AUGUST, 2021
With the worsening of the situation in Algeria and the increasing disquiet in French military circles, on 29 May 1958 General Charles de Gaulle came back to power. First as President of the Council of Ministers and then as President of the newly formed Fifth Republic, he would go on to dominate the French and European political scene for a decade.1 The General had already been a strong opponent of the EDC and of the institutional architecture of the EEC, but he decided to oblige to the Treaties signed by his predecessors, as he recognised the contribution that an opening of the European markets could bring to the modernisation of the French industry and the important economic advantages that the protectionist characteristics of the Common Agricultural Policy would guarantee to the vast agricultural production of the country. If Adenauer’s European policies tried to find a delicate balance between national interest and supranational aspirations, for de Gaulle the foundation and justification of power rested in the nation, and it was only for the sake of the nation, intended as a historical community, that it could be possible to ask somebody to fight and die for it. This meant that it was not possible to postulate a power structure that was not based on the nation State. De Gaulle looked down with derision to any concept of supranationality, which he considered nonsense coming from people detached from reality. It is evident, therefore, that the supranational elements of the Treaties of Rome could not be accepted in any way. What he saw in the Community institutions, and especially in the Commission, was at best technocratic administrative bodies without any political value.2 At the beginning of his term he preferred to adopt a tactical silence on the matter, but once the situation in Algeria was coming to a solution, he made his position clear on how the several initiatives for European integration should evolve and expressed his point of view on the balance of power within the Atlantic alliance. In a press conference on 5 September 1960 he confirmed the necessity of European unity. This should be achieved with an association of sovereign States in a confederal set-up.3 For the first time de Gaulle, who until that moment could only lead the country in periods of severe crisis, saw the right circumstances to pursue that grandeur that, as stated from the first page of his Mémoires de Guerre, was an imperative condition for the French nation.4
De Gaulle knew too well that France could not compete with the political and military might of the two Superpowers, but at the same time he was determined to gain the recognition of its prerogative as world power, in line with its role as permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Hence the proposal to the US and the UK for the creation of a directorate of the three countries within NATO. The refusal to this proposal made him turn with even more determination toward continental Europe, with the intention to take advantage of the peculiar French political weight, without which any integration plan would not come to fruition,5 and with the hope to realise, through the union with the other western European States, a political grouping autonomous and independent from the influence of the United States. By leading this union France would fulfil its ambition as a global power. The proposals for a political union put forward by de Gaulle were discussed in a meeting in Paris on 10-11 February 1961, where it was decided to appoint a commission with representatives from all EEC member States and led by the French diplomat Christian Fouchet, that should develop a proposal for an institutional framework. The Six met again in Bad Godesberg on 18 July, confirming the intention to coordinate their policies with regular and institutionalised meetings of heads of state and government. If on the one hand the construction of the Berlin wall the following August seemed to add to a sense of urgency for a political union, on the other the almost simultaneous request by the UK to start access talks to join the EEC was destined to change the balance of the negotiations.6 On 19 October the French government introduced to the Fouchet Committee a proposal for a treaty that would include a common foreign policy, defence and cultural affairs. Economic affairs would be managed by the EEC, that would keep its existing institutions, and it would be recognised the preeminent role of NATO in European defence, satisfying some of the demands of the other partners. The governance would be shared by a Council of Heads of State and Government, or as an alternative of Foreign Ministers, that would convene three times a year, with unanimity required to approve legislation. Alongside there would be a Parliamentary Assembly that would be able to submit to the Council recommendations and inquiries, but only on a consultative capacity. There would be also a Political Commission, made of functionaries designated by member States and that would answer directly to their national governments. This would lack the independence that was granted to the EEC Commission and would act more like a secretariat rather than an executive entity with decisional capacity. Furthermore, the requirement of unanimous decisions, that is, veto power, made the Council of the Union a mere intergovernmental forum. Thus, the institutions reflected faithfully the fundamental Gaullist concept of a Europe of the States.7
The reaction to the French proposal was not enthusiastic, however there was the intention to use the Fouchet Plan as a starting point for further negotiations.8 In the meanwhile, with the approval sanctioned on 16 January 1962 of the first regulations for the CAP and the advancement to the second stage of the common market, the realisation of the supranational potential of the EEC Treaty was nearing. Which meant that starting from the second stage the advancement to the next stages would be automatic and could only be stopped by a unanimous decision of the Council. It is then conceivable that de Gaulle, at the time when European institutions were gaining autonomy from the control of the member States, tried to bring them back into his confederal concept.9 That would explain the new version of the Fouchet Plan submitted on 19 January by the French without the prior concessions, that omitted any reference to NATO and included commerce and industry among the responsibilities of the new political union at the expense of the EEC. Such an arrangement was obviously untenable for those who already had reservations on the previous versions. There were further attempts to mediate, especially with the involvement of the Italian premier Amintore Fanfani and Adenauer, that convinced de Gaulle to reintroduce his concessions. In the meeting of the foreign ministers in Paris on 17 April a new draft was presented but the Netherlands and Belgium did not consider it satisfactory.10 The underlying fear was to end up in some kind of French protectorate, and for that reason it was seen as necessary to reinforce the supranational guarantees of the plan. They also believed that it was not possible to continue with the project of a political union before the end of the negotiations with the United Kingdom, since they saw the presence of the British in the Communities as a chance to counterbalance the weight of France. Once it was clear that de Gaulle would not offer any further concessions, Spaak and Luns, the leader of the Belgian and Dutch delegations, decided to end the talks.11 In the press conference on 15 May de Gaulle mocked the supranational aspirations of the other governments as fantasies reminiscent of the tales of “One Thousand and One Nights” and underlined what he described as the contradiction of those who declared to be willing to go along with the project of a political union only after the UK joined the EEC, while they were well aware that precisely the UK was against any federative intent.12 Therefore, the development of each negotiation became intertwined with the other and was decisive for the outcome of both.
After the failure of its initiative in 1958, London promoted another free trade area, alternative to the EEC, that was established with the Stockholm Convention on 4 January 1960. The European Free Trade Area (EFTA) was joined, in addition to the UK, by Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Finland joined in 1961 and Iceland in 1970. But it became soon clear that trade with these countries was secondary compared to the whole of British business.13 The staggering economic growth in the EEC countries made them one of the most dynamic areas worldwide and increased their appeal to the outside.14 Economic motivations in addition to other political considerations could then explain the request of the UK to start access talks to join the EEC, submitted on 31 July 1961.15 The new American administration, led by President John F. Kennedy, supported the UK joining the EEC, and envisaged to reorganise the Atlantic Alliance on the American and European pillars. The French were diffident of the American intentions and considered the United Kingdom to be subordinate to the United States, and that would constitute a menace to the French ambitions of an autonomous and independent Europe. During the discussions on the political union, de Gaulle tried to reach an agreement as quickly as possible, so that the new institutional arrangements would be in place when the UK joined. After the collapse of the talks in April he decided to test directly the intentions of the British Prime Minister, and invited him for a meeting at the Chateau de Champs on 2 June 1962, where he introduced the idea of an Anglo-French directorate in Europe that would integrate the uneven alliance with Germany, with the condition that London accepted a revision of its relationship with the United States and a close partnership on defence issues. Bino Olivi writes that the little interest showed by Macmillan about this initiative was mainly due to the efforts of American diplomacy, that took for granted that the United Kingdom would join the EEC and underestimated the French bargaining power and the will of de Gaulle, and in so doing refused to acknowledge the peculiar French role in continental Europe.16 Macmillan’s refusal and the failing of the political union resulted in the hardening of the French opposition to the UK joining the Communities and a further strengthening of the relationship with Germany, that led up to the Franco-German Treaty of Friendship signed at the Élysée Palace on 22 January 1963. The treaty institutionalised between the two countries those same intergovernmental forms of cooperation that were proposed under the Fouchet Plan.
This was perceived by the Americans and the other European allies as yet another manifestation of Gaullist policies, this time focused on the Paris-Bonn axis. On Adenauer’s part there was the intention to leave to his successors a binding obligation, as he was convinced that they would be less eager to seek a close association between the two countries.17 The significance that Adenauer attributed to the alliance with France predated the affinity that emerged with the General, and it was also evident at the time of the Mollet government. The Chancellor always felt distrustful toward the United States, but with the treaty he still managed to achieve a balance between the special relationship with France and the strong and unequivocal membership of NATO. At the same time the existing institutions of the Communities were protected from the Gaullist confederative ambitions. Even though in the last part of his 14 years in power Adenauer seemed to be ever more interested in de Gaulle’s ideas of a third force, the Atlanticist view prevailed inside the government and in parliament and was especially represented by the Foreign Minister Gerhard Schröder and invariably by Ludwig Erhard. Their stance was particularly evident in the preamble to the treaty voted by the Bundestag on 16 May 1963, where it was declared the essential role of the Atlantic Alliance for the foreign policy of the Federal Republic, as well as the importance of the existing Communities. It was also expressed the support for the United Kingdom and other States that were willing to join the Communities.18 Nevertheless, the treaty was significant, and Adenauer’s support meant that de Gaulle could move more freely in imposing his line on the other Community partners.
During a press conference on 14 January 1963, just a few days before the signing of the Élysée Treaty, he announced that he would end unilaterally the access talks with the United Kingdom, which was essentially a veto against the British joining the EEC.19 There were at least two defining factors that pushed de Gaulle to make his final decision and stop the negotiations that had been going on sluggishly for almost two years. One was the agreement reached on 21 December 1962 in Nassau between the United Kingdom and the United States, that would subordinate the British nuclear deterrent to NATO, and therefore to the Americans, that would have the last word concerning the use of nuclear weapons. De Gaulle considered the circumstance particularly annoying, as he was not informed in advance by Macmillan when they met a few days earlier. But it appears probable that this episode was just the trigger of a decision that had been developing in the previous months.20 In addition to the geopolitical aspects, for which the Nassau agreement was only a confirmation, there were also economic considerations. During the discussions, the United Kingdom requested exemptions to the common external tariff and the common agricultural policy. The aim was to keep imports from other Commonwealth countries tariff-free and to avoid other artificial price rises. It also requested special arrangements for imports coming from EFTA countries. These requests risked calling into question the balance that had been achieved painstakingly among the founding members, with agricultural matters being the most problematic. By accepting the British demands the principle of Community preference, which was the pillar of the system, would be put in danger, and thus the whole CAP, that had been the key policy to convince France to accept the free trade features of the common market. For that reason, it was mainly France that insisted on the UK adhering to the Communities’ mechanisms in their entirety. On its part the British government was under pressure from the Commonwealth allies and the anti-European labour opposition, and it was not in the best position to make any concessions. The divide between France and the United Kingdom had concrete reasons that were unrelated to de Gaulle’s designs in the realm of international politics. Still the assessment of the diverging economic interests between the two countries and the concern that London could disrupt the common market and jeopardise the benefits that France had obtained from it reinforced de Gaulle’s scepticism about the UK. He was suspicious about a country that could rival France in its leadership role of the EEC and that had nothing in common with his view of the Euro-American relationship.21
1. Riccardo Brizzi and Michele Marchi, Charles de Gaulle (Bologna: il Mulino, 2008), 137 ff.
2. Bino Olivi, L'Europa difficile. Storia politica dell'integrazione europea 1948-2000 (Bologna: il Mulino, 2000), 66-68.
3. “Press conference held by Charles de Gaulle (5 September 1960)”, Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l'Europe (CVCE), University of Luxembourg, last modified 27 January 2014, https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/press_conference_held_by_charles_de_gaulle_5_september_1960-en-0993e4e3-896a-4c44-89c4-9de188c1d637.html.
4. Brizzi and Marchi, Charles de Gaulle, 172.
5. Olivi, Europa difficile, 65-66.
6. Gerhard Brunn, Die Europäische Einigung von 1945 bis heute (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2002), 141. See also Mark Gilbert, Storia politica dell'integrazione europea (Roma/Bari: Laterza, 2005), 71.
7. Olivi, Europa difficile, 74-75.
8. Brunn, Europäische Einigung, 142.
9. Olivi, Europa difficile, 78.
10. Olivi, Europa difficile, 76-77.
11. Olivi, Europa difficile, 77.
12. “Press conference given by Charles de Gaulle (15 May 1962)”, Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l'Europe (CVCE), University of Luxembourg, last modified 27 January 2014, https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/press_conference_given_by_charles_de_gaulle_15_may_1962-en-98595c27-9bac-4b12-ab24-770b121b921d.html.
13. Leonardo Rapone, Storia dell'integrazione europea (Roma: Carocci, 2002), 44.
14. Gilbert, Storia politica integrazione europea, 76.
15. Rapone, Integrazione europea, 45.
16. Olivi, Europa difficile, 80.
17. Brunn, Europäische Einigung, 142-143.
18. Raffaele D'Agata, “L’unificazione europea e la Germania”, in Storia dell'integrazione europea vol. II, ed. Romain H. Rainero (Roma: Marzorati, 1997), 441-444. See also Brunn, Europäische Einigung, 142-143.
19. Olivi, Europa difficile, 82.
20. Gilbert, Storia politica integrazione europea, 80. See also Olivi, Europa difficile, 79.
21. Rapone, Integrazione europea, 45-46.