Towards a Common Community Personality

Abstract

The external economic and political interests of the Six were perfectly clear even before the Treaty of Rome had been written. It was obvious that Belgium, France and Italy, would, for colonial and geographical reasons, be particularly interested in maintaining and/or creating special links with African and Mediterranean countries. Equally, West Germany, which had since 1951 treated East Germany, for purposes of ‘Internal Trade’ as part of the Federal Republic, and which was by 1958 developing trade with Eastern Europe, would sooner or later wish to intensify its economic links with the Comecon countries.