Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 1

Bruce Mission files, lot 57 M 38, “Agricultural Pool”

No. 247
Memorandum by the Consul of the Embassy in France (Cleveland) to the Acting United States Representative to the European Coal and Steel Community (Tomlinson)

[Paris,] November 13, 1952.

1. I spoke on Monday¹ on the telephone with Van der Lee. During his talks in Luxembourg last week, he had been put abreast of the current stage of Monnet’s thinking on the subject of EPC,² and had apparently been shown some of the proposals which Monnet and his staff are considering in this connection. He had apparently been asked by Kohnstamm to take the temperature of the Dutch situation and try to see whether and under what circumstances Monnet’s idea of immediate European elections for an Assembly whose essential tasks would be to take over EDC and EPC and have the right of initiative on further progress would be acceptable to the Dutch. He had discussed the matter in The Hague and had come to the conclusion that there was no chance that the Dutch (either government or parliament) would accept this kind of proposal, at least at this stage. While he obviously did not want to discuss then the matter in detail on the telephone, he said that their feeling was that elections for an Assembly that did not have real powers, except of the limited type provided in the CSC and EDC Treaties, would have the contrary effect to what Monnet hopes, and would give the impression that the whole operation was just a screen for EDC.

2. In the two talks he had with me in Luxembourg, Van der Lee outlined the problem of agricultural integration as he sees it in its relation to the work on EPC. The major problem on agricultural integration in his mind and in Mansholt’s is to find a way at the January Conference to bring the discussions out of the clouds by limiting them to the representatives of the six countries of the Community who may fairly be expected to go ahead on the proper basis. He will also discuss the matter with the Germans and the Belgians who are expected to be more difficult. He has also talked to Spaak, who has apparently given him encouragement.

In Van der Lee’s view, two things are essential in order that matters should develop at the January meeting as the Dutch would like: first, the six country meeting must be successful; and secondly, the report presented to the Ad Hoc Assembly by the Constitutional Committee should make some mention of agricultural integration, and make it clear that it will be possible for the work on agricultural integration to go forward within the framework of the EPC. If this is done, it would then be possible to propose at the January meeting that the delegations of the six countries (possibly with the others sitting in as observers) should sit down and prepare a draft treaty for an agricultural community which would use the EPC institutions as a framework and which could be submitted either to the governments or possibly to the newly elected Assembly of EPC itself.

3. While the definite position which the Dutch and particularly Mansholt will take is not entirely clear, I think that there is a possibility that they might be willing to accept an EPC which did not at the first stage go beyond EDC and CSC, provided there were a definite commitment in it that the intention was to go farther, that a procedure was established for doing so, and, in particular, that there was a reasonable assurance of some sort that the new EPC institutions, as soon as they were established, would take an active interest in problem of agricultural integration. These, however, are obviously fairly large “ifs.”

1. Nov. 10.
2. For documentation concerning the European Political Community, see Documents 1 ff.