London, 19 March 1962
Secret
Mr McEwen’s Visit
[…]
3. The Australian request for participation first appeared in the communique following a discussion between the Commonwealth Secretary and members of the Australian Government in Canberra last year.1 Since then we have gone along with this in Brussels emphasising only that the timing of any approach to the Six must be carefully chosen.
4. It has, however, become abundantly clear in the course of the negotiations that any acceptance by the Six of Australian participation will be fraught with danger for the negotiations as a whole and for ourselves in particular, for the following reasons:–
(i) It will serve as a precedent for the rest of the Commonwealth. After the last Ministerial Meeting in Brussels a number of Commonwealth representatives indicated to me that their own countries, including India, would like to take advantage of such a situation. Although the Canadian and New Zealand representatives have so far stated that they would not ask for similar facilities they may well find later that, for political reasons, they have no alternative but to do so. Other Commonwealth countries may find themselves in the same position.
(ii) This will provide a ready means of slowing up the negotiations for those, including perhaps some of the French who may wish to do so. There is hardly any aspect in the negotiations in which a number of Commonwealth countries are not involved. Their appearance at the conference table one after another will enable the French to show proof positive of ’the enormous convoy’ which they allege we are attempting to bring into the Community with us.
(iii) We shall have no power to control—or even possibly to influence—what the Commonwealth representatives say. They may well put forward proposals totally at variance with our own. This will enable those among the Six who wish to cause trouble to point out how wide the difference is between the views of Commonwealth representatives and our own; and then to ask how the United Kingdom can really ever join the European Economic Community so long as the Commonwealth takes such a different line.
(iv) A similar danger lurks in the diplomatic field. From the beginning the Delegation has taken tremendous trouble over the handling of the other Delegations both in and out of the conference room, so far with considerable success. The Commonwealth representatives will have had experience of this; indeed some of them are known to be openly hostile to the Community. I fear that one speech from a Commonwealth representative may undo the patient work of many months.
(v) Yet another danger is that the Delegations will listen to the Commonwealth representative patiently, be extremely pleasant to him and thank him politely. After this he will be asked to withdraw. He will therefore never hear their real reaction to the views he has expressed. The result will be that he will report to his Government that he was very favourably received by the Six; any failure later to achieve his objectives will of course be blamed on the conduct of the British Delegation.
(vi) Worse than this there are some signs that the French Delegation would like to use Commonwealth participation as a means of ganging up the Commonwealth with the Community against the United Kingdom. This could be done by making proposals in the conference room to the Commonwealth representatives—for example in cereals—which would suit both the Community and the old Commonwealth but which would be quite unacceptable to us for balance of payments reasons.
5. For all these reasons I view the possibility of participation with the greatest foreboding. I would therefore like to limit it to the minimum. If you suggest to Mr McEwen that he should accept the proposal, if offered, that an Australian representative should make one appearance at official level to express his views over a whole range of problems, I hope it will be possible for you to do so without indicating that we regard this as a means of getting a foot in the door so that participation can then be extended to discussions on and problems at other levels.
6. I am sending a copy of this minute to the Home Secretary and the Commonwealth Secretary.
1 Document 150.
[UKNA: DO 159/57]