Carine Germond

An Emerging Anti-Reform Green Front? Farm Interest Groups Fighting the ‘Agriculture 1980’ Project, 1958-1972

Ten years after the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the so-called Mansholt Plan was the first attempt at radically transforming European agriculture and modernising agricultural structures. Drawing upon archives of national and Community-level farm interest groups as well as records of the European Commission, this article analyses the reactions of farm interest groups to the Mansholt Plan and their strategies to oppose it between 1968 and 1972. It explores the resistance of farmers and their professional organisations to agricultural change. In particular, the article sheds new light on the reasons behind the spectacular failure of the plan and examines the long-term consequences of that failure for farm interest groups, the Commission and the member-states. It scrutinises initial reactions from farm organisations, examines the debates over the family farm (a core economic and cultural element of European agriculture), and discusses the national and transnational lobbying and protest strategies used by farmers to oppose the plan. The article contributes to a deeper understanding of the origins of transnational societal mobilisation in post-war Western Europe and highlights the impact of national and European interest groups in EC-level policy-making.

Introduction Old Foes and New Friends

It is now a commonplace to regard France and Germany as playing a decisive role in Europe. Over the past few decades, numerous labels have been used to characterize their “special relationship”: couple, pair, axis, tandem, privileged partnership, engine, motor, locomotive, linchpin, alliance within the alliance, detonator, and so forth.1 These manifold characterizations refer in one way or another to the volume of communication and exchanges existing today between the two governments and the degree to which they have been institutionalized. What they all have in common is the dynamic and usually positive qualities they impart to Franco-German relations in Europe. That the two countries would play such a constructive role was by no means evident given the violent legacy of their history. Indeed, the history of Franco-German relations before 1945 is characterized by a long-lasting antagonism feeding on rivalry for territory and hegemony on the European continent, as well as humiliated national sentiments and revenge discourses.

Die deutsch-französische Verständigung als Wegweiser für eine europäische Gesellschaft?

Die deutsch-franzosische Annaherung nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg war das Ergebnis einer politischen Entscheidung, die der nuchternen Feststellung zugrunde lag, dass nur die Aussohnung zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland den Frieden und einen dauerhaften und erfolgreichen Wiederaufbau Westeuropas ermoglichen wurde. Vom Anfang an hing also die Bereitschaft zur Kooperation diesseits und jenseits des Rheins von der Uberzeugung der politischen Verantwortlichen und einiger gesellschaftlicher Akteure ab, dass beide Lander nunmehr aufeinander angewiesen waren.