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The Emergence of a Commercial Heavy-Weight: The Kennedy Round Negotiations and the European Community of the 1960s 1

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09592290701322507

1557-301X

Piers Ludlow,

Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics

Abstract The Kennedy Round of GATT negotiations between 1963 and 1967 saw the debut on the international commercial stage of the EEC negotiating as a single entity. The Round thus represents a valuable opportunity to assess the impact of the EEC on the international trading system, the compatibility of regional integration with global trade liberalization, and the effectiveness of the Community system in allowing “Europe” to speak internationally with one voice. Its judgement is largely positive, noting in particular the strong connection between the EEC's emergence and both the original American decision to launch the Round and the main negotiating method employed—that of across-the-board tariff cuts. The Kennedy Round, in other words, constituted both a direct response to the Community's growing economic stature and an imitation at global level of the approach to tariff reduction that it had pioneered. The episode also provides a chance to examine the interplay between the EEC's two largest states, France and West Germany, and to suggest that the contrast between their respective approaches to the Kennedy Round was less profound than is normally suggested. Notes 1. The author would like to thank Ruggero Ranieri for the invitation to give a seminar in Manchester upon which this article was originally based. He is also grateful to James Ellison, Andrew Walter, Lucia Coppolaro, and an anonymous reviewer who have helped transform this from a sketchy presentation to a finished journal article. 2. Donna Lee, Middle Powers and Commercial Diplomacy: British Influence at the Kennedy Trade Round (London: Macmillan, 1999). Most of the book's judgements about the EEC role are seriously undermined by a succession of basic factual errors. 3. This is a staple argument of those American authors critical of the Round's outcome. See, e.g., Alfred E. Eckes, Opening America's Market: US Foreign Trade Policy since 1776 (Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 1995). 4. To his credit, Jean Rey repeatedly urged member states to be more generous towards the Third World. He appealed in vain however. See, for example, Council of Ministers Archives, Brussels (henceforth CMA), R/1341/66, Proces verbal de la 198ème session du Conseil CEE, 24.11.1966. 5. Thomas Zeiler, American Trade and Power in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), esp. pp. 244–245. A correspondingly detailed study of the EC side of the negotiations has yet to be published, although an excellent PhD on the subject has recently been completed: see Lucia Coppolaro, “Trade and Politics across the Atlantic: the European Economic Community (EEC) and the United States of America in the GATT Negotiations of the Kennedy Round (1962–1967),” PhD thesis, European University Institute, Florence, 2006. 6. According to the Commission one in five US tariff positions were characterised by a rate of 30% or over. By contrast only 1% of Community tariff positions were this high. CMA, R/423/63, Proces verbal restreinte de la 101ème session du Conseil CEE, 8–10 May 1963. 7. Ernest Preeg, one of the US negotiators, estimated that the average US tariff on non-agricultural products before the Kennedy Round was 13.5% and that this was lowered to 9.6% as a result of the trade Round. The comparable EEC figures were 12.8% cut to 8.1%. Ernest H. Preeg, Traders and Diplomats. An Analysis of the Kennedy Round of Negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Washington: Brookings, 1970), pp. 208–210. 8. See Zeiler, American Trade and Power in the 1960s, pp. 47–72. 9. Ibid., p. 54. 10. Rey claimed that it had been a European idea. CMA, R/423/63, Proces verbal restreinte de la 101ème session du Conseil CEE, 8–10 May 1963. For an alternative attribution to US officials “inspired” by the Treaty of Rome system, see Corso P. Boccia, “The Kennedy Administration and the First Attempt to Enlarge the EEC, 1961–3” in Richard Griffiths and Stuart Ward (eds.), Courting the Common Market: The First Attempt to Enlarge the European Community 1961–3 (London: Lothian Foundation Press, 1996), pp. 164–165. 11. For an example of the argument that regionalism does hinder multilateral liberalisation, see Jagdish Bhagwati, Regionalism and Multilateralism: An Overview (New York: Columbia University, Department of Economics, 1992); for the contrary view: Robert Z. Lawrence, “Emerging Regional Arrangements: Building Blocks or Stumbling Blocks?” in Jeffrey Frieden & David Lake (eds.), International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth (London: Routledge, 3rd edition, 1995), pp. 407–415. 12. This is in line with the conclusions of Andrew Wyatt-Walter, “Regionalism, Globalization, and World Economic Order” in Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell (eds.), Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 115. 13. Lee places great emphasis on the way in which the final stages of the Kennedy Round were dominated by a three-way discussion between the UK, the US, and the Commission. Donna Lee, “Endgame at the Kennedy Round: A Case Study of Multilateral Economic Diplomacy,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, 12/3, 2001, p. 115; Preeg by contrast notes that the final deal emerged from a bilateral meeting of the US trade representative and Rey, Traders and Diplomats, p. 195. 14. Emile Noël, the most senior official in the European Commission from 1958 to the 1980s, memorably described EFTA as “une machine de guerre contre la Communauté.” Interview with the author, 16 December 1995. 15. Cited by Dimitri Grygowski, »Les Etats-Unis et l'unification monétaire de l'Europe, 1968–1998, » unpublished PhD, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, 2006, p. 83. 16. The most detailed study to date of the emergence of the CAP is Ann-Christina Lauring Knudsen, “Defining the Policies of the Common Agricultural Policy. A Historical Study,” unpublished PhD, European University Institute, Florence 2001. See also N. Piers Ludlow, “The Making of the CAP: Towards a Historical Analysis of the EU's First Major Policy,” Contemporary European History 14/3 (2005), pp. 347–371. 17. Remarkably, given France's traditional scepticism about Commission power, this praise included a French minister's observation that “M. Rey is able to negotiate as if he were the representative of a single state.” Cited in David Coombes, Politics and Bureaucracy in the European Community (London: George Allen and Unwin), p. 194. 18. Blumenthal's speech in Brussels in October 1966 is a good example of US warnings about the consequences of failure; Rey reportedly complained that he believed the American view to be unnecessary “apocalyptic.” Preeg, Traders and Diplomats, p. 140. 19. Coombes, Politics and Bureaucracy, pp. 194–195. 20. CMA, C/112/67, Proces verbal de la conference des gouvernements, 5 June 1967; for the fraught diplomacy which led to Hallstein's resignation, see Philipp Gassert, “Personalities and the Politics of European Integration: Kurt Georg Kiesinger and the Departure of Walter Hallstein, 1966/7” in Wilfried Loth (ed.), Crises and Compromises: The European Project 1963–1969 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001), pp. 265–284. 21. For a taste (albeit quite indigestible enough in its own right) see European Commission Historical Archives, Brussels (ECHA), NGC(66) 3, Rapport de la Commission au Conseil sur les négociations commerciales au GATT, 19 January 1966. 22. Examples of virtually all of these techniques can be observed in CMA, R/601/67, Proces verbal de la 212ème session du Conseil CEE, 10–12 April 1967. 23. A good example of the Commission seeking to reassure the Americans would be the bilateral meeting between US and Commission officials in early January 1966, Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968, volume VIII, document 304. 24. For a rather overblown account of the institutional effects of the empty chair crisis see Anne Jaumin-Ponsar, Essai d'interprétation d'une crise (Brussels: Bruylant, 1970), esp. pp. 150–152. 25. Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968, volume VIII, document 304. 26. The most celebrated occasion when the Commission had been “disowned” after going too far in an external negotiation was in the 1960 association negotiation with the Greeks. See Elena Calandri, “La CEE et les relations extérieures 1958–1960” in Antonio Varsori (ed.), Inside the European Community: Actors and Policies in European Integration 1957–1972 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006), pp. 424–7. 27. For more detail about this see N. Piers Ludlow, The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s: Negotiating the Gaullist Challenge (London: Routledge, 2006), esp. pp. 118–124. 28. CMA. Proces-verbaux R/601/67 (10–12 April 1967), R/603/67 (2 May 1967) & R/604/67 (10–11 May 1967). 29. For a discussion of the committee, Coombes, Politics and Bureaucracy, pp. 178–179. On COREPER, see N.P. Ludlow, “Mieux que six ambassadeurs. L'émergence du COREPER durant les premières années de la CEE” in Laurence Badel, Stanislas Jeannesson & Ludlow (eds.), Les administrations nationales et la construction européenne. Une approche historique (1919–1975) (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 337–355. 30. An example of this would be the way in which Mansholt used the 2 May 1967 Council discussion of agricultural matters. CMA, R/603/67, Proces verbal de la 215ème session restreinte du Conseil CEE, 2 May 1967. 31. This is very much the sense that comes through from Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968, volume VIII. It is also the impression conveyed by Thomas A. Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 165–174. 32. Erhard's somewhat desperate desire to maintain a close relationship with Washington comes out very strongly from a recent study of the US–German relationship. Hubert Zimmerman, Money and Security: Troops, Monetary Policy, and West Germany's Relations with the United States and Britain, 1950–1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2001). 33. The most obvious example of this is the Federal Republic's determined campaign to ensure that the level of common cereal price adopted within the CAP was set as high as possible—despite the negative knock-on effects that this was predicted to have on EC food imports. For details see, Ann-Christina Knudsen, “Creating the Common Agricultural Policy. Story of Cereals Prices” in Loth, Crises and Compromises, pp. 131–154. 34. CMA, R/423/63, Proces-verbal de la réunion restreinte tenue à l'occasion de la 101ème session du Conseil de la CEE, 8–10 May 1963. 35. Marjolin provided figures illustrating the European case in the course of the same meeting. Ibid. 36. The December 1963 encounter between the Chancellor and the US President is the classic example of this. See Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1963, Document 486. For reactions amongst Germany's partners ECHA, COM(64) PV 256, 2e partie, 8 January 1964 and Public Record Office, London (PRO), FO371 177352; M1083/5, Melville to Marjoribanks, 7 January 1964. 37. For French attitudes in the run-up to the empty chair crisis see Maurice Vaïsse, “La politique européenne de la France en 1965: pourquoi ‘la chaise vide’?” in Loth (ed.), Crises and Compromises, pp. 193–214. 38. Robert Kleiman, Atlantic Crisis: American Diplomacy Confronts a Resurgent Europe (London: Sidgewick & Jackson, 1965), p. 122. 39. Ibid. 40. See Frances Lynch, “De Gaulle's First Veto: France, the Rueff Plan and the Free Trade Area,” Contemporary European History, 9/1 (2000), pp. 111–135. 41. Le Monde, 31 March 1962. 42. John W. Evans, The Kennedy Round in American Trade Diplomacy (Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 155. 43. See for example Archives Nationales, Fontainebleau, SGCI files, versement 900568, article 26, SGCI note, “Les négociations multilatérales au GATT,” 10 October 1966 ; on the French position, see also Lucia Coppolaro, “The European Economic Community in the GATT Negotiations of the Kennedy Round (1964–1967): Global and regional trade” in Varsori, Inside the European Community, pp. 355–356. 44. CMA. Proces-verbaux R/601/67 (10–12 April 1967), R/603/67 (2 May 1967) & R/604/67 (10–11 May 1967). 45. See for example the telephone conversation between Macmillan and Kennedy days after de Gaulle's veto. PRO. PREM 11 4148, 19 January 1963. For a wider ranger assessment of the nature of the Gaullist challenge, see James Ellison, “Dealing with de Gaulle: Anglo–American Relations, NATO and the Second Application” in Oliver Daddow (ed.), Harold Wilson and European Integration (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 172–187. 46. Peter T. Marsh, Bargaining on Europe: Britain and the First Common Market 1860–92 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 8–27. 47. Interestingly, even de Gaulle was to comment that were the EEC to fall apart, France would have to turn to “[le] grand large.” Cited in Alain Peyrefitte, C'était de Gaulle (Paris: Fayard, 1997), vol. 2, p. 267. The slow French turn towards greater liberalism is explored by Frances Lynch, France and the international economy: from Vichy to the Treaty of Rome (London: Routledge, 1997). The transformation had sharply accelerated during the boom years of the 1960s. 48. The interplay between these two priorities is a central theme of Ludlow, The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s. 49. MAE, Série DE-CE 1961-6, carton 402, unsigned and undated note on “Conseil des 4 et 5 avril 1966.” 50. On the dwindling credibility of this earlier threat, see N. Piers Ludlow, “Challenging French Leadership in Europe: Germany, Italy and the The Netherlands and the outbreak of the Empty Chair Crisis of 1965–6,” Contemporary European History, 18/2 (1999), pp. 231–248. 51. The symbolic end of the strategy would be The Hague conference of December 1969. For the most up-to-date accounts of this see Journal of European Integration History, 9/1 (2003), multiple articles.