UK rejects Dover funding bid for more French passport booths.
Macmillan worked with states outside the European Communities (EC) to form the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which from 3 May 1960 established a free-trade area. As the EEC proved to be an economic success, membership of the EEC started to look more attractive compared to the EFTA.[214] A report from Sir Frank Lee of the Treasury in April 1960 predicated that the three major power blocs in the decades to come would be those headed by the United States, the Soviet Union and the EEC, and argued to avoid isolation Britain would to have decisively associate itself with one of the power blocs.[214] Macmillan wrote in his diary about his decision to apply to join the EEC: "Shall we be caught between a hostile (or at least less and less friendly) America and a boastful, powerful 'Empire of Charlemagne'-now under French, but later bound to come under German control?...It's a grim choice".[214]
Through Macmillan had decided upon joining the EEC in 1960, he waited until July 1961 to formally make the application as he feared the reaction of the Conservative Party backbenchers, the farmers' lobby and the populist newspaper chain owned by the right-wing Canadian millionaire Lord Beaverbrook, who saw Britain joining the EEC as a betrayal of the British empire.[214] As expected, the Beaverbrook newspapers whose readers tended to vote Conservative offered up ferocious criticism of Macmillan's application to join the EEC, accusing him of betrayal. Negotiations to join the EEC were complicated by Macmillan's desire to allow Britain to continue its traditional policy of importing food from the Commonwealth nations of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, which led the EEC nations, especially France, to accuse Britain of negotiating in bad faith.[214]
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