840.50/4–2045: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

4044. 1. Wormser, acting head of the French delegation on EEC and ECO has informed us and the Foreign Office, that his Government agrees to join a move to establish EEC even if the Soviet will not participate.82

2. Following the arrangements described in Embassy’s 3903, April 17, 7 p.m., Ronald will communicate with Borishenko tomorrow and if, as is expected, a negative reply or no reply has come from Moscow, the next step will be that Ronald and Penrose will separately and in terms similar in substance but not identical in form, express satisfaction to Borishenko that the Soviet do not rule out the possibility of joining an EEC, but will indicate that in view of the increasing urgency of emergency European economic problems requiring joint consultations, the United Kingdom and United States delegations are unable to accept an indefinite delay in the EEC discussions and are considering the next steps to take.

3. Next, it has been agreed between us and the United Kingdom and French delegations that an informal exploratory talk should be held on Wednesday April 25 with the Dutch, Belgians and Norwegians to discuss our general conception of EEC and agree on a procedure for establishing the committee. On Tuesday we shall meet Ronald and Wormser to agree on the way in which the subject will be approached with the other Allies at Wednesday’s meeting.

4. The French viewpoint is that, within the week after next Wednesday’s meeting, invitations should go out to all the European Allies and to the Soviet to attend a meeting to be held on May 25 to set up EEC. We think that at least 2 weeks should be allowed between the time when the invitations are issued and the date of the meeting but would prefer May 18 to May 25. We are discussing this point further with Wormser.

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5. The question arises whether the invitations to the meeting on May 25 or earlier should be sent out by United States, United Kingdom and France together or by the United Kingdom only as the government of the country in which the meeting is to take place. The French favor the latter course and the United Kingdom are willing to agree with it. We have no strong preference either way and unless the Department feels that the former course is preferable, we propose to accept the French desire.

6. A separate message will follow shortly on ECO.

Repeated to Paris as 210; Moscow as 143.

Winant
  1. In telegram 4119, April 21, 1945, 9 p.m., from London, it was reported that the French had also agreed “to join in setting up ECO without the Soviet if necessary”. (840.50/4–2145)