This book traces the emergence of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) from 1955 to 1963 amid the broader reshaping of the institutional architecture of post-war Europe. It considers the ill-fated Free Trade Area (FTA) proposal, the subsequent creation of EFTA, and the resulting division of Western Europe into two distinct trading blocs. At its core, the book provides an international history of a formative moment of post-war and European integration history, and explores the intense technical discussions among European states as they grappled with the prospect of deeper economic and political unity. It thus provides the first detailed analysis combining the FTA and EFTA negotiations, considering both state and non-state actors. Drawing on archives from Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US, as well as the records of the OEEC and EFTA, it examines the decision-making processes of those intimately involved as well as the institutional settings within which they were forced to reconcile their positions. At a key moment of contemporary European friction, the book offers a dialogue between the past and those trying to make sense of events that continue to shape Europe today.

Matthew Broad is Lecturer in International Relations at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Prior to this, he was an EU Marie Curie Individual Fellow at the University of Turku, Finland. Matthew is the author of the book Harold Wilson, Denmark and the Making of Labour European Policy, 1958-72 (2017) and co-editor of European Integration Beyond Brussels (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Richard T. Griffiths is Professor Emeritus of International Studies at Leiden University, the Netherlands. An author/editor of over ten academic books, his expertise lies in European integration, economic history, post-war international relations and, increasingly, Chinese foreign/EU policy. Between 1987-95 he was Chair of Contemporary History at the EUI, Florence. He has also held positions at the University of Manchester and the Free University Amsterdam, and visiting professorships in Belgium, Turkey, Portugal and Thailand.

Introduction

1. Britain, the Six and the non-Six

The Messina Resolution

Exclusion from the Spaak Committee

The United Kingdom and the 'Special Relationship'

2. Plan G

Towards a New Policy

Plan G

Plan G, the Six and the OEEC

3. The OEEC Investigation of the FTA

The United Kingdom and the Six

OEEC Working Party No 21

OEEC Working Party No 22

OEEC Working Party No 23

The Six and the FTA

Denmark, the FTA and the Six

The United Kingdom's Policy Debate

Rallying the Non-Six

The United Kingdom, The Six and the FTA

The Opening of the Maudling Negotiations

Agriculture

5. The Maudling Negotiations and the End of the Free Trade Area

The Emergence of a French Policy

The Ockrent Report

An Effort of Imagination and Will

The Carli Plan

The End Game

6. The Emergence of the Seven

Scandinavian Cooperation

The 'Non-six Six'

British Reassessment

The Federation of British Industry

The "Non-Six" and the collapse of the FTA

The UK Decision

7. Creating EFTA

The Danish Side-payment: Agriculture

Ministerial Meeting: Saltjöbaden 20-22 July

The Portuguese Side-Payment I: The Transition

The Swedish Side-Payment: Finland (the Eighth Participant?)

Portuguese Side-payment II: Definition of Industrial Goods

The Final Ministerial Meeting

The Norwegian Side-payment: Fish

Finnish Association

8. Aftermath

The Peripherals

France

The Six

The OEEC and the GATT

The United Kingdom

EFTA

Conclusions