Atlantic Unity Versus European Division

Abstract

The year 1960 will remain in the economic history annals of the Western world as the year in which the European Free Trade Association (E.F.T.A.) became a reality and O.E.E.C. came to an end, to be superseded by the newly-formed Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (O.E.C.D.). It was in the realm of Western economic co-operation a key year and, if all goes well, it may prove to have been — to use Sir Winston Churchill’s famous phrase — another “hinge of fate”. For, even before the divisions in Western Europe were healed, even before the Six and the Seven got together to make Eighteen, the goal of economic co-operation of a highly integrated kind crossed the Atlantic: the United States and Canada which were only associate Members of the O.E.E.C. will be full Members of the O.E.C.D. and the latter will be, therefore, an organisation of “Atlantic” scope.

The Editors of this Yearbook seek to otter to readers something more than static reports on the various European organisations. In the present volume, planned in I960 and produced in I96I, the principal focus of general interest was bound to be the halting progress towards European economic integration. It is to this subiect, then, that the first two of our articles in Volume VIII are devoted. We thought it would be interesting to have, on the one hand, the angle of vision of a distinguished A merican scholar and writer on political and economic affairs and, on the other hand, the point of view of someone representing the 'neutral' Members of E.F.T.A. It is perhaps all the more striking that the diagnosis of the patient's condition is virtually identical.

No apology is needed for the duplication of material: where our readers may iustly have cause for complaint is in the fact that these two articles written in the late spring of I96I are likely to be somewhat out of date when Volume VIII is actually issued (early in I96z). But this cannot be helped: the time-lag required for the printing process is necessarily a minimum of six months lor a volume 0/ some 700 pages such as the European Yearbook.

The author of this article, after occupying a number of academic posts, now holds a Chair of international economic relations at the Institut de Hautes Études Internationales, Geneva. He has been for many years Western Europe correspondent for Time and Fortune Inc. and is an Associate Editor of Fortune since 1959.