840.50/3–145: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Winant ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:15 p.m.]
2116. 1. The United States, United Kingdom, USSR, French meetings on EEC opened this morning at the Foreign Office with Hawkins, Ronald, Borishenko, and Alphand as the principal representatives. Ronald presided and suggested at the outset that the terms of reference proposed by the State Department for the meeting be adopted. This was agreed. Borishenko said that he had no specific instructions to discuss coal but that he would attend coal discussions and take note of what was said.
2. Ronald, in his introductory statement, said that primary responsibility [Page 1424] for external economic policy rests with the government of each country and that there is no intention to set up overall machinery to control European external relations. The objective is to consider common economic problems collectively with a view to making the best use of what we have. He recommended examination of the questions by categories. There were questions arising from shortage of supplies, shortage of the means of moving the supplies, relations between ally and ally, between ally and neutral and between ally and enemy or ex-enemy. In addition there might [be?] a category of pre-surrender problems.
3. The meeting agreed to a proposal by Hawkins that two drafting committees should be set up, one on EEC and one on coal to prepare statements outlining the nature of problems involved in each case during the transition period and the scope of existing machinery. These drafting groups would place reports before the next meeting to be held Friday afternoon to form a basis for discussions which would lead to agreed recommendations to the four governments. The drafting committees would take account of the points raised in today’s discussions.
4. The remainder of the discussion covered many of the suggested questions which have been covered in memoranda and suggested agendas of the Department and the Foreign Office. Alphand said that suggestions should be made concerning the kinds of raw materials, foods and technical problems which might conveniently be dealt with by special technical committees of EEC. He thought that production in Germany should be taken into account and added that it should be indicated in the report that besides dealing with short term problems an EEC might be useful in solving problems of production and distribution in the longer period.
Alphand has not yet made clear what he considers the extent of the “longer period” to be.
5. The drafting sub groups were then set up, the Soviet agreeing to participate in both and the meeting was adjourned till 3 p.m., Friday.58
- March 2.↩