269. Telegram From the Embassy in France to the Department of State1
4932. Subject: Great Britain, the Common Market, and Europe. During a conversation with Couve de Murville today I asked him if there was [Page 623] any proof to the various rumors around about a possible European conference next year. Couve said that everybody seemed to ask the French this question—the Russians, Poles, and others—but that they had not and would not make any suggestion for any such conference and he did not believe that the time was propitious for any such conference.
In passing reference to Britain and the Common Market Couve said that Commission’s report would have to be studied which he thought would be the position which he would take at the meeting of the Ministers on October 23. I told him that it looked to me as though the difference between French position and that of the Commission was quite narrow; that the Commission felt that the economic and financial situation of Britain was not such that she could join the Common Market but that the best method of examining it would be by negotiation whereas France felt that the situation of Great Britain in addition precluded negotiation. Couve admitted that as matters now stood this was approximately correct.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, EEC 6 UK. Secret. Repeated to London, Bonn, and Brussels for USEC.↩