The External Relations of the EEC, and Its Internal Problems

Extract

EXTERNAL POLICY HAS HAD QUITE A LOT TO DO WITH THE establishment of the Communities. The cold war was in fill1 swing when the first of them, the European Coal and Steel Community, came into operation in 1952. The projected European Defence Community was an attempt to find a European response to the Soviet military threat which was the obsession of the early 1950s. A few years later, the trouble in which the European countries found themselves - over oil afier the Suez crisis, at the end of 1956, undoubtedly served to speed up the negotiation and conclusion of the Treaties of Rome. However, this political background did not affect the actual content of the Common Market Treaty, which as regards external relations is quite on traditional lines. It keeps the assertion of the Community's external identity and responsibilities very definitely subordinated to its internal development, that is, to the achievement of economic integration.