Funny friends? Dutch foreign policy, Great Britain and European integration in the ‘long’ 1970s

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with the still understudied and frequently misunderstood 1970s. It homes in on Dutch foreign policy regarding Great Britain and European integration to question the long-standing assumption that Dutch policymaking in this period became ‘realistic’ and consumed by a yearning for ‘instrumental supranationalism’. Through a study of Dutch and British government archives, this paper thus lays bare the contradictions that inhered in Dutch visions of European integration and asks how Dutch aims could be squared with support for British accession, ultimately demonstrating why ‘realistic’ and ‘irrational’ are perilous analytical categories when used to interrogate large bureaucratic machineries composed of many individuals with different goals and desires struggling over limited resources.

KEYWORDS:

• The Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• European integration
• 1970s
• international relations
• foreign policy

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions, as well as to Roberto Ganau, Sayani Sinha, Sergey Goz, Keren Ben-Horin, Dante Whittaker, Xinyi Hu and Martha Hodes for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. All errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Archival sources

National Archief (NA)

The National Archives (TNA)

-Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)

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Notes

1. Adams, The Familial State, 74.

2. London to Bengal, February 15, 1765 in Srinivasachari, ed., Fort William-India House, vol. IV: 1764–1766, 78.

3. Ashton and Hellema, “Introduction,” Unspoken Allies, 9–10.

4. Ibid., 10.

5. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 124.

6. Milward, European Rescue, 2–3.

7. See, for instance, ibid., 103; Harryvan and van der Harst, “Learning Interdependence the Hard Way,” 151; Harryvan and van der Harst, “Het Europese integratiebeleid”; Reiding, “1973–1986,” 114.

8. Mourlon-Druol, “Leadership Vacuum,” 316.

9. Hellema, “Anglo-Dutch Relations,” 255–72; Harryvan, In Pursuit of Influence; Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles, chs. 7 and 8 in particular; Ludlow, Dealing with Britain.

10. There exist three dominant strands in the ‘relance’ literature. The first is Delors-centric, and epitomized by the work of George Ross, Helen Drake and Charles Grant; the second, pioneered by Wayne Sandholtz and John Zysman, argues that it was a coalition of commissioners under the leadership of, and beginning with, Etienne Davignon, and business groups, in particular in high technology, that exerted sufficient influence on the member states to push them towards further integration; the third is Andrew Moravcsik’s ‘intergovernmental institutionalist’ approach, which has come to be accepted as the standard account, though it is not without its critics. It argues that the interests of the Big Three converged between 1979–81, making possible a sudden relaunch. On the first, see Ross, Jacques Delors and European Integration; Ross and Jenson, “Reconsidering Jacques Delors”; Drake, “Political Leadership and European Integration”; Grant, Delors. On the second, see Sandholtz and Zysman, “1992: Recasting the European Bargain.” On the third, see Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe and Moravcsik, “Negotiating the Single European Act.” For critiques of Moravcsik’s approach, see Gilbert, “Narrating the Process,” and Anderson, New Old World. On the ‘dismal decade’, see Griffiths, “A Dismal Decade?”; on “Europaverdrossenheit,” see Ambassador Lebsanft to Federal Foreign Office, January 22, 1974 telegraph no. 247, in Schwartz et al., eds., Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik 1974, 82.

11. Reiding, “1973–1986,” 103. All translations (in all languages used) are my own unless otherwise noted.

12. Rogoff, “That 1970s Feeling.”

13. Mourlon-Druol, “Leadership Vacuum”; Mourlon-Druol, A Europe Made of Money; Karamouzi, Greece, the EEC and the Cold War.

14. Warlouzet, Governing Europe; see also Migani and Varsori, eds., Europe in the International Arena; Hiepel, ed., Europe in a Globalizing World. For the eponymous edited volume, see Ferguson, et al., eds. Shock of the Global.

15. Dimier, European Development Aid Bureaucracy.

16. Patel, Project Europe.

17. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 117.

18. Eliot, “The Hollow Men,” 1925.

19. Hellema, Wiebes, and Witte, Business as Usual.

20. See Mourlon-Druol, “Leadership Vacuum,” and Mourlon-Druol, Made of Money.

21. Ludlow, Roy Jenkins and the European Commission Presidency, 1976–1980, 11–12.

22. Hellema, Nederland in de wereld, ch. 7.

23. Ibid., 261–3.

24. Keerpunt 1972: Regeerakkoord van de progressive drie, cited in Reiding, “1973–1986,” 106. Griffiths makes a similar point: Griffiths, “The Netherlands and the European Communities,” The Economy and Politics of the Netherlands, 286.

25. Griffiths, “Netherlands,” 286; Hellema, Nederland in de wereld, 263–70.

26. Rational choice theory and European integration have mingled in the past, most notably in the ‘spill-over’ theory developed in Haas, The Uniting of Europe, which adopts a ‘soft’ rational choice model.

27. For an enormously helpful list of the innumerable acronyms referring to the profusion of Dutch departments, offices, ministries and officials, see Hellema, Wiebes, and Witte, Business as Usual, 301.

28. PLAN [Department for Planning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] to T [Undersecretary of European Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] via S [Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs], December 7, 1973, Nationaal Archief (NA), 2.05.313, inv. 15,479.

29. Some of the most notable studies on agriculture have been Knudsen, Farmers on Welfare; Ludlow, “The Making of the CAP”; and Moravcsik, “De Gaulle between Grain and Grandeur.”

30. PLAN to T via S, December 7, 1973, NA, 2.05.313, inv. 15,479, 2–3. Griffiths, “Netherlands,” 282.

31. Van der Stoel to Den Uyl, March 22, 1974, NA, 2.03.01, inv. 8933. These British fears are exemplified by Ronald Arculus’ disturbing findings in a memorandum circulated in 1977: Ronald Arculus, July 1977, FCO 33/3085, WR 138/1, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Records, The National Archives (TNA), London. See also Warlouzet, Governing Europe.

32. Van der Stoel to Den Uyl, March 22, 1974, NA, 2.03.01, inv. 8933, 3.

33. On the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the economic shifts of the 1970s, see Stedman Jones, Masters of the Universe, 219–20; Brenner, Economics of Global Turbulence; and Strange, Casino Capitalism.

34. REZ [Council for European Affairs], meeting minutes, March 27, 1974, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1581, 15.

35. See Moravcsik, “SEA,” 20, 31–2. In Ludlow, “European Integration in the 1980s,” Ludlow notes that the causal link between 1966 and the subsequent ‘deadlock’ has been overstated, citing ‘one of the key negotiators at the Luxembourg meeting’: Lahr, “Die Legende vom ‘Luxemburger Kompromiss.’” Keith Middlemas notes that QMV was beginning to be used more frequently over the course of the 1970s in the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN): Middlemas, Orchestrating Europe, 101.

36. REZ, meeting minutes, March 27, 1974, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1581, 16.

37. Ibid., 14. On the GATT’s Tokyo Round, see Warlouzet, Governing Europe, ch. 4 in particular. On the Mediterranean, see Guasconi, “Europe and the Mediterranean in the 1970s.”

38. REZ, meeting minutes, March 27, 1974, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1581, 14.

39. Ibid., 17.

40. Ibid., 18; Moravcsik, Choice for Europe, 2–4.

41. REZ, meeting minutes, March 27, 1974, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1581, 19; Haas, Uniting Europe. More recently, Patel reinvigorates an alternative version of Haas’s spill-over. Patel, Project Europe.

42. REZ, meeting minutes, March 27, 1974, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1581, 19.

43. J. H. C. Molenaar to J. M. den Uyl, December 6, 1974, NA, 2.03.01, inv. 8929.

44. As William Mallinson (now a Professor of Political Ideas and Institutions) noted in 1979, the prime minister ‘is in fact not Prime Minister: he is the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, with no greater powers than any of his Ministers. Moreover, many individual Ministers, including the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Finance have sole responsibility for their departmental subjects under the constitution’. W. D. E. Mallinson to J. McGregor, March 2, 1979 FCO 33/3836, WR021/2 Part A, TNA, London.

45. Mourlon-Druol, “Leadership Vacuum,” 323.

46. Ibid., 332.

47. Ibid., 332.

48. The Netherlands usually had a seat at the grown-ups’ table when it came to questions of oil and natural gas. See, for instance, M [Minister of Foreign Affairs] to S, memorandum, July 21, 1975, NA, 2.05.330, inv. 18,743, 5.

49. Mr. Bone, no date [1974], Research Department Memorandum, FCO 33/2292, WR1/1, TNA, London. On the institution of summitry, see, for instance, Spohr, The Global Chancellor, 26.

50. ‘Konferenz der Außenminister der EG-Mitgliedsstaaten in Dublin,’ April 12–13, 1975 in Möller et al., eds., Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik 1975, 359–60.

51. MR [Council of Ministers], meeting minutes, June 4, 1976, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1928, 4. On the Rambouillet summit, see James, Rambouillet, 15. November 1975. See also Sargent, “The United States and Globalisation in the 1970s,” 59–60.

52. MR, meeting minutes, June 4, 1976, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1928, 1–6.

53. Van der Stoel to den Uyl, April 10, 1974, NA, 2.03.01, inv. 8856, 1.

54. Ibid., 2–3. On the creation of a ‘social Europe,’ see Warlouzet, Governing Europe; Aurélie Andry, “‘Social Europe’ in the Long 1970s,” and Dorpema, “The Netherlands, the Environment.”

55. Ibid., 4–5.

56. PLAN to M and T via S, memorandum, September 4, 1974, NA, 2.05.313, inv. 15,480. On the dominance of NATO in Dutch foreign policy, see for instance, Harryvan and van der Harst, “Learning Interdependence the Hard Way,” 150; Hellema, “Anglo-Dutch Relations,” 255.

57. PLAN to T via S, December 7, 1973, NA, 2.05.313, inv. 15,479.

58. PLAN to M and T via S, memorandum, September 4, 1974, NA, 2.05.313, inv. 15,480, 2.

59. Ibid., 6.

60. Harryvan and van der Harst, “Learning Interdependence the Hard Way,” 150; Hellema, “Anglo-Dutch Relations,” 255. In his Nederland in de wereld, Hellema offers a more nuanced argument, suggesting that the Netherlands became less pro-Atlantic and NATO-centric during the 1970s following the Vietnam War and the membership of two dictatorships, Greece and Portugal in NATO; see Hellema, Nederland in de wereld, 263. Ultimately, however, the ‘continuity’ of pro-Atlanticism and pro-NATO sentiment predominates. Hellema, Nederland in de wereld, 271–2.

61. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe; Reiding, “1973–1986.”

62. Van der Stoel to S, memorandum, June 10, 1975, NA, 2.05.330, inv. 14,218.

63. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 109.

64. Ashton and Hellema, “Introduction,” 14; Ludlow, “Too Close a Friend,” 232; Young, “The Second Try,” 252. On British accession, see also Ludlow, Dealing with Britain, and Young, The Labour Governments 1964–1970.

65. Griffiths, “Netherlands,” 283.

66. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 113.

67. DIE [Department for European Integration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] to M via S and DGES [Directorate-General for Economic Cooperation], memorandum, June 9, 1975, NA, 2.05.330, inv. 19,080, 1.

68. Ibid., 2.

69. Van der Stoel to S, June 10, 1975, NA, 2.05.330, inv. 14,218.

70. Middlemas, Orchestrating Europe, 83.

71. Ludlow, “The Discomforts of Life on the Edge,” 1337; Van der Stoel to S, June 10, 1975, NA, 2.05.330, inv. 14,218, 1.

72. Van der Stoel to S, June 10, 1975, NA, 2.05.330, inv. 14,218, 2.

73. Ibid., 2.

74. MR, meeting minutes, November 22, 1974, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1409, 2. See also Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 116–17.

75. PLAN to T via S, memorandum, December 7, 1973, NA, 2.05.313, inv. 15,479.

76. PVEG [Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the European Communities, Brussels] to [?], April 2, 1974, NA, 2.03.01, inv. 8924.

77. Ashton and Hellema, “Introduction,” 14.

78. REZ, meeting minutes, December 6, 1973, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1262, 14.

79. Hellema, Wiebes, and Witte, Business as Usual, 99–101.

80. Hellema, “Anglo-Dutch Relations,” 261.

81. Ibid., 74. To a certain extent, this was an understandable response from London. After all, the effects of the oil crisis on Britain were catastrophic: it ‘experienced an increase in import prices of 55%, retail price increases that peaked in August 1975 at an annual rate of 27%, and a sharp downturn in economic activity, with GDP falling by 3.9% in 1974 and 2.1% in 1975,’ writes Bentivoglio in The Two Sick Men of Europe?, 53.

82. Hellema, Nederland in de wereld, 276.

83. Hellema, Wiebes, and Witte, Business as Usual, 79–81. Hellema, “Anglo-Dutch Relations,” 261–2.

84. MR, meeting minutes, November 22, 1974, NA, 2.02.05.02, inv. 1409; BZ [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], draft memorandum, June 24, 1976, NA, 2.03.01, inv. 8893; Pronk to den Uyl, December 6, 1977, NA, 2.03.01, inv. 8856. On the NIEO see Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire; Mazower, Governing the World, chapters 11 and 12 in particular.

85. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 107.

86. Planning Staff, draft paper, no date, FCO 33/4177, WR022/5, TNA, London, 4.

87. Hellema, Nederland in de wereld, 270–2.

88. Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles, 91–2.

89. Ibid., 162–3, 186–93.

90. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 116.

91. Diez, “Speaking ‘Europe.’”

92. Möckli, European Foreign Policy, 47–52.

93. Harryvan, In Pursuit of Influence, 171. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing me in the direction of this passage.

94. Gilbert, “Narrating the Process.”

95. Hollander, Constitutionalizing Europe, 110. Patel, Project Europe.

96. See Dimier, European Development Aid Bureaucracy.

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Marc Dorpema

Marc Dorpema is a PhD candidate in the History department at New York University. His interests include the construction of Eurocapitalism and the interplay among the environment, capitalism and empire. You can find more of his work in the Journal of European Integration History, Europe-Asia Studies and the Hmong Studies Journal.