Walter Hallstein

Walter Hallstein(17 November 1901 29 March 1982) was a German academic, diplomat, and politician, the first president of the Commissionof theEuropean Economic Community and one of the founding fathers of theEuropean Union.

Hallstein began his academic career beforeWorld War II, becoming Germany's youngest law professor at the age of 29. During the War he served as an army officer in France. In 1944 he was captured by American troops and spent the rest of the War in aprisoner-of-war campin the United States. After the War he returned to Germany and continued his academic career until, in 1950, he was recruited to adiplomatic career, becoming the leading civil servant at theGerman Foreign Office, where he gave his name to the Hallstein Doctrine,West Germany's policy of isolatingEast Germanydiplomatically.

A keen advocate of afederal Europe, he played a key role in European integration and in West Germany's post-War rehabilitation, clashing with theEconomics Minister, Ludwig Erhard, on the path ofEuropean integration. He was one of the architects of the European Coal and Steel Communityand became thefirst President of the Commissionof theEuropean Economic Community, which was later to become theEuropean Union. He held the office from 1958 to 1967 and has remained the only German to serve as president of theEuropean Commissionor its predecessors.

He left office following a clash with theFrench president,Charles de Gaulle, and returned to German politics as a member of parliament, also serving as President of the European Movementfrom 1968 to 1974. He is also known for his speeches and writing on European integration and theEuropean Communities.

Early life and pre-War academic career

Walter Hallstein was born on 17 November 1901 inMainz, Germany.[ After primary school inDarmstadthe attended aclassical schoolin Mainz, from 1913 until his matriculation (Abitur) in 1920.

From 1920 Hallstein studied law inBonn, later moving toMunichand then Berlin. He specialized ininternational private lawand wrote his doctoral dissertation on commercial aspects of theTreaty of Versailles.He obtained his doctorate from the Friedrich Wilhelm Universityin Berlin in 1925 at the age of 23.From 1923 to 1926 he was alegal clerk at theKammergericht,and in 1927, having passed his qualifying examination, he was employed for a very brief spell as a judge.He then worked as an academicat the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign Private and International Private Lawin Berlin, where he specialized in comparative commercial and company law, working under Professor Martin Wolff, a leading scholar of private law.He was to remain there until 1930.In 1929 he obtained hishabilitationfrom the University of Berlin, based on a thesis on company law.In 1930, at the age of 29, he was appointed professor ofprivate lawandcompany lawat theUniversity of Rostock, making him Germany's youngest professor of law.He remained inRostockuntil 1941.

Hallstein was a member of several nominally Nazi professional organizations,but he was not a member of theNazi Partyor theSA.He is reputed to have rejected Nazi ideologyand kept his distance from the Nazis.There was opposition from Nazi officials to his proposed appointment, in 1941, as professor of law at theUniversity of Frankfurt, but his candidacy was pushed through by the academics, and he soon advanced to becomedeanof the faculty.

Soldier and prisoner of war (19421945)

Hallstein was taken prisoner by American troops in Cherbourg in 1944

In 1942 Hallstein was called up, and he served in an artillery regimentin Northern France with the rank offirst lieutenant(Oberleutnant).On 26 June 1944, during theBattle of Cherbourg, he was captured by the Americansand sent to Camp Como, a prisoner-of-warcamp inMississippi.

As aGerman prisoner of war in the United States, Hallstein started a "camp university",where he held law courses for the prisoners. As part of theSunflower Project, a project to re-educate GermanPOWs, he attended an "administrative school" atFort Getty, where teaching included the principles of theUnited States federal constitution.Hallstein remained a prisoner-of-war from June 1944 to mid-1945.

Post-War academic career (19451950)

In November 1945 Hallstein returned to Germany,where he campaigned forFrankfurt Universityto be re-opened. Turning down an offer fromLudwig Erhardto be deputy minister at the Bavarian Ministry of Economics,he became a lecturer at Frankfurt University on 1 February 1946, and in April he was elected its rector, a position he retained until 1948. He was president of the South German Rectors' Conference, which he founded.From 1948 to 1949, he spent a year as visiting professor atGeorgetown Universityin Washington DC.

Hallstein was co-founder of the German nationalUNESCOcommittee and was its president from 1949 to 1950.

Diplomatic career (19501957)

Foreign affairs at the Chancellery (19501951)

The Palais Schaumburg (1950), seat of the Federal Chancellery in 1950,

where Hallstein worked before the German Foreign Office was formed

Against the background of theSecond World War, a conflict that had caused massive destruction and left the continent split in two by the Iron Curtain, there were calls for increased co-operation in Europe. TheFrench foreign minister,Robert Schuman, put forward a plan, originating fromJean Monnet, for a European Coal and Steel Community that would unify control of German and French coal and steel production, and talks were started with this aim.Germany had still not regained its sovereignty following defeat in World War II, and was represented internationally by theAllied High Commission.There was no German foreign office and, for a time, foreign affairs were dealt with by theChancellery.

Konrad Adenauer, the GermanChancellor, called Hallstein to Bonn ,at the suggestion ofWilhelm Rpke,and in June 1950 he appointed him to head the German delegation at theSchuman Plannegotiations in Paris,which were to lead to the formation of theEuropean Coal and Steel Community.Jean Monnet, the leader of the French delegation, and Hallstein drew up theSchuman Plan, which was the basis for theEuropean Coal and Steel Community(ECSC), established by theTreaty of Parisin 1951.The ECSC was to develop into theEuropean Economic Community, and later theEuropean Union. In August 1950, to general surprise, Hallstein was made head of the Office of Foreign Affairs (Dienststelle fr auswrtige Angelegenheiten) at the Federal Chancellery(Kanzleramt).At this time, little was known about Hallstein, except that he had not been a member of theNazi Partyand that he was on good terms with US officials.

State secretary at the Foreign Office (19511958)

1955 German Foreign Office building

Second reading of the Paris Treaties in the West German Parliament

on 25 February 1955

Following a change in theOccupation Statute, theGerman Foreign Officewas re-created in March 1951,but the post offoreign ministerwas filled by Adenauer himself. On 2 April 1951, Hallstein was made the leading civil servant at the newly created Foreign Office.[23]Foreign policy continued to be managed by Adenauer himself with his group of intimates, including Hallstein, Blankenhorn, and others. In many respects Hallstein was the foreign minister in all but name.But there was a growing awareness that a separate foreign minister was needed. Adenauer is said to have considered Hallstein for the position, even though he was not a member of a political party.

Hallstein also played an important part in promoting West Germany's goals of regainingsovereigntyand creating aEuropean Defence Community(EDC), of which West Germany would be a member.Negotiations at first resulted in two international agreements:

On 26 May 1952, theTreaty of Bonnwas signed by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and West Germany; onratification, it would largely restore sovereignty to the Federal Republic of Germany (de factoWest Germany, but not includingWest Berlin, which retained a special status).

On 27 May 1952, theTreaty of Pariswas signed by the United States, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and West Germany; on ratification, it would have established theEuropean Defence Community(EDC).

However, the Treaty of Paris failed to obtain the necessary approval of the French Parliament. Instead, a solution involving theWestern European Union (WEU) was agreed, and West Germany was to become a member ofNATO.The efforts to resolve the issues culminated, in 1954, ina series of conferences in London and Paris. The German side was represented by Adenauer, the German chancellor, together with the top civil servants at the German Foreign Office: Hallstein, his colleague Blankenhorn, and his deputy, Grewe.Hallstein helped negotiate various treaties at the LondonNine-Power Conference from 23 September to 3 October 1954; they were finalized at the Paris conference from 20 to 23 October 1954. The conferences in Paris included a meeting of the parties to the Nine-Power Conference in London (20 October), a meeting of the sevenWEUmembers (20 October), a meeting of theFour Powersto end the occupation of Germany (2122 October), and a meeting of all fourteenNATOmembers to approve Germany's membership.

After the ratification of theParis Accordson 5 May 1955, theGeneral Treaty (Deutschlandvertrag), which largely restored (West) Germansovereignty, took full effect, and the Federal Republic of Germany became a member of NATO.

Once the major foreign policy objectives were in hand, Hallstein set about restoring Germany'sdiplomatic service and re-organizing the Foreign Office, based on the findings of the Maltzan Report, a report commissioned by Hallstein on 26 June 1952 and produced a month later byVollrath Freiherr von Maltzan, a former diplomat, at that time on loan from the Ministry of Economics.

There was criticism of a lack of information and consultation and an atmosphere of secrecy, possible resulting from Adenauer's distrust of the old hands at the Foreign Office, theWilhelmstraeveterans, and the desire to fill top jobs with outsiders not tainted by having served as diplomats under the Nazis. There were suggestions of a disconnect between the leadership, consisting of Adenauer and a small group of close advisers, including Hallstein and Blankenhorn on the one hand, and the division leaders at the Foreign Office and thediplomatic missionson the other. In particular, Hallstein was also criticized in the press after the European Defence Community was rejected by theFrench National Assembly, as had been predicted by the German diplomatic mission in Paris.

On 6 June 1955, Adenauer, who had until then been Foreign Minister as well as Chancellor, appointedHeinrich von Brentanoforeign minister and there was a reshuffling of responsibilities, but Hallstein retained the trust of Adenauer and continued to attend cabinet meetings.Herbert Blankenhorn, who until then been the head of the Political Department of the Foreign Office, became the German Permanent Representative to NATO in Paris;Wilhelm Grewetook over the Political Department under Hallstein and was made Hallstein's deputy.

Hallstein was involved in discussions with the French concerning the return of the coal-richSaarto German control. In October 1955 was thereferendumfor the re-integration of theSaarland, following which it was agreed with France that there would be political integration into the Federal Republic of Germany by 1 January 1957 and economic integration by 1 January 1960.[ In September 1956, Hallstein announced that France had agreed to hand over control of the Saar to Germany, and on 27 October 1956, theSaar Treatywas signed.

European integration and the Rome treaties

Economics minister Ludwig Erhard had opposing views on the

path of European integration

.

Members of the German government had different positions on European integration. Hallstein and his team at the Foreign Office advocated a federal solution with a form of "constitutional integration" broadly based on theEuropean Coal and Steel Community, with the scope gradually increasing to include additional sectors, and with true parliamentary representation of the European populace.Hallstein contended that institutional integration was in the interests of a successful German export industry. Ludwig Erhardand the Ministry of Economics argued for a looser "functional integration" and advocated intergovernmental economic co-operation. Erhard opposed supranational structures and characterized the Foreign Office proponents of a federal Europe as out of touch with economic realities.In the dispute, Adenauer finally supported Hallstein,settling the acrimonious, and public, conflict between Hallstein and Erhard.

In 1955 the foreign ministers of theEuropean Coal and Steel Communitymet at theMessina Conference, among other things to nominate a member of theHigh Authority of the European Coal and Steel Communityand to appoint its new president and vice-presidents for the period ending 10 February 1957. The conference, which was held from 1 June to 3 June 1955 in the Italian city ofMessina,Sicily, would lead to the signing of theTreaty of Romein 1957. Shortly before the conference, Adenauer had given up his double post as Foreign Minister and, since Brentano had not yet been sworn in, Hallstein led the German delegation.The agenda included discussion of an action programme to relaunchEuropean integrationfollowing the collapse, in August 1954, of the plans to create aEuropean Political Communityand aEuropean Defence Community, when France failed to ratify the treaty.

On 6 September 1955, shortly before Adenauer's trip to Moscow, Hallstein, standing in for Brentano, attended theNoordwijk Conferenceof foreign ministers convened to evaluate progress made by theSpaak Committee.On 9 November 1955, Hallstein reported the results to the West German Cabinet, where the Ministry of Economics and theMinistry of Agricultureopposed the plans for acommon market rather than afree trade area. The Ministry of Economics feared that acustoms union meantprotectionism; the Ministry of Agriculture was concerned that the interests of German farmers would be betrayed;Franz Josef Straussopposed the perceived discrimination against German industry regarding access touranium.Finally, the chancellor, Adenauer, again settled the dispute between the ministries by a decision in favour of Hallstein and the Foreign Office.When theSpaak Report(theBrussels Report on the General Common Market) was finally presented in April 1956, it recommended a customs union. In the Cabinet meeting of 9 May 1956 there was renewed opposition to the position of the Foreign Office from other ministers, but Adenauer lent his support to Hallstein, and the Cabinet authorized intergovernmental negotiations, to be held at the conference of foreign ministers inVeniceat the end of May, the German delegation again to be led by Hallstein.

In July 1956, Britain had made proposals for theOrganisation for European Economic Co-operation(OEEC) to examine the possibility of a free trade area for industrial goods. The French, mainly interested in Euratom, attempted to separate the debate on the two topics and proposed a compromise treaty under which only the general principles of a common market would be agreed, leaving details to be decided later,but Germany made negotiations on Euratom dependent on negotiations on a common market.At theVenice Conference, theFrench foreign minister,Christian Pineauagreed to intergovernmental negotiations, with three provisos: the economic community was to be established in stages; customs tariffs should be reduced by only 30%; and national governments should not be overly constrained with regard to economic policy. Hallstein warned against accepting the French terms, which in his view meant that the French would push for a quick decision in favour of Euratom and delay the negotiations on the common market. Hallstein was supported by the foreign ministers of the Netherlands and Luxembourg, against France, in demanding a fixed deadline and timetable for the establishment of a common market. TheFrench National Assemblyapproved the commencement of intergovernmental negotiations in July 1956, after the prime minister,Guy Mollet, gave an assurance that Euratom would not impose restrictions on the French nuclear weapons programme.

Another cause of disagreement was the inclusion ofFrench overseas territories in any common market. Erhard strongly opposed this, partly because of the perceived danger of France involving the other member states in its colonial responsibilities. The Foreign Office shared these concerns to some extent but Hallstein andCarstenswere willing to accept the French position, believing it would help gain support from the French National Assembly; Hallstein also accepted the argument of his French counterpart,Faure, that it would benefit Germany. Hallstein helped to strike a deal by which the imports and exports of overseas territories would be treated like products of the mother country and private investment and company branches of other member states would be permitted, thus opening up the overseas territories for German exports. Hallstein helped deal with these problems at two conferences of foreign ministers, one from 26 to 27 January 1957 and another on 4 February.

On 25 March 1957, the six countries Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, and Netherlands signed theTreaties of Rome. Adenauer and Hallstein signed for Germany.The foreign minister, Brentano had largely left the negotiations to Hallstein, so the signing of the treaty represented a major success for Hallstein. It was also Hallstein who explained thetreatiesto the Germanparliamenton 21 March 1957, before they were signed on 25 March 1957.

Choosing the President of the Commission

There had been previous suggestions of Hallstein becoming president of theEuropean Court,but now he was put forward as the German candidate for the president of the Commission, though the Belgian Minister of Economics,Reyand the Netherlands Agriculture Minister,Mansholtwere regarded as the strongest contenders for the position. The conference of foreign ministers on 20 December 1957 could not reach a decision, so when the Treaties of Rome took effect on 1 January 1958, the position had not been filled. At the conference of foreign ministers on 6 and 7 January 1958, however, Hallstein was finally chosen as the first president of the EEC Commission. Hallstein's selection for this position at the head of a major European organization, a decade after the end of World War II, was a major achievement for Germany.

President of the Commission of the European Economic Community (19581967)

Laying the foundations of the EEC

In 1957, barely a decade after the end of World War II, the German Walter Hallstein was unanimously elected the first president of the Commission of the European Economic Community (now theEuropean Commission) inBrussels. He was elected on 7 January 1958,and he was to remain in the position until 1967.

Hallstein's commission, which held its first meeting on 16 January 1958, comprised nine members (two each from France, Italy and Germany, one each from Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands). The tasks it faced included the implementation of acustoms unionand theFour Freedoms, as well as common policies oncompetition,trade, transport andagriculture.

Though Hallstein's personal vision of a federal Europe was clear, theEECtreaty left many questions open. Opinions were divided, for instance, on whether a common market could succeed without a commoneconomic policy, onenlargement of the European Union in particular whether Britain should join and whether the final goal should be a political unionin the sense of a "United States of Europe".

Differing interests and traditions in the member states and differences of opinion among the politicians meant that consensus was difficult. The disagreements that had preceded the creation of the EEC continued after it was established, and these were reflected within the Commission. For instance, theprotectionistCommon Agricultural Policy(CAP), the responsibility ofSicco Mansholt, theCommissioner for Agriculture, was at odds with the liberal foreign trade policy of theCommissioner for External relations,Jean Rey.

In 1961, the British government under

Prime MinisterHarold Macmillanappliedto join the EEC.

Britain had at first been against the formation of the EEC, preferring a looserfree trade area, and later proposed a larger free trade area that would include the EEC and other European countries. The German government, German industry, and especially the Economics Minister,Ludwig Erhard, wanted Britain to be part of an integrated Europe. Hallstein opposed the idea of a wider free trade area at this time, advocating first achieving a greater degree of integration among a smaller number of countries.Discussions on the possibility of a wider trade area, avoiding the tariff wall between the EEC and the EFTA countries, continued, but in the middle of preparations for the negotiations the French government, on instructions from de Gaulle, withdrew. This unilateral action by the French in November 1958 displeased the other EEC members and effectively ended the negotiations. German politicians like Erhard felt that Hallstein and his commission had not done enough to promote the wider free trade area.

Edward Heathled Britain's application to join the EEC.

He shared Halltein's private nature and interest in music.

The six countries of the EEC had decided on acustoms union: they agreed to remove tariffs between one another within a period of twelve years, and to erect a common tariff barrier between themselves and other countries. Seven of the excluded European countries (England, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, and Portugal) responded with an alternative free trade area, EFTA, which also removed tariff barriers between each other, but did not insist on a tariff barrier with other countries. The EFTA convention was signed in January 1960 and was to come into force in May 1960.On 3 March 1960, Hallstein announced a plan for accelerating the implementation of the common market, which commentators regarded as sabotaging hopes of a joint free trade area that included the EEC and EFTA. This invoked the displeasure, not only of the EFTA countries, but also of the Economics Ministry under Erhard.Commentators talked of Hallstein's "religious zeal".

In 1961Harold Macmillan, theBritish Prime Minister, finally gave up the idea of the larger free trade area, and the United Kingdom applied to join the EEC.Edward Heath, asLord Privy Sealin theMacmillan government, led the negotiations in Britain's first attempt to join the EEC. Hallstein, as president of the EEC Commission, was cautious, considering the British application premature.Of British politicians, only Heath was able to establish a rapport with Hallstein.The Financial Times (of 2 August 1961) wrote that Hallstein was one of the least enthusiastic about British membership of the EEC.In British government circles he was at first seen as siding with the French and de Gaulle, against Britain and the other five members of the EEC, who were more welcoming to Britain, and as favouring the French protectionist position.Elements of the British Press, notably theDaily Express, were critical of Hallstein or what he represented.

It was in 1961 that de Gaulle proposed theFouchet Plan, a plan for an intergovernmental "union of states", as an alternative to theEuropean Communities. There was little support from the other European countries, and negotiations were abandoned on 17 April 1962.

While Hallstein had a decidedly federal vision for Europe, and regarded the Commission as a quasi-federal organ,de Gaulle's vision was of aconfederation.From the beginning, Hallstein did not believe that de Gaulle's approach of cooperation betweensovereignnation stateswould be able to realize his vision of a powerful Europe that could play its proper part on the world stage.

De Gaulle also envisaged a pooling of sovereignty in certain areas, such as external defence, harmonization of industrial production and foreign trade, currency, exploitation of resources in overseas territories, and cultural and scientific development, but at the same time he was developing the French nuclear deterrent capability, theForce de Frappe, which he envisaged as part of a European defence capability independent of the United States. This independence from the United States was one of de Gaulle's main objectives; he was against the increased integration of Europe under the umbrella of transatlantic integration as provided for in the Rome treaties.

TheHallstein Commissiondrew up plans and a timetable for an economic and currency union, and Hallstein presented these to theCouncil of Ministersand the European Parliamentin October 1962.

A second attempt by de Gaulle to establish a closer political union in Europe that would be independent of the United States was theFranco-German bilateral treaty on political cooperation. This treaty between France and Germany, which was signed on 22 January 1963, was criticized by other countries as being incompatible with the EEC and NATO treaties. Hallstein and other members of the Commission also criticized the treaty, and this angered de Gaulle. When the treaty was ratified by West Germany, theGerman Bundestagunilaterally added apreamblethat re-affirmed the commitment to close transatlantic ties, the enlargement of the existing European Communities and attempts to secure Britain's accession. Since Britain had firmly expressed its unwillingness to support an autonomous European defence independent of America, de Gaulle regarded the treaty as a failure.

Further attempts by de Gaulle at military cooperation with Germany to the exclusion of America were rebuffed by Erhard (now Federal Chancellor) and his foreign minister Gerhard Schrder.Britain's application for membership of the EEC was vetoed by de Gaulle in 1963, which also further antagonized the other participants.

Confrontation with de Gaulle

As President of the Commission of the EEC, Hallstein had a major confrontation

with French president Charles de Gaulle that resulted in Hallstein's leaving the position.

De Gaulle took a confrontational course on the Common Agricultural Policy, and on 21 October 1964, the French Minister of Information,Alain Peyrefitteannounced that France would leave the EEC if the European Agricultural market were not implemented in the agreed form by 15 December 1964.On 1 December 1964, Erhard, now head of government in Germany, announced that Germany would accede to French demands for a common wheat price, and on 15 December the Council of Ministers laid down common grain prices from 1 July 1967 and instructed the Commission to submit proposals for financing theCommon Agricultural Policy(CAP) by 1 July 1965.

Differences between France and the Commission and especially between de Gaulle and Hallstein were exacerbated when France took over the rotating six-monthPresidencyof the Council in January 1965.

TheCouncil of Ministersinstructed the Commission to submit plans by 1 April 1965 on how to finance theCommon Agricultural Policyas from July 1965, including its financing from direct levies rather than national contributions. This would entail a transfer of revenues to the Community. The ministers representing other countries, in particular the Netherlands, indicated that their national parliaments would not approve transfer of revenues to the Community unless the rights of the European Parliament were strengthened.On 20 January 1965, theEuropean Parliament passed a resolution appealing to the governments to take this step toward strengthening a democratic and federal Europe.Hallstein supported this. Hallstein had received indications that other countries shared his point of view and decided to risk the confrontation with de Gaulle, interpreting the instructions from the Council broadly, with the support of Dutch Commissioner for Agriculture, Sicco Mansholt. The majority of the commission backed Hallstein.

On 24 March 1965, Hallstein presented the Commission's proposals for financing theCommon Agricultural Policy(CAP) to the European Parliament. It was proposed that customs duties collected at EEC borders would go to the community budget and that the Common Agricultural Market would be implemented as scheduled on 1 July 1967 but the customs union for industrial products would also be implemented at the same time, two and a half years earlier than provided for in the Rome Treaty.The proposals would have allowed the Community to develop its own financial resources independently of the member states and given more budgetary powers to Parliament. From 1 January 1966, voting in theCouncilwas to be by simple majority, removing the implicit veto power of individual countries. TheFrench governmentstated it could not agree to this.

Since the legislation would increase not only the Commission's powers, but also the Parliament's, Hallstein had the support of the Parliament, which had long been campaigning for more powers. Before the proposals were presented to theCouncil, they became public, and Hallstein then presented them to the European Parliament on 24 March, a week before presenting them to the Council. When Hallstein put forward his proposals, the Council was already concerned.France rejected the idea of the increased powers for the European Parliament and of the Community having its own independent revenues, insisting that what had been agreed by the Council regarding the financing of the common agricultural policy be implemented by 30 June 1965.He accused Hallstein of acting as if he were ahead of state. France was particularly concerned about protecting the CAP because under a majority system it could be challenged by the other members.

After discussions between France and Germany, a compromise was at first reached, postponing implementation of the agricultural levies until 1970. However, at the Council meeting of 28 June, the Netherlands foreign minister,Joseph Luns, and his Italian counterpart,Amintore Fanfani, insisted that all of the Commission's proposals should be discussed as a whole.German diplomats supported this position, and the German Bundestagpassed a resolution stating that the Commission's proposals did not go far enough.Germany did not want to agree to the plans for agricultural financing without being assured that France would not hinder a general reduction in tariffs in theKennedy Round.

TheCommittee of Permanent Representativesof the foreign ministers produced a report recommending a compromise by making both the agricultural levies and the customs duties available to be used for Community purposes but not centralizing the process; however, Hallstein refused to broker this deal, and suggested employing the common practice of "stopping the clock" until the issue could be resolved.

Under pressure fromCouve de Murville, who was the rotatingPresident of the Councilat the time, Hallstein agreed, on 30 June 1965, to work out a compromise. The same day, however, after consulting with de Gaulle, Couve de Murville announced that no agreement had been reached by the agreed deadline and that the negotiations had failed. France's presidency of the Council, which rotated every six months, terminated on 30 June 1965.

Empty Chair Crisis

Five days later, de Gaulle instructed France's permanent representative to the Council to stop participation in all meetings of the Council of Ministers and the Council of Permanent Representatives that dealt with any new decisions. The French Permanent Representative to the EU,Jean-Marc Boegnerwas recalled, together with 18 high-ranking civil servants and diplomats, and French participation in numerous working groups ceased.

In an attempt to resolve the situation, Hallstein, together withMarjolin, the (French) vice-president of the Commission, drew up a new plan, continuing the provisional arrangement for agricultural finances until 1 January 1970. This proposal was presented to the Council on 22 June 1965.

De Gaulle, however, remained confrontational toward Hallstein and the Brussels "technocrats". In September 1965, he publicly declared his opposition to majority voting and the political role of the Commission. Since a decision required unanimity, there was stalemate, and there was no provision in the treaties to cover such aboycottof the normal running of the Community. At least in Hallstein's eyes, this boycott of the Council was a breach of treaty obligations, and he was unprepared for such a scenario. He instructed the Commission's legal team to examine whether France's actions constituted a violation of the terms of the Treaty by breaking off negotiations and recalling its permanent representative. De Gaulle claimed that Hallstein had exceeded his authority and started a conspiracy with his proposals for strengthening the power of Parliament.

On 20 October 1965 Couve de Murville, in theNational Assembly, pushed for a general revision of the treaties, which was opposed by the other five member states. At the Council meeting of 25 to 26 October they passed a resolution stating that a solution must be found within the provisions of the existing treaties. As a compromise, however, they offered the possibility of an extraordinary meeting of the Council to discuss "the general situation of the Community" without the Commission being invited.

Following the French presidential elections on 5 November and 19 December 1965, de Gaulle accepted this offer. In the negotiations on 17/18 January 1966, the French foreign minister, Couve de Murville, dropped the more extreme of France's demands.

In January 1966, the six foreign ministers agreed to suggest to the Commission that the Permanent Representatives of the ministers should be consulted before making any major proposals and not to publish such proposals before they had been dealt with by the Council of Ministers. The other five took note of but did not formally accept the opinion of the French delegation that for matters of very important national interest, the discussion should continue until a unanimous agreement was reached.

This became known as theLuxembourg Compromise. It was not specified what could be invoked as a national interest and how to resolve disputes, so majority decisions were avoided and until it was abolished by theSingle European Act it became ade factoveto, requiring unanimity for Council decisions. Some concessions were made to French sensibilities; for instance, diplomats no longer presented theircredentialsto Hallstein alone but jointly to the presidents of the Commission and the Council. When the "Empty Chair Crisis" was finally resolved, it had lasted from 30 June 1965 to 29 January 1966.

When the French foreign minister Couve de Murville returned to the negotiating table after Hallstein's official term of office in January 1966, he insisted on Hallstein's departure and the nomination of someone else to be the head of the new commission, which would in future be the commission shared by all three communities when the EEC, the ECSC, and Euratom were merged. Since there was no agreement on a replacement for Hallstein when his term ended on 8 January 1966, he remained in office as a caretaker (based on Article 159 of the EEC Treaty). This also meant that the planned merger of the three communities, which was to have taken place on 1 January 1966, was postponed.

In view of the confrontation with de Gaulle, there was a proposal that Hallstein should be nominated for a further term but that he should serve for only six months. The German Chancellor,Georg Kiesingeragreed to this compromise, but Hallstein considered this was a breach of the Treaty and on 5 May 1967 he asked not to be re-nominated at all.

In this way, the national governments had refused to accept the commission becoming a European executive, blocking Hallstein's vision of a United States of Europe.

Issues behind confrontation with de Gaulle

De Gaulle recognized Hallstein's service to the European idea, but attributed it to German patriotism, serving the interests of Germany, enabling Germany to re-attain a respect and status in Europe that it had lost because of Hitler. De Gaulle resented the status that Hallstein, for him a mere technocrat, was accorded by foreign states. Hallstein, for his part, was watchful that, as representative of the Commission, he was accorded the status normally accorded to a head of state.De Gaulle complained of the Commission usurping a political role reserved for governments and of Hallstein usurping a role reserved for heads of government or heads of state; he attacked Hallstein personally saying that Hallstein was trying to turn the EEC into a superstate, with Brussels as its capital, acting like a sovereign; he talked (in 1965) of defending French democracy against the supranational demands of the Brussels commission and of a largely foreign technocracy.

In his memoirs, De Gaulle wrote of Hallstein:

He was ardently wedded to the thesis of the super-State, and bent all his skilful efforts towards giving the Community the character and appearance of one. He had made Brussels, where he resided, into a sort of capital. There he sat, surrounded with all the trappings of sovereignty, directing his colleagues, allocating jobs among them, controlling several thousand officials who were appointed, promoted and remunerated at his discretion, receiving the credentials of foreign ambassadors, insisting on full state honours during his official visits, eager, indeed, to advance the grouping of the Six which he believes destined to fulfill his ambitions.

De Gaulle,Memoirs of Hope.

According toDer Spiegel, De Gaulle's complaints included:

Hallstein's being frequently received by US presidents, although the Commission had no foreign relations mandate;

Hallstein's claim to be a sort of European prime minister;

the rank of ambassador held by the representatives of the 65 states accredited with the European Commission;

foreign ambassadors' presentation of their credentials to Hallstein (ambassadors normally present their credentials, signed by the countries head of state to the head of state of the host country);

the participation of Commission staff in the Kennedy Round negotiations in Geneva, in negotiations with EFTA, and in negotiations with non-European states, in particular South American states.

Hallstein saw the Commission as having a political role: he is quoted as saying:

In principle, we have no political competences... because there is nothing of that nature in the Rome Treaty. But we have political responsibility because we are a political not an economic enterprise. The Common Market has the goal of unifying Europe politically.

Walter Hallstein

The issue that triggered the Empty Chair Crisis was the financing of the common agricultural policy, which was of critical interest to France: from 1962 to 1964, France had received 46 million US dollars from the agricultural fund, eighty-five per cent of all revenue. However, Hallstein, together with German and Dutch parliamentarians, was accused of using the changes to increase the political power of EEC institutions in ways not envisaged by the EEC Treaty.The French objected to this transfer of political power.

The clash between Hallstein and de Gaulle was really a clash between two opposing visions of Europe, both of which were intended as a radical change from the past.The differences included:

the debate on inclusion of the United Kingdom

the financing of thecommon agricultural policy

the rights of the European Parliament, especially with respect to the budget

majority voting in theCouncil of Ministers.

On most of these issues, de Gaulle regarded Hallstein as an opponent. Hallstein's response to de Gaulle's attacks was also somewhat confrontational, indirectly comparing de Gaulle to Hitler.

Later life (19671982)

Grave of Walter Hallstein at the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Stuttgart

When Hallstein left the Commission at the end of 1967, he was 68 years old.

On 28 January 1968, at an election in Rome, Hallstein was elected president of theEuropean Movement, a private organization founded in 1948 as the umbrella organization of various organizations in favour of European integration. He continued to promote his vision of a "United States of Europe". Hallstein was re-elected president of the organization in 1970, and again in 1972. In 1974, he did not stand for re-election, and on 31 May 1974,Jean Rey, who had succeeded him as President of the Commission, was elected as his successor.

In the run-up to the federal elections in 1969,Helmut Kohl, then minister-president and head of the CDU in the state ofRhineland Palatinateoffered Hallstein the opportunity of standing as a direct candidate in theNeuwiedconstituency in the Westerwaldarea and heading up the CDU party list in the state ofRhineland Palatinate. At the time, the CDU underKurt Georg Kiesingerwas the governing party, and at the CDU "Euroforum 68" congress in Saarbrcken in January 1968, Hallstein was celebrated as the future foreign minister, should the CDU win the 1969 federal election. He proposed to confront de Gaulle and counter his attempts to "devalue" and "weaken" the European Community.However, the party lost the election, leaving Hallstein as a member of the Bundestag, but with no government office.

Hallstein was later approached by Kohl as a possible candidate to replace Heinrich Lbkeas Federal President, but this did not come to fruition.From 1969 to 1972, he was a member of theGerman Federal Parliamentfor theChristian Democratic Union, where he was on the Foreign Affairs Committee and was one of the party's spokesmen for European affairs, along with Erik Blumenfeld andCarl-Ludwig Wagner. In the party, he supported theJunge Union, the CDU youth organization. Hallstein had little personal contact with his constituency, the work being done mainly by his assistant Christian Franck. At the next elections in 1972, he was not re-nominated.In his speeches in theBundestag, he continued to express his vision of European Union. He also spoke out in favour of direct election of the European Parliament. At that time, themembers of the European Parliamentwere delegated by the Bundestag, and direct election was not introduced until 1979.

Having left the Bundestag in 1972 and the presidency of the European Movement in 1974, Hallstein retired from active political life but continued to write and give talks. He moved from his country house in theWesterwaldto Stuttgart, and continued his work as an author.

Hallstein fell ill in early 1980and died inStuttgarton 29 March 1982, at the age of 80.He was buried, following a state funeral,on 2 April 1982at the Waldfriedh of Cemetery in Stuttgart.

Hallstein remained abachelorall his life.

Vision of Europe

Central to Hallstein's ideas on Europe was his vision of a federal Europe. He called European integration a "revolutionary endeavour" that would take a long time.In Hallstein's view European integration was favoured by the external threat from theSoviet blocand the internal threat of conflict between the states of central and western Europe and the political and economic fragility of some European democracies. Integration was intended not only as a defence against the East but also as a way of preventing conflict between the countries of the West.Hallstein and his staff at the Foreign Office aimed for a constitutional framework to guarantee and consolidate European integration, in the federalist sense, a supranational concept that was opposed by the school centred aroundLudwig Erhardand the Ministry of Economics, who advocated intergovernmental, economic cooperation, founded on free trade.

Hallstein spoke early in favour of the proposedEuropean Defence Community, which never came to fruition, and of West German's integration in the West, which he saw as necessary for the solution of other problems, including German reunification.

In a speech in 1953, in London, Hallstein talked of three "dimensions" of European integration:

Intensityexpressed the degree to which member states give up individual sovereignty to create a supranational community.

Extensityexpressed the size of the community, that is the number of member states.

Timeexpressed the order and speed of steps toward complete integration.

He spoke of a trade-off between the different dimensions, for instance: the larger the number of members, the less integration would be possible in a given time. His model included the coexistence of different European organizations of differing size and with differing degrees of integration.Such considerations were particularly relevant to the United Kingdom, which had been more in favour of intergovernmental organizations such as theCouncil of Europeand had shown less interest in supranational organizations like theEuropean Coal and Steel Communityand the proposedEuropean Defence Community.

Though Hallstein first pursued the goal of economic integration, he stated that this was not an end in itself but was a means of achieving a political union that "pool[ed] all the appropriate functions of the member states. TheSchuman Planwas a way for Europe to become an equal partner of the United States and as a way for Germany to "rejoin the organized community of free peoples".Seeing that there was no possibility of complete integration in one step, he envisaged a planned, gradual evolution involving a number of projects, coming together to produce a coherent whole. At first he talked of the "dynamic aspect of the constituent plans" (dynamischer Aspekt der Teilplne), but later of what he called an "inherent logic" (Sachlogik). This meant setting up a situation in such a way that the desired goal would be achieved because people faced with future problems and choices would naturally choose the desired path not automatically, but because the inherent logic of the situation would favour the desired choice. For instance, installing common tariffs would naturally lead to the need for a common trade policy; prescribing free movement for people, services, and capital would tend to lead to a common infrastructure, including a common tax policy, a common budgetary policy, and a common currency.

The Schuman Plan was the first step, applied to the field of economics; the next step was to be defence; these would thennecessarilylead to integration in the related fields of industrial relations and social policy, energy policy and foreign policy.

Hallstein strove for a Europe based on the rule of law ("law in place of force").His concept of European union was that of a "community" based on democracy and the rule of law not a federation (because it was not yet a state), nor a confederation ("because it was endowed with the power of exercising authority directly over every citizen in each of its member states").

A lawyer and an expert in international law, Hallstein saw a strong legal foundation as essential.His model of a federal Europe borrowed from the federal structures of Germany, the United States and Switzerland.Hallstein later wrote that the experience of Nazi Germany led him to distrust not only the idea of absolute and inalienable national sovereignty, but also the British idea of a European balance of power.Partly as a result of the Americans' re-education programme, Hallstein developed an interest in the United States Constitution and American history between independence in 1776 and the ratification of the Constitution in 1788, when the United States was a confederation of states. The problems that the United States experienced were, in his view, due partly to the states defending their sovereignty. He rejected the concept of the unitary nation state favoured by the French, in favour of a federal solution, and concluded that Europe should follow the American path towards a federal solution.However, he wished to retain Europe's diversity and opposed the idea of Europe becoming a "melting pot".

Personal qualities

People who knew Hallstein described his keen intellect, his excellent command of language, and his reliability.But he was also perceived as cold, unapproachable, and excessively intellectual, respected rather than liked.Edward Heath allegedly said of him "He is just a brain." He was also characterized as having a keen sense of duty: Franz Josef Strausscalled him one of the lastPrussians.

Honours and legacy

During his lifetime, Walter Hallstein received honorary doctorates from nine European universities, includingPadua,Sussex,Lige,Nancy,Leuven,Oviedo, andTbingen, and nine American universities, includingGeorgetown,Harvard, andJohn Hopkins.

He was also awarded numerous other honours and prizes.

In 1997, the Walter Hallstein Institute for European Constitutional Law at theHumboldt Universityin Berlin was named in his honour.