An economic community without an economic policy

A cold and bleak EEC summit, which belatedly and half-heartedly celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Rome treaties, came to an end in a cold and bleak Brussels on March 30th. It was far from being the EEC's finest hour, and it was symbolic that it was marked by the death, on Monday, of the community's first, longest-serving and most powerful president, Walter Hallstein. Some would date the slow decline of the organisation from the day in June, 1967, when Hallstein tendered his resignation as president of the EEC commission. He had no doubt himself that the malaise had set in earlier, in January, 1966, when the deal exacted by General de Gaulle gave individual member states the right to veto any decision of which they disapprove.