The UK Role in the Europen Community : EEC Energy Policy at the Eve of the Oil Crisis

Energy policy was intended to be the single most important British contribution to the ‘re-launch’ of the enlarged European Community. It eventually turned to nought and the European response to the 1973 oil crisis represented probably one of the worst moment in the history of European construction. Genuinely supportive of an active British role in the Community, Edward Heath and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office hit with growing hostility especially from officials in the Department of Trade and Industry and the personal opposition of the latter’s secretary, Peter Walker. The crux of the problem was the status of North Sea oil, on which many quarters in Whitehall wanted to keep full national control. All in all, the study of the decision-making process points to the persistence even in the 1970s of an incapacity on British part to make a clear choice between short-term national gains and Community developments favourable to the United Kingdom on the long term. By the end of 1973 this fundamental ambiguity had pushed Great Britain into isolation in Europe.