1960–1972’, unpublished master's dissertation (University of Oslo, 1995), 144;Google Scholar and Steinnes, , ‘Outside Europe's Magic Circle’, 112.Google Scholar

2 The phrase ‘integration’ in this article is used in a relatively narrow sense and implies supranational characteristics (see next footnote).

3 The application for membership of the Communities (EEC, ECSC and Euratom), which was submitted with reference to Article 237 of the Treaty of Rome, required full liabilities as indicated under the Treaty. The application meant subjection to the concept of supranationality which implied, in contrast with intergovernmental, derogation of sovereignty in restricted areas to a supranational authority. Alternatively, associate membership (with reference to Article 238), would have required interdependent obligations short of membership. The term intergovernmentalism, often applied as an alternative to integration and supranationality, implies co-operation between independent states. Integration versus interdependence are terms often applied to respective supranational (federal) and intergovernmental (confederal) characteristics.

4 In November 1955 the British government withdrew its representative (a civil servant) from the Spaak Committee which was established at Messina and subsequently met between July 1955 and March 1956. The British government was by then not in a position to accept the founding principles of a supranational structure and a common market.

5 In voluminous economic studies the phenomenon often is labelled as Britain's relative decline. For a discussion of the economic literature see Alford, B. W. E., British Economic Performance 1945–1975 (London: Macmillan, 1988).Google Scholar

6 Kaiser, Wolfram ‘To join, or not to join: the “Appeasement” policy of Britain's first EEC application’, in Brivati, Brian and Jones, Harriet, eds., From Reconstruction to Integration. Britain and Europe since 1945 (London: Leicester University Press, 1993), 152.Google Scholar

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10 Young, , Britain and European Unity, 182.Google Scholar

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12 Ibid., 43.

13 Moon, Jeremy, European Integration in British Politics 1950–1963: A Study of Issue Change (Aldershot: Gower, 1985), 36.Google Scholar

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16 Ibid., 3.

17 Ibid., 433.

18 Ibid., 433.

19 Sampson, Anthony, Macmillan: A Study in Ambiguity (London: The Penguin Press, 1967), 209.Google Scholar

20 West Europe and Canada, FRUS, 1033.

21 Several actors – such as lower level departments, parts of the civil service, committees, and foreign leaders – have not been exhaustively analysed.

22 Thatcher, Margaret, The Path to Power (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), 118.Google Scholar

23 27 May 1960, CAB 134/1819, Cabinet Papers, Public Record Office, London.

24 27 May 1960, CAB 134/1819, 3. Home replaced Lloyd as Foreign Secretary in the cabinet reshuffle in July 1960. Lloyd was moved to the Treasury.

25 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, Prime Minister's Paper, Public Record Office, London.

26 9 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11//3325, 2–3, 9 and 28. See also Clark, Ian, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship. Britain's Deterrent and America, 1957–1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 303.Google Scholar

27 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24.

28 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 3.

29 Macmillan, Harold, Pointing the Way. 1959–1961 (London: Macmillan, 1972), 312Google Scholar (italicisation added.)

30 This study, as others, offers documentation on the considerable danger of a French veto. Cf. for example Kaiser, ‘to join, or not to join’, 152–3; Lie, ‘A Gulliver among Lilliputians’, 145–8.

31 19 Oct. 1960, PREM 11/3131.

32 (no exact date), PREM 11/3325.

33 (no exact date), PREM 11/3325.

34 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 7.

35 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 7.

36 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 8.

37 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 14.

38 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 12.

39 22 Feb. 1961, PREM 11/3345, 1 and 3.

40 22 Feb. 1961, PREM 11/3345, 3.

41 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 18.

42 Cf. Kaiser, ‘To join, or not to join’, 152.

43 Macmillan, , Pointing the Way, 306–7.Google Scholar

44 Northedge, F. S., ‘British Foreign Policy. The Process of Readjustment 1945–1961‘, in Chapman, Brian, ed., Minerva Series of Students Handbooks (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1962), 307.Google Scholar

45 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 4.

46 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 9.

47 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 9.

48 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 7–8.

49 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244, 8.

50 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244 (meeting at 3.15 p.m.), 1.

51 5 Apr. 1961, PREM 133/244 (meeting at 3.15 p.m.), 1.

52 Macmillan, , Pointing the Way, 326.Google Scholar

53 28 Apr. 1961, PREM 11/3328 and PREM 11/3319, 3.

54 28 Apr. 1961, PREM 11/3328 and PREM 11/3319, 3.

55 28 Apr. 1961, PREM 11/3328 (Annex III), 2.

56 The answer from President Kennedy on 22 May confirmed, as did his talks with de Gaulle on 31 May, that he did not find British membership of the common market important enough to override other considerations vis-à-vis de Gaulle's nuclear ambitions or to secure Britain's, and allegedly American, long-term interests. 22 May 1961, PREM 11/3319, 2; West Europe and Canada, FRUS, 23–5, 314. The American policy on whether to concede nuclear information to France had been settled by the National Security Council and then approved by the President on 21 Apr. 1961; West Europe and Canada, FRUS, 289 and 656.

57 Kaiser, , ‘To join, or not to join’, 153.Google Scholar

58 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325; Macmillan, , Pointing the Way, 44, 310.Google Scholar

59 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325. See also meeting in the EEAC; 9 May 1961, CAB 134/1821, considerations in the Foreign Office; 17 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, and answers to Macmillan's questions in mid-1960; 28 June 1960. CAB 134/1853.

60 28 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3322, 7; 22 Feb. 1961, PREM 11/3345, 1. They seem not to have been aware of the increasing gulf between the Russians and the Chinese, which led to an official breach in 1962. See for example how Khrushchev, considered this development, Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little Brown and Company (Inc.), 1970).Google Scholar

61 Perry, Keith, Britain and the European Community (London: Heinemann, 1984), 7.Google Scholar

62 Milward, , The European Rescue, 396; Hans Otto Frøland, ‘Det vest-tyske “Wirtschaftswunder” – en årsaksdrøfting’, in Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning, Vol. 2 (1994), 250 and 273.Google Scholar

63 Anthony Seldon, Andrew Graham &, Government and Economies in the Post-war World. Economic and Comparative Performance 1945–1985 (London: Routledge, 1990), 42;Google ScholarMilward, , The European Rescue, 396.Google Scholar

64 23 June 1961, FO 371/158 274, Foreign Office Records, Public Record Office, London, and 28 June 1961, FO 371/158 274; 15 July 1961, FO 371/158 277, 4.

65 Milward, , The European Rescue, 425.Google Scholar

66 9 May 1961, CAB 134/1821, 1.

67 17 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 4.

68 Ibid., 4.

69 17 May 1961, CAB 134/1821, 1.

70 Ibid., 1; 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/244, 2; and 16 March 1961, PREM 11/3326.

71 Cf. footnote 23.

72 28 June 1960, CAB 134/1853, 1–3.

73 See for example 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 8; and (no exact date), FO 371/158 160, 2.

74 28 June 1960, CAB 134/1853, 2–3.

75 14 July 1961, T 236/6323, Treasury Papers, Public Record Office, London.

76 Jean Chauvel in conversation with Deputy Under-Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Reilly. 21 July 1961, FO 371/158 179.

77 29 July 1961, PREM 11/3559.

78 25 Apr. 1961, CAB 134/1854.

79 9 May 1961, CAB 134/1821, 1.

80 Cf. the ‘London Agreement’ in June 1961 which said that the EFTA would be maintained until satisfactory arrangements had been made to meet the various legitimate interests of all its members, and made it a precondition for any acceptable solution that all EFTA states could participate from the same date in an integrated European market. See for example 31 July 1961, Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, 645 House of Commons Debates, col. 931; and Lie, ‘A Gulliver among Lilliputians’, 156–66.

81 16 June 1961, FO 371/158 271.

82 Home, Alistair, Macmillan 1957–1986. Volume II of the Official Biography (London: Macmillan, 1989), 257.Google Scholar

83 29 Dec. 1960–3 Jan. 1961, PREM 11/3325, 8.

84 Ibid., 8–9.

85 Ibid., 8.

86 28 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 2.

87 Ibid., 2–3.

88 Ibid., 6–9.

89 Clark, , ‘Nuclear Diplomacy’, 297–309.Google Scholar

90 It was inevitable that, in accordance with the report of the Secretary to the Cabinet, American assessments and Clark's study, the FRG would follow suit in order not to concede a dominating position in Europe to France. 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 4; and Clark, , ‘Nuclear Diplomacy’, 299.Google Scholar

91 18 Jan. 1961, CAB 133/24, 4.

92 Ibid., 3.

93 24 May 1961, FO 371/158 270, 1–5.

94 25 July 1961, T 236/6554.

95 2 June 1961, FO 371/158 270.

96 Ibid.

97 6 June 1961, FO 371/158 275, 1. See also equal considerations in the EEAC on 19 July 1961, CAB 134/1821, 5–6.

98 6 June 1961, FO 371/158 275.

99 Ibid.

100 19 July 1961, CAB 134/1821.

101 Ibid., 5.

102 Ibid., 5–6.

103 Kaiser, , ‘To join, or not to join’, 154.Google Scholar

104 Lie, , ‘A Gulliver among Lilliputians’, 147.Google Scholar

105 Camps, , Britain and the European Community, 334.Google Scholar

106 Kissinger, , Diplomacy, 595–6.Google Scholar