Excerpt from The European Common Market and U. S. Agriculture

The European Common Market - its official name is the European Eco nomic Community - consists of six countries - France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These countries have founded an economic union and are taking down the trade walls that have separated them for centuries. Eventually commerce within the combined area will be carried on freely - much as it is among the States of the United States. There will be no tariffs among individual countries making up this customs union, and no restrictions on movement of goods, capital, services, and workers. Like the United States, the Common Market as a unit will have a single policy on im ports from outside countries.

The treaty establishing the Common Market, signed by the six countries in Rome, Italy, in March 1957, also provides for expansion of the Community. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, and Norway have applied for full membership, and eec negotiations looking to accession of the United Kingdom are well advanced. An agreement of association between Greece and the Common Market has been concluded. Turkey, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain are also seeking some form of association With the Common Market.

The Rome Treaty established a transition period, during which the merger of the several economies is to take place. Transition is scheduled to end not later than the end of December 1969, but could be extended to the end of December 1972. The member governments are moving toward the uniform common market in stages of 4 years each, during which internal barriers to trade are progressively abolished. The first phase was completed on January 1, 1962.

Important steps toward merger of the industrial economy were taken during that first phase. There were substantial cuts in internal tariffs, and complete abolition of quota restrictions on industrial goods traded among member countries.

Agriculture was excluded from the first stage because of lack of agree ment on steps to harmonize national agricultural policies. After protracted negotiations, agreement was reached in January 1962 on the first steps to be taken toward a common agricultural policy. During the second phase of the transition period which began on January 1, 1962, progress will be made to ward creating a common market for agricultural products. The first Community-wide regulations for agricultural commodities went into effect July 30, 1962, for wheat, feed grains, flour, poultry and eggs, fruits and vegetables, Wine, live h0gs, and hog carcasses.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.