Romania and the Beginning of CMEA Controversies over a Common Trade Policy Towards the EEC,1969–1972

Comprehensive Program Negotiations and a CMEA Common Trade Policy

This section focuses on Romania’s opposition to an intended CMEA common trade policy towards the EEC, as it occurred during the negotiations on the Comprehensive Program. In March 1968, the Polish United Workers’ Party presented the CMEA’s Secretariat with a document proposing reformation through integration. ²⁰ Although these proposals were dismissed, the discussions on CMEA reformation continued, with Poland being a serious supporter of bloc integration and Romania the most vehement opponent. In January 1969, the Executive Committee of the CMEA examined the consequences of the EEC’s trade ‘discriminatory measures’ over the interests of the CMEA’s states, as well as possible counteractive measures. The envisioned measures included a closer intra-bloc or intra-camp commercial cooperation, the creation of common commercial companies, the conclusion of a multilateral convention regarding the trade between the member states of the two organizations, discussions and studies over the CMEA’s tactics towards the Common Market. At the same occasion it was argued that the CMEA states should abstain from diplomatically recognizing the EEC and should contest the participation of the EEC’s representatives in international economic conferences. Economic relations with the EEC’s countries had to be pursued – it was said – on bilateral bases. ²¹

From this early stage of talks, however, Romania opposed the idea of a CMEA common policy towards the EEC. In January 1969, the Romanian representatives agreed with intra-bloc consultations and exchanges of opinions and information in matters regarding the CMEA’s trade relations with the Common Market; they also agreed with the intra-bloc coordination of those actions that are of ‘common interest’ and with the examination of the problem regarding agreements and common actions towards the elimination or the reduction of the EEC’s trade discriminatory measures against the CMEA. However, if adopted, such measures or any CMEA-convened agreements, should not diminish each member state’s freedom to act independently in their relations with EEC members, the Romanian representatives argued, blocking the other’s intention to adopt a common CMEA position towards the Common Market. ²²

Talks regarding the collaboration within the CMEA and the ‘perfecting of its activity’ continued during the next months, especially on a bilateral level. ²³ During the Romanian-Soviet consultations that took place on 5–7 March 1969, the positions of the two states were discussed with regard to a number of problems including economic integration, commercial relations, coordination of plans and investments, specialization in production or establishing international economic organizations. Another issue addressed in this context was the conclusion of a ‘general agreement ²⁴ among the CMEA member countries’ with regard to ‘setting up a concrete program to encompass the aims, main directions, forms of organization and legal forms of the [CMEA] integration’. According to the Soviet delegation, the general agreement had ‘to establish a system’ of CMEA international bodies and to regulate the relations between those bodies and the CMEA member states. Militating for a ‘progressive integration’, the Soviets proposed moving towards the coordination of the economic policy of the CMEA, the common, short- and long-term planning in different economic sectors, and unique plans. The coordination of the CMEA trade policy encompassed in itself a common policy towards the EEC, as well, the Soviet representatives argued. ²⁵

The Romanian delegates agreed to an enlarged cooperation and collaboration, but only ‘as long as they are not approached in the context of [CMEA] integration’. They argued that the integration would affect the national interests of the member states, and would disregard the principles that stood at the basis of the relations between the socialist states. They contended too that the general agreement and the concrete program were not necessary as the CMEA’s Statute allowed the adopting of any concrete measures and the perfecting of any methods and forms of collaboration. Moreover, the two delegations advanced contradictory positions with regard to a number of problems: the content of the concept ‘interested party’, financial and currency relations, or the CMEA’s Statute. Romania did not want the Comprehensive Program adopted; it wanted the preservation of the status quo. ²⁶

The Comprehensive Program was officially launched during the 23rd extraordinary session of the CMEA, held in Moscow, on 23–25 April 1969. The position of the Romanian delegation ²⁷ at this session was defined during the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee (CC) of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP) from 21 April, when a document entitled Proposals regarding the position of Romania’s delegation at the CMEA session from 23–25 April 1969 was adopted. Among the Romanian leaders, there was general agreement, nobody expressing different opinions in this regard. ²⁸ In the adopted document ²⁹ the Romanians classified the others’ proposals in three categories: proposals Romania rejected; proposals it accepted; and proposals that could be still discussed and negotiated on. The establishing of economic branch unions (proposals advanced by the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Mongolia), the common planning (proposed by the USSR and Bulgaria), and ‘the coordination of the economic policy of the CMEA members states’ (advanced by the USSR) were proposals that Romania firmly rejected because, as the Romanians argued, they infringed the principle of national sovereignty and the right of each country to independently decide its economic policy, in accordance with its domestic conditions. Using the same motivation, Romania rejected the others’ proposals in matters of commercial relations as well. As a counter-reaction to the Western integration process, the CMEA envisioned closer intra-bloc cooperation, a conception that Romania accepted only partially. While agreeing with the deepening of the mutual intra-bloc trade relations, Romania also militated for developing further trade relations with other socialist and non-socialist states as well. Thus, the Romanian leadership opposed proposals regarding the mutual and gradual opening of domestic markets, the free circulation of goods on the markets of the CMEA member states, and the liberalization of trade in goods by gradually reducing the mandatory quotas established through commercial agreements.

Romania had a different position not only in matters of intra-bloc trade, but in matters of trade with third countries as well, the EEC countries included. It was against the creation of a common customs system of the CMEA in relation to third countries. In the drafts they prepared and circulated before the opening of the Moscow session, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria predicted the coordination of the CMEA member states’ commercial policy towards the capitalist states. Such a policy was also to cover the areas of purchasing licences and concluding commercial agreements with the capitalist states. In Romania’s view, however, ‘the imposing of such positions was unacceptable’, as each state had its own import and export needs. Romania agreed with intra-bloc exchanges of opinions and information and with periodic consultations in matters of relations with third states; it also agreed that, in certain conditions, it could take under consideration the idea of coordinating actions with regard to prospecting capitalist markets, purchasing and selling goods on markets from capitalist states, cooperation for constructing economic units, and selling goods or services. Romania agreed with the creation of an international investment bank (a proposal advanced by Romania, the USSR and Czechoslovakia), but it firmly rejected the idea of establishing a CMEA currency mechanism (as proposed by the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary) or adopting a common currency to circulate in the CMEA states and to be used in their relations with third countries (as proposed by Poland). The Romanians argued that such measures infringed the states’ monetary and economic policy. Neither did they agree with the USSR’s proposal regarding the coordination of the currency and financial relations of the CMEA’s member states with other countries. Romania favoured discussions on concrete and tangible matters of collaboration and the preservation of the status quo, while the other CMEA members wanted the revision of aims, methods, means and stages of cooperation, leading towards integration. In the analysis of the Romanian leadership, the integration as proposed within the CMEA had two main characteristics: on the one hand, it transferred the states’ attributes towards supranational bodies, while, on the other hand, it envisioned trade liberalization and the creation of an economic union similar to the EEC. In Romania’s views, ‘the theses and proposals regarding “the integration” ³⁰ of the socialist states are unacceptable’ because they infringed the principles agreed upon within the bloc, the principle of the national sovereignty included. ³¹

In Moscow, the Romanian delegation followed its mandate. The session decided on creating an International Investment Bank to grant credits to the CMEA members. The discussions on integration were intense and contradictory, with the USSR, Poland and Hungary supporting integration measures, while Romania firmly contested them. Due to Romania’s opposition, as Kansikas correctly observed, ‘major decisions on multilateral cooperation were postponed’. ³² The session’s Communiqué, however, had a positive tone, mentioning the interest of the participating states in increasing mutual economic cooperation, collaborating with all socialist states and with other non-socialist states, and strengthening their relations with the capitalist states. The document confirmed once again the principles that stood at the basis of relations among the socialist states. ³³ The Romanian leadership was generally pleased with this form of the Communiqué, but also with the content of the session’s Resolution, as they both confirmed the principles of national sovereignty and independence, of non-interference in the domestic affairs of the interested states and of voluntary participation in the CMEA’s activity. For the Romanian leadership, this confirmation was important as it constituted the core of its argument against any bloc proposal that Romania disagreed with. As Gogu Rădulescu phrased it, the Resolution established that any CMEA action could be adopted with the free consent of the interested party, without affecting the national economic plan or the national legislation of the member states. ³⁴

The 40th special session of the Executive Committee of the CMEA held in Moscow on 26 April 1969 empowered Piotr Jaroszewicz, the president of the Executive Committee, and N. Faddeev, Secretary of the Council, to elaborate a project of measures with regard to the application of the decisions adopted during the 23rd CMEA session. The project was to be discussed during the next session of the Executive Committee, scheduled for the next month. ³⁵ The May 1969 session of the Executive Committee convened to elaborate the Comprehensive Program. ³⁶ The discussions continued during the meetings of the Executive Committee from July, October and December 1969, but, as Kansikas observed, during these sessions, the Western integration process or the relations between the CMEA and the EEC were rarely mentioned, the participants focusing on the intra-bloc cooperation and integration. ³⁷

The 24th session of the CMEA that took place in Moscow in May 1970, with the participation of prime ministers from the member states, analysed the first draft of the Comprehensive Program and addressed matters such as the coordination of the plans, the CMEA’s economic, financial and currency policies towards third countries and the judicial status of the Comprehensive Program. In this context, Romania maintained its previous positions. The majority wanted to grant the Comprehensive Program the status of a legal document to be adopted simultaneously by the CMEA session and through bilateral agreements between the member states and to force the signatory states to comply with its provisions. ³⁸ Romania did not want the Comprehensive Program to become a treaty regulating trade relations and intra-bloc integration. Therefore, its delegates proposed the document to be adopted through a resolution of the CMEA; on the basis of that resolution, they argued, the interested states could, subsequently, conclude special accords and conventions. This separate position of Romania was included in the Protocol of the session. ³⁹

During all these sessions that discussed the content of the Comprehensive Program, Romania maintained the position it had expressed in 1969, during CMEA or bilateral talks. The disagreements between the CMEA members were manifested also during the sessions of the Executive Committee of the CMEA, held in July, October and December 1970. For the October session, for instance, Romania numbered no fewer than 50 divergences that separated its position from the stance of the other participants. Romania continued to reject the idea of including in the Comprehensive Program the diplomatic non-recognition of the EEC (a position that was accepted by the other participating delegations), the deepening of the intra-bloc integration, the unitary management of the economies of the member states, the coordination of the commercial and economic policy of the CMEA states towards third countries, the introduction of the partial convertibility of the collective currency, the creation of an international arbitration body of the CMEA or the adopting of the Comprehensive Program as an inter-state treaty. ⁴⁰ The Protocol of the session included Romania’s separate position with regard to the adoption of the Comprehensive Program as an interstate treaty. Bucharest wanted the document adopted through a resolution of the CMEA session and not as a treaty. Based on such a resolution, the Romanians argued, the CMEA interested member states ‘may conclude conventions or agreements regarding different concrete problems of the collaboration’. ⁴¹

During the October session, the Executive Committee adopted a document entitled ‘Proposals regarding the coordination of the currency-financial policy of the interested CMEA member countries towards other states, their international groupings, especially the EEC, and international currency and credit institutions’. Due to Romania’s opposition and interventions, the necessary measures regarding the coordination in this field were to be taken, based on the recommendations of the CMEA permanent commission for currency-financial problems, only by the CMEA interested states. ⁴² Appealing to the formula of the interested states, the Romanians made sure that no measure they did not agree with could be forced upon their country. The Romanian leadership perceived the proposed CMEA integration as a threat. It feared that, if accepted, integration was to limit its ability to independently lead the country’s domestic and foreign policy and to force it instead to accept decisions made at a supranational level. They were convinced that such supra-state decisions would favour the others’ interests in Romania’s disadvantage. ⁴³

The Romanian leadership analysed the draft of the Comprehensive Program ⁴⁴ and the draft of the Treaty ⁴⁵ as proposed by the Drafting Commission of the CMEA, and, at the December 1970 session of the Executive Committee of the Council, advanced its separate position. ⁴⁶ While the other participants advanced concrete proposals of integration and economic policy coordination, Romania supported vague wordings and asked for further studies of the most efficient methods of collaboration, an old postponing tactic ⁴⁷ that was well used in Bucharest. While Poland and Hungary, for instance, asked for the introduction, in 1970, of the collective convertibility of currency, Romania proposed the ‘elaboration of concrete methods of using’ such convertibility and its introduction in practice in the year following the elaboration. Reiterating previously advanced positions, Romania opposed once again the idea (advanced by Hungary) of creating a free customs zone for the socialist countries or the proposal advanced by the USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Mongolia regarding the adopting of the Comprehensive Program as an inter-state treaty. ⁴⁸

During the same session of the Executive Committee, Hungary advanced a proposal regarding the adopting of a common position of the CMEA with regard to its economic relations with developing countries and capitalist countries, but also different economic blocs and international organizations. ⁴⁹ Hungary did not want the strengthening of the intra-bloc cooperation to be followed by less collaboration with the other states, a position favoured by Moscow. Romania did not support either the idea of deepening the economic collaboration within the CMEA as a substitute for the CMEA’s relations with the Western states. Hungary, however, proposed a common policy of the CMEA towards the capitalist states, while Romania wanted to be able to conduct an independent policy with the EEC members. The participants did not reach a conclusion in December 1970 and the topic remained on the agenda of further CMEA gatherings. ⁵⁰ During the 1969 and 1970 negotiations on the Comprehensive Program, the Romanian representatives resolved the problem of all the proposals that they did not favour with the introduction into the text of the formula of the ‘interested states’, ⁵¹ another old tactic designed and used to help Romania avoid any type of bloc project that it did not agree with. ⁵²

In February 1971, the Permanent Presidium (PP) of the CC of the RCP adopted Romania’s ‘strategy’ with regard to its relations with the Common Market, ⁵³ a document that had been elaborated in November 1970 in response to the EEC’s CCP. ⁵⁴ This document ⁵⁵ is particularly important as it encompasses not only Romania’s views of the ECC, but also its response to the integration process in Western Europe and to the CMEA’s attempts at adopting a coordinated policy towards the EEC. Romania’s analysis of the EEC was first of all very pragmatic, following the state’s economic interests. The ‘strategy’ was based on several facts that the Romanians observed at the time. First, they argued, the Common Market had ‘become an economic reality’ that ‘could no longer be ignored by third countries, regardless their social-economic system, level of development, or geographic positioning’. Second, Romania exported to the EEC countries, especially agricultural and food products, corn, timber and oil products. In 1970, the share of the EEC countries in Romania’s exports to the capitalist countries was 50 percent, while their share of the country’s total exports was 20 percent. Although the EEC policies towards third countries had had a partially negative effect on Romania’s exports, the document argued, the volume of the trade with the states from the Common Market had actually increased, because Romania exported into those countries products that could not be imported from the member states. That situation, however, was to change once the integration process deepened in the West, and England, Ireland, Norway and Denmark were to adhere to the Community, the Romanians feared. Facing this situation, the Romanians considered that

The promotion of our economic interests entails an active policy towards the Common Market, through the adoption of efficient measures, taking under consideration the actual evolution of this group and of our foreign trade with the [EEC] member states.

Elaborated in November 1970, this ‘strategy’ was approved in February 1971, ⁵⁸ when the Romanians prepared their participation at the 51st session of the Executive Committee of the CMEA, held in Moscow, between 23 and 26 February. In January 1971, the Drafting Commission had finished two documents, a draft of the Comprehensive Program ⁵⁹ and a draft of the Treaty of the Comprehensive Program. ⁶⁰ Analysing these documents, the Permanent Presidium ⁶¹ of the CC of the RCP decided that the Comprehensive Program could not be accepted because, through its stipulations and obligations, it infringed Romania’s economic interests and could ‘prevent the independent development of our country’. The stipulations regarding the planning and the coordination of the economic and commercial policy of the CMEA would have led to a monopoly of the Executive Committee of the CMEA over the foreign commerce of the socialist states, which was unacceptable, the Romanian leaders argued. According to Ceaușescu, through the Comprehensive Program, one wanted ‘to set up a general control over the economies of the CMEA member states, to subordinate them economically, politically and in other ways, to transform them into an annex’. The Romanian delegation to the 51st session was instructed to not formally reject the project, but to accept it as a ‘working document’ and to argue in favour of further studies and analyses with regard to the stipulations of the document ⁶² – which was in itself a postponing tactics.

The Romanian delegation was also instructed to oppose the adopting of the Comprehensive Program as a treaty or convention and to propose instead its adopting through a resolution of the CMEA’s session. It was also instructed to ask for the introduction in the text of the ‘Comprehensive Program as a working document’ of special stipulations concerning the character of the CMEA, such as: the CMEA was a free organization of independent states and independent national economies, based on relations of total equality in rights, open to all socialist and non-socialist countries, promoting the development of international collaboration and cooperation; being members of the CMEA could not affect the member states’ relations with other states; and the member states could not adopt discriminatory measures against those that did not adhere to certain common actions. ⁶³

In Moscow, the Romanian delegation complied with its mandate. It opposed the adopting of the Comprehensive Program as a treaty, argued against the CMEA’s control over the commercial and currency policy of the member states in the field of their relations with third countries, and opposed the introduction on the agenda of the session of a common commercial policy of the CMEA. Ion Gheorghe Maurer openly spoke against a monopoly of the Executive Committee of the CMEA over the trade of the member states. Despite Romania’s opposition, all the other participants decided to adopt the Comprehensive Program in the given form, during the next session of the CMEA. ⁶⁴ Regarding the commercial policy of the CMEA, it was decided that the CMEA should study the opportunity of establishing, in the future, contacts with the economic groupings of the capitalist countries. ⁶⁵

The problem regarding the commercial relations between the CMEA and the EEC and other capitalist states was discussed during the 52nd session of the Executive Committee of the CMEA, held between 27 and 29 April 1971. During this session, Romania made several proposals to improve the text of the Comprehensive Program, including stipulations concerning the continuous development of the collaboration between all socialist states and the development of commercial exchanges between all socialist states, capitalist states and developing countries. This form of altering others’ proposals was an unsuccessful Romanian attempt to prolong negotiations ⁶⁶ – another postponing tactic that the Romanians had used successfully since the early 1960s. ⁶⁷

This time, however, the participating states agreed to adopt the Comprehensive Program through a resolution of the CMEA’s session. The elaboration of a secret annex, either of the Comprehensive Program or of the resolution of the CMEA’s session, was discussed as well. The secret annex was to include stipulations regarding matters such as the coordination of the positions of the interested CMEA member states in the international organizations and in their talks with third countries; the coordination of the economic, technical, scientific, commercial, financial and currency policy of the interested CMEA members towards third countries and the economic groups of third countries; and the coordination of the actions of the foreign trade organization and of other organizations from the CMEA interested member states regarding the buying and selling of goods on the markets of third countries. ⁶⁸

Hungary and Poland wanted to discuss, as soon as possible, practical matters regarding the possible establishing of contacts between the CMEA and other economic organizations, the EEC included. The Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Mongolia wanted to study the possibility of coordinating a CMEA common commercial policy. Romania maintained its opposition towards a common bloc trade policy. Unable to reach a general agreement, the April 1971 session of the Executive Committee mandated the Council’s Secretariat to elaborate in one year’s time, until March 1972, a working document regarding the CMEA’s relations with third countries and their economic organizations. Thus, the problem remained to be addressed separately from the Comprehensive Program. ⁶⁹

As agreed during the meeting of the Executive Committee held in Moscow in June 1971, ⁷⁰ the Comprehensive Program was adopted by the CMEA session held on 27–29 July 1971, despite several new Romanian attempts to prolong the debates. ⁷¹ Faced with the united front of all the other participants who were determined to adopt the document without Romania’s participation if they had to, in the end, the Romanians too accepted the Program. According to the perceptions of the Romanian leaders, through the Comprehensive Program, the desired aim was to achieve the economic integration of the CMEA states and ‘the creation of a unique command centre of the CMEA states and if possible of other states as well’, so that ‘the decisions [were] to be taken in one place and … be executed by everybody’. Romania was against the proposed integration and, still loyal to its previous position, rejected the usage of the term ‘integration’. Since the debates on CMEA integration in the early 1960s, Romania had rejected the term, usually placing it, in party and state documents, within quotation marks, as a formal sigh of non-recognition. Now, however, as Ceaușescu began to argue, the term could no longer be avoided because it had entered the vocabulary of international relations, defining a reality imposed especially by the Common Market. ‘We’ll have to stop avoiding this notion, because, wanting it or not, it exists; we pretend that it does not exist, but it does’, Ceaușescu contended on 15 July 1971, during the meeting of the Executive Committee of the CC of the RCP. However, on the same occasion, Ceaușescu gave instructions as to how the Romanians were to alter the content of the term ‘integration’. Since the notion could no longer be avoided, the Romanians were to alter its meaning, defining it as a process of collaboration and cooperation designed to secure the development of every national economy, so that it does not lead to the infringement of the national sovereignty and independence of the states or to the creation of supranational bodies. ⁷²

According to the adopted text of the Comprehensive Program, the socialist economic integration was accomplished according to the principles stipulated in the CMEA’s Statute on a voluntary basis. The mechanism and the content of the integration remained to be defined during the following years. Regarding the commercial relations between the CMEA and third countries, the Comprehensive Program vaguely mentioned the agreement that the member states had reached with regard to the coordination of their commercial policy in order to eliminate the discriminatory measures that infringed international commerce. ⁷³ According to the Communiqué of the July 1971 CMEA’s session, the CMEA member states ‘will continue to develop the economic, technical and scientific connections with developing countries and with developed capitalist countries, based on the principles of peaceful coexistence, equality in rights, mutual advantage and respecting sovereignty’. ⁷⁴ The Romanians would have preferred to block the Comprehensive Program from being adopted, but, although they could not reach this aim, they did not fear the outcome. According to the Romanian leadership, the implementation of the Comprehensive Program could not pose serious problems for Romania. The text was long and unclear, ‘a conglomerate’ of general and vague wordings, completed with very concrete and detailed stipulations that made the text very difficult to apply in practice. The Romanian leaders considered that the general and vague wordings could be interpreted by anybody to accommodate their own views, while the detailed stipulations ‘have no value and nobody will take them into consideration’. ⁷⁵ According to Ceaușescu, Romania agreed to accept the Comprehensive Program only because it admitted that integration was accomplished according to the principles of sovereignty and independence, because it did not imply supranational bodies of planning and conducting the economies of the member states, and because the Statute of the CMEA was acknowledged as the basis of the future implementation of the Program. In Ceaușescu’s view, these were the main characteristics of the Comprehensive Program that were to guide the future activity of collaboration between the socialist states. ⁷⁶ If the other CMEA states and the USSR were to act towards integration and supranational bodies, then Romania was to appeal to the principle of the interested states and not take part in such actions and plans. ⁷⁷

The secret annex of the document encompassed Measures regarding the coordination of the actions of the CMEA interested member countries in the field of the economic and technical-scientific policy towards third countries and their international groups. Due to Romania’s opposition, the diplomatic non-recognition of the EEC was not included in this text. ⁷⁸ According to article 1 of the secret annex, the CMEA member states were to

intensify the coordination of the commercial-economic, currency-financial and credit policy towards third countries and towards their international groupings, especially towards the EEC, towards the international economic organizations, towards currency-financial institutions, as well as the coordination of the actions of the foreign trade organization on the capitalist market.

During the negotiations for the Comprehensive Program, Romania’s stance regarding the question of a CMEA common trade policy towards the EEC had two main characteristics. First, Romania did not want its hands tied by any CMEA common line that could have been agreed upon. Thus, Bucharest contended that, from its point of view, any such policy was unacceptable, because, it argued, it infringed the principle of national sovereignty. On the other hand, however, Romania wanted to profit from any breakthrough that the CMEA could have reached with regard to the abolishment of the EEC discriminatory measures against the Eastern European countries. This is why, in matters regarding the CMEA-EEC relations, it still agreed with intra-bloc coordination of those actions that are of ‘common interest’. ⁸⁰ Contemplating its prospective relations with the Common Market from the CMEA angle, Romania had two main goals in mind: to prevent the CMEA from becoming a barrier to the improvement of its relations with the EEC member states and, respectively, to use the CMEA, whenever and however possible, to secure its interests. As mentioned in its 1971 ‘strategy’ towards the EEC, Romania wanted to enlarge its contacts with the Community’s member states and was ready, if necessary, to deal with the EEC’s bodies as well, even though that would have implied recognition. ⁸¹

From the EEC, Romania needed machineries, equipment and technologies ⁸² – which, for various reasons, it could not produce domestically or import from other CMEA states ⁸³ – but also credit. ⁸⁴ Another reason that Romania had sought economic cooperation with Western Europe resided in its distrust of the CMEA. Given its dependency on the trade with the CMEA, Romania feared the leverage the Council and, especially Moscow, could have had upon itself. To diminish that perceived threat, from the early 1960s onwards, Romania sought to diversify its trade relations and promoted commercial ties with as many countries of the world as possible. Thus, the CMEA’s share in Romania’s foreign trade dropped from two-thirds in 1960 to 37.8 percent in 1975, ⁸⁵ while, by 1972, Romania’s trade with the EEC increased eightfold, compared with 1958. ⁸⁶ However, Romania did not want to replace its CMEA commercial dependency with a dependency on the EEC trade and, with that aim in mind, it sought commercial relations with socialist countries that were not members of the CMEA or with capitalist countries that were not members of the Common Market. As Ceaușescu argued in June 1971, this approach was to prevent one group of countries or another (either the CMEA or the EEC) from forcing upon Romania conditions it did not agree with. ⁸⁷

Thus, in 1971 Romania was ready to approach the EEC directly, but also through the CMEA. Within the Eastern bloc, the Council’s approach to the EEC was, at the time, a subject under debate and, according to the Romanians’ views, different outcomes were possible. In other words, on the one hand, Romania tried to influence the CMEA’s stance towards the EEC in a sense that favoured its interests, but on the other it acted to block any CMEA attempt perceived as being contrary to its interests in this regard. In practical terms, Romania proposed two complementary approaches to the EEC – through bilateral relations and, respectively, through the CMEA bodies. The former was designed to solve concrete problems of bilateral collaboration, while the latter was to create a favorable general framework to allow the improvement of bilateral relations.

Romania Approaches the EEC

According to the EEC’s Common Commercial Policy, from 1 January 1970 onwards, the Western European states were no longer allowed to negotiate and sign trade agreements with third countries. In December 1969, the EEC’s Council of Ministers decided that the CCP would apply to the Eastern European countries as well, but arrangements of a temporary nature were also made, individual EEC states being allowed – provided that they were authorized by the Council – to negotiate and conclude trade agreements with the CMEA member states. Such accords, however, could be concluded only until 1 January 1973 and they could remain in force only until 31 December 1974. ⁸⁸ Afterwards, ‘the scope for bilateral dealings between members of the EEC and those of the CMEA will, to that extent, be reduced’, as a document of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) mentioned. ⁸⁹

In the early 1970s, the problem of the CMEA-EEC cooperation was treated with the utmost concern in Bucharest. For economic purposes, the Romanian leaders were determined to secure the improvement of the country’s relations with the EEC member states. In Romania, the problem of the CMEA’s relations with the EEC was approached mainly from an economic angle. It was observed that the Common Market was an ‘economic reality’, whose policies had and would continue to have a negative impact on the foreign trade of the Eastern European states, Romania’s included. ⁹⁰ It was also argued that the USSR intentionally diminished the importance of the economic aspects of the collaboration with the Common Market, showing ‘the tendency of unconditional subordination of the economic interests of the socialist states to some common political actions’. ⁹¹ Thus, in October 1971, Romania made the CMEA an interesting proposal: in order to improve the Council’s trade, which was under pressure by the discriminatory policies of the EEC, contacts with the Western organization had to be established on two levels – through the CMEA’s bodies and through direct bilateral relations. This Romanian proposal was discussed during the 56th and 57th meetings of the Executive Committee of the CMEA, held in October 1971 and, respectively, January 1972. Mikhail Lesechko, the Soviet representative, argued on both occasions that the CMEA’s relations with the EEC had to be addressed from a common, coordinated position. Direct contacts between the Council’s members and the EEC states, and the official recognition of the EEC would only weaken the common struggle against the discriminatory policies of the Common Market, the Soviet delegate argued. The CMEA position towards the EEC was not only an economic problem, but a political challenge of the greatest importance as well, which could not be solved separately from the problem of the security on the European continent. Because it affected the political interests of the CMEA’s member states, that issue had to be dealt with from common positions, Lesechko concluded. ⁹²

The representatives of the other member states generally agreed with Lesechko. In addition, the Hungarian and Polish delegates stressed the necessity of establishing relations with the EEC. Ion Gheorghe Maurer, Romania’s representative, emphasized that such contacts were necessary in order to diminish the negative effects of the EEC’s discriminatory policies on the CMEA’s trade. Therefore, contacts with the EEC had to be initiated as soon as possible, on a bilateral basis, but also through the intermediary of the CMEA’s bodies. If, however, contacts between the CMEA and the EEC were not established as soon as possible, Romania considered the Council’s members justified in establishing direct contacts with the EEC and concluding agreements, in accordance with their interests. The Executive Committee was unable to make a decision ⁹³ and the problem was referred to the Political Consultative Committee (PCC) of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). ⁹⁴

Although, officially, it was not on its agenda, the meeting of the PCC held in Prague on 25–26 January 1972, also tackled the problem of CMEA-EEC relations. Generally, the participating parties maintained their previous positions. Leonid Brezhnev argued that establishing contacts with the EEC was not only an economic problem, but ‘a political problem of the greatest importance, as well’, which had to be addressed in accordance with the political interests of the socialist states. Militating for a coordinated policy towards the EEC, Brezhnev contended that any independent approach made to the EEC by the CMEA member states would weaken the Council’s position. In concrete terms, Brezhnev argued that the Eastern European states should maintain the position of non-recognition; they should renounce the idea of establishing direct contacts with the EEC bodies, continuing to deal with the Community’s members bilaterally, and should try to use the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) to influence the EEC’s attitude towards the CMEA. Nicolae Ceaușescu argued instead that, in dealing with the EEC problem, the CMEA member states had to start from the premise that:

The Common Market was a reality, that our countries must collaborate with the countries of the Common Market, and that, in this respect, it is necessary for the CMEA to initiate as soon as possible actions to discuss, with the Common Market, problems such as the customs barriers and other barriers.

In the meantime, however, Romania acted to be admitted into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), ⁹⁷ and approached the Common Market independently. The EEC was not a signatory of GATT, but all its members were. Besides, its Common Commercial Policy was articulated through GATT, which – through the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle – prevented trade discrimination against member states. Although Romania became a member of GATT in October 1971, ⁹⁸ it did not receive from the EEC the basic GATT advantages, being treated as a non-GATT member and receiving only those trade opportunities that the Community agreed to grant. ⁹⁹

Moreover, in November 1971, Corneliu Mănescu, Romania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited France, testing Paris’ reaction to Romania’s request to receive inclusion in the EEC’s Generalized Preferences Scheme (GPS), ¹⁰⁰ which would have meant recognizing Romania as a developing country and granting it benefits similar to those given to other developing countries, in accordance with GATT regulations. On 1 February 1972, Gaston Thorn, the President of the EEC’s Council of Ministers, received from the Romanian Diplomatic Office in Brussels a letter of Romania’s Minister of Foreign Trade, Cornel Burtică, through which one requested beneficiary status in respect of the EEC’s GPS. The Romanian diplomats supported Romania’s cause in this respect in the capitals of the EEC member states, reporting a favourable attitude in West Germany, Italy, Belgium and Luxemburg and a more reserved reaction in France and Netherlands. ¹⁰¹

This was the first time when an Eastern European country addressed the EEC directly, asking to be included in the Community’s list of countries benefiting from the system of generalized preferences for the export of manufactured and semi-finished goods from developing countries. ¹⁰² The EEC’s Commission repeatedly postponed its response to Romania’s request, ¹⁰³ and asked for statistical data regarding the country’s level of economic development. Through different channels, Bucharest provided information that placed Romania in the category of the developing countries. ¹⁰⁴

In March 1972, during the 15th Congress of the Soviet Trade Unions, the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev publicly acknowledged the Common Market for the first time. ¹⁰⁵ According to him, ‘the Soviet Union does not ignore at all the existence … of the Common Market’ and ‘carefully follows the activity of the Common Market and its evolution’. The relations between the socialist states and the EEC members ‘will depend, of course, on the measure in which they acknowledge … the interests of the CMEA member states’. ¹⁰⁶ The EEC, however, considered that ‘the CMEA, as at present constituted, is not empowered to deal with third countries’ and therefore ‘there is nothing to recognize’. ¹⁰⁷ Romania, on the other hand was way ahead of the Soviets, as Western Europe acknowledged. ¹⁰⁸

While Brezhnev outlined conditions for a possible East-West cooperation, Ceaușescu was designing actions to secure Romania’s relations with the EEC. In July 1972, at the National Conference of the RCP, the Romanian leader contended that:

Romania preoccupies itself with the development of its ties with different international economic and financial organizations. In this context, starting from the reality of the existence of the Common Market in Europe, we consider it necessary to develop commercial contacts with this organization in order to favour the expansion of exchanges and cooperation with all the member countries of this organization. ¹⁰⁹

This issue was once again tackled during the May 1972 extraordinary meeting of the CMEA’s Executive Committee, when Romania once again took a different stance. It argued that the CMEA members had to independently contact the EEC and its member states because they did not have identical interests when their relations with the EEC were concerned; the CMEA’s Secretariat should be authorized to contact the EEC’s bodies in order to attempt to abolish discriminatory measures against the CMEA states and to facilitate the improvement of bilateral relations between the members of the two organizations; and the contacts between the CMEA and the EEC would have a commercial character and would not lead to the diplomatic recognition of the Common Market. Because the rest of the participants asked for a common CMEA stance towards the EEC, while Romania maintained its separate position, no common policy towards the EEC could be adopted in May 1972 either. Although it was not on the official agenda of the gatherings, the problem was once again addressed during the July 1972 CMEA session and during the meeting of the Executive Committee of the CMEA from October 1972. On both occasions, Romania expressed its different views with regard to the common position towards the EEC. Unable to outline a common approach, in October 1972 the member states postponed making a decision until the meeting of the Executive Committee of the CMEA scheduled for January 1973. ¹¹² Nothing of these disagreements however transpired the public sphere. ¹¹³

Thus, due to Romania’s constant opposition, the CMEA reached the mark of 1 January 1973 without being able to outline a common stance towards the EEC. While the Soviet leader argued against direct contacts between the CMEA members and the EEC, Ceaușescu was publicly advocating the improvement of Romania’s relations with the Common Market. In October 1972, during his official visits in Belgium and Luxembourg, in an interview to a group of journalists, the Romania leader was saying:

I see no contradiction between Romania’s membership in the CMEA and the enlarging of our relations with other states of the world, the countries of the Common Market included. On the contrary, I consider that this thing blends harmoniously.

Politically, the Romanian leadership did not trust its CMEA allies, and especially the Soviet one, but they did not trust a potential agreement between the CMEA and the EEC either, considering that the great powers were tempted to make decisions on behalf of the small countries and to their disadvantage. Thus, on the one hand, in the early 1970s, the Romanian leaders ¹²¹ genuinely believed that a coordinated bloc line in any area, including in this one, would have meant the infringement of Romania’s interests. Within the party debates, nobody expressed a different position in this respect, the general interpretation being that, through the advanced integration project, formally designed to improve the CMEA’s activity, the desired aim was in fact to secure complete control over the economy of the member states, ‘to subordinate them economically, politically and in other ways, to transform them into an annex’, as Ceaușescu phrased it in February 1971. ¹²² While this type of argument, representing the Romanian leaders’ actual conception, was expressed in closed domestic meetings or during different Romanian-Chinese talks, in multilateral bloc gatherings, the Romanian representatives formally registered their opposition to the others’ proposals by arguing that they infringed the principles of national sovereignty, national independence or non-interference in domestic affairs. On the other hand, the Romanians feared that a potential CMEA-EEC agreement would have allowed the great powers to make decisions detrimental to smaller countries. Thus, every time, the Romanians insisted that such an accord could only address the general framework of relations, though without preventing the CMEA’s members directly contacting the EEC. ¹²³ This fear that the EEC might decide to deal directly with the USSR or the CMEA as the representative of its member states manifested itself for years to come in Bucharest. ¹²⁴

While domestically, the Romanians did not exclude the EEC’s diplomatic recognition, at the bloc level, they insisted that the CMEA-EEC relations represented firstly a commercial and not a political problem and that the EEC’s recognition was not yet an issue on the CMEA’s agenda, nor was it on the agenda of the CMEA-EEC talks. Opposing a coordinated CMEA line towards the EEC, Romania aimed, as Ceaușescu summed it up, to secure its trade necessities, in conditions that were as good as possible, and to obtain the best possible conditions in its relations with the EEC. Thus, while the other members argued for only collective actions towards the Common Market, ¹²⁵ Romania fostered direct contacts with the EEC, an approach that began to yield results rather rapidly.

In 1973, the EEC’s Council decided that as of 1 January 1974, Romania was to be included, on special terms, in the GPS. By the end of 1973 those terms were to be agreed upon with the Romanian government. The EEC did not rule out that Romania could become a precedent for the granting of generalized preferences to Eastern European countries, but observed that there were no other requests in that respect. However, careful consideration was to be given to any such applications from the Eastern bloc, as Ivar Nørgaard, the President of the EEC’s Council of Ministers, declared on 3 July 1973 during a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasburg. ¹²⁶ Thus, Romania’s admission ‘did not mean that all COMECON ¹²⁷ countries would automatically be brought in’, as a member of the EEC’s parliament summarized the situation on 13 December 1973. ¹²⁸ As previously agreed, on 1 January 1974, Romania became the first Eastern European state included in the GPS. That was an important step forward, although it allowed only Romanian agricultural products easier access on the EEC’s market. In 1973 Romania signed an economic agreement that encompassed the most favoured nation clause with the German Federal Republic and with Italy, while Netherlands followed in 1975. ¹²⁹

In conclusion, this article found that, in response to the deepening of the Western integration process, Romania defined for itself a very pragmatic approach towards the EEC, in general, and towards the problem of the CMEA-EEC relations, in particular. Elaborated in 1969–1971 and implemented from 1971 onwards, its stance in this regard was designed to satisfy the state’s national interests as they were perceived and defined by the leaders in Bucharest. Romania’s unique stance towards the EEC had several characteristics. Its aim was to secure the improvement of the state’s economic relations with the EEC member states. To reach this goal, Romania was willing to deal directly with the EEC’s bodies, aware that only they were authorized to take decisions in regard to relations with third countries. As far as its opposition to a CMEA common position towards the EEC was concerned, Romania’s stance was consistent with its general foreign policy approach to the Eastern bloc, as defined a decade before. ¹³⁰ That is, Romania opposed any bloc coordination as such, considering that the member states had divergent interests that could not be satisfied by any bloc common line. When agreeing with concrete common measures of actions, Romania was also appealing to the principle of the interested states, so that it could, in case of need, act in accordance with its own interests, even when those interests contravened the commonly agreed measures. In concrete terms, Romania opposed a unique CMEA policy towards the EEC, but agreed with the coordination of those actions that were of ‘common interest’. It militated for a dual approach to the EEC – through the CMEA bodies and through direct bilateral contacts, by the CMEA members. According to the Romanian views, through CMEA-EEC direct talks, one was to create a general framework favourable to conducting bilateral relations between the members of the two organizations (such as the abolishment of the rule of discriminatory measures against Eastern European countries). The CMEA was not to be allowed, however, to conclude agreements and accords with the EEC on behalf of its members.

A prospective research in the archives of the CC of the RCP suggests that Romania’s position towards the problem of the CMEA-EEC relations remained rather constant during the following years. In June 1975, for instance, the Soviet Union and its other allies still argued in favor of no direct contacts between the CMEA members and the EEC and for a unique CMEA position towards the Common Market, while Romania continued to agree with CMEA-EEC contacts and negotiations, only as long as individual member states were not prevented from establishing and maintaining contacts, including official contacts, with the EEC, to negotiate and conclude with its bodies economic agreements and accords. ¹³¹ This is a subject, however, that remains to be addressed in detail in a future study.