Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration, 1945-63

308 Pages·1999·1.3 MB·English

by  Wolfram Kaiser

Using Europe, Abusing the
Europeans
Britain and European Integration, 1945–63
Wolfram Kaiser
kaiser/88228/mac/crc 15/3/99 4:23 pm Page 1
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY IN CONTEXT
Published in association with the Institute of Contemporary British History
General Editor: Peter Catterall, Director, Institute of Contemporary
British History
Titles include:
Oliver Bange
THE EEC CRISIS OF 1963: Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle, and
Adenauer in Conflict
Christopher Brady
UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS CAMBODIA,
1977–92
Peter Catterall and Sean McDougall (editors)
THE NORTHERN IRELAND QUESTION IN BRITISH POLITICS
Helen Fawcett and Rodney Lowe (editors)
WELFARE POLICY IN BRITAIN: The Road from 1945
Harriet Jones and Michael Kandiah (editors)
THE MYTH OF CONSENSUS: New Views on British History, 1945–64
Wolfram Kaiser
USING EUROPE, ABUSING THE EUROPEANS: Britain and European
Integration, 1945–63
Keith Kyle
THE POLITICS OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF KENYA
Spencer Mawby
CONTAINING GERMANY: Britain and the Arming of the Federal
Republic
Jeffrey Pickering
BRITAIN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM EAST OF SUEZ: The Politics of
Retrenchment
kaiser/88228/mac/crc 15/3/99 4:23 pm Page 2
L. V. Scott
MACMILLAN, KENNEDY AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS:
Political, Military and Intelligence Aspects
Paul Sharp
THATCHER’S DIPLOMACY: The Revival of British Foreign Policy
Contemporary History in Context
Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71470–9
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
kaiser/88228/mac/crc 15/3/99 4:23 pm Page 3
Using Europe, Abusing
the Europeans
Britain and European Integration, 1945–63
Wolfram Kaiser
Lecturer
University of Vienna, Austria
and
Visiting Professor
College of Europe
Bruges, Belgium
in association with
INSTITUTEOFCONTEMPORARY BRITISHHISTORY
kaiser/88228/mac/crc 15/3/99 4:23 pm Page 4
©Wolfram Kaiser 1996, 1999
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London W1P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1996
Reprinted (with new preface) 1999
Published by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 0–333–64942–7 hardcover
ISBN 0–333–77635–6 paperback
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
01UEAE2-PRE1 (v-vi) 4/10/99 3:13 PM Page v
To Susanne
This page intentionally left blank
02UEAE2-PRE2(vii-viii) 4/10/99 3:13 PM Page vii
Contents
General Editor’s Foreword ix
Preface to the 1999 Reprint xiii
Acknowledgements xxvi
List of Abbreviations xxvii
Introduction xxiv
1 Building and Defending a British Europe, 1945–55 1
2 What Bus? The Messina Conference, 1955 28
3 Best of All Worlds: The Free Trade Area Plan,
1956–7 61
4 Makeshift Solution: From FTA to EFTA, 1958–9 88
5 Dual Appeasement: Towards the EEC Application,
1960–1 108
From Laggard to Leader? 117
The Bomb and Europe 151
6 Failure, Yet Success: The EEC Entry Negotiations,
1961–3 174
7 Epilogue: Britain and European Integration,
1963–96 204
Notes 228
Bibliography 254
Index 268
vii
This page intentionally left blank
03UEAE2-PRE3(ix-xxxii) 4/10/99 3:12 PM Page ix
General Editor’s Foreword
International relations, as with politics, involves the making of
sometimes unpalatable choices. The balance of the literature
on Britain’s European policy in the period covered by this
book has tended to suggest that Britain made the wrong ones,
blinkered by great power illusions reinforced by its role in the
Second World War. While by no means entirely dropping this
approach, Wolfram Kaiser here offers, however, a much more
sophisticated analysis of the motive forces behind and the
course of Britain’s European policy 1945–63.
For the six countries which negotiated the establishment of
the European Economic Community in 1955–7, integration
was a positive choice offering clear advantages. These advan-
tages were both economic and political. The creation of a
customs union gave the Six enhanced access to their principal
markets in other member states and helped to increase trade.
In what the former President of the European Commission,
Jacques Delors, has described as the marriage contract on
which the EEC was founded between its two principal
members, France and the Federal Republic of Germany, the
French received support and better access to markets for their
agriculture in return for opening up the French market in
industrial products to the Germans. This reciprocity of
economic interests also chimed with the other founder
members. At the same time the founding of the EEC also
served the political purposes of its members, for instance in
providing a means for the rehabilitation of Germany and Italy
after the Second World War or for the French to guard against
an over-mighty Germany.
The choice was not so apparent at the time for British
policy-makers. The burden of national interest did not point
unambiguously in a European direction. The British interest
was felt to be to maximize their influence not just in Europe,
but through the Commonwealth and with the United States.
Instead British participation in a process of European
integration seemed likely to impact detrimentally on the
Commonwealth, reducing the British room for manoeuvre on
ix