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The History of the Common Market*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Leopold Kohr
Affiliation:
University of Puerto Rico

Extract

The successful establishment of the European Common Market on January 1, 1959, has renewed interest in the tool by which this most ambitious of all economic integration projects has been accomplished. The interest is the greater as this is only the first of three attempts to integrate economic development on a continental scale. The others are the common markets envisioned for Africa and Latin America. This article is an attempt to convey in the briefest possible space the history of economic integration that preceded the current drive toward common markets.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1960

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References

1 The treaty ending the customs annexation of the Saar to France was concluded with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1956. By this treaty the Saar was politically restored to Germany on June 1, 1957, and economically on July 5, 1959.

2 On the basis of a new treaty of 1960, three of the signatories of the 1958 agreement— Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras—have committed themselves to establish their full common market within five years.

3 For a complete list of documents relating to the establishment of customs unions from 1815 to 1949 see: Viner, Jacob, The Customs Union Issue (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1950), pp. 141–69Google Scholar. A list of past and present unions up to 1949 is contained in Kohr, Leopold, Custom Unions, a Tool for Peace (Washington: Foundation for Foreign Affairs, 1949)Google Scholar. Both volumes contain documentary material and bibliographies compiled by the author of this article. The data Ln this article and the accompanying diagrams are based on research leading to these two publications. The years referred to are those of the conclusion of common market treaties, not of their entry into force, which in most cases took place the year following their signing. The treaty year, rather than the year of entry into force, has been chosen to facilitate quick location of basic documents.