London, 10 October 1961
Secret
Thank you for your message of October 6 about the Common Market negotiations.1
Like you I am glad that the recent consultations between our officials are friendly and constructive.
As regards Ted Heath’s statement on October lOth I can assure you that it will not suggest that any item of Australian trade is expendable.2
The first of a number of possible solutions which he is suggesting is the continuation of unrestricted duty free entry. However it is unrealistic to expect that it will be possible to keep everything just as it is. We shall therefore (as you will see from the summary of the relevant sections of the statement which our High Commissioner has been instructed to convey to your Government) express our readiness to explore with the Six various other ways of protecting essential Commonwealth interests.
When we know more about the possible alternatives before us we shall of course need your advice.
1 Document 157.
2 Heath’s statement in Paris on 10 October 1961, as head of the British negotiating team, formally opened Britain’s EEC membership negotiations with the Six. Heath laid particular stress on Britain’s new-found political commitment to European unity, solemnly declaring Britain’s desire ‘to become full, wholehearted and active members of the European Community in its widest sense’. He assured the Six that Britain’s application represented a genuine conversion to the ideal of European unity, and in that sense marked ‘a momentous decision’ and ‘a turning point in our history’. Although he did not underestimate the difficulty in reconciling British membership of the EEC with membership of the Commonwealth, he expressed confidence that solutions could and would be found. He reminded the Six that ‘the Commonwealth makes an essential contribution to the strength and stability of the world’, and underlined the importance of ‘sound economic foundations’ in cementing Commonwealth unity and vitality. He therefore emphasised that it was ‘in the interests of all of us around this table that nothing should be done which would be likely to damage the essential interests of its Member Countries’ (British White Paper, The United Kingdom and the European Economic Community, Cmd 1565).
[NAA: A1838, 727/4/2 PART 1]