There were also other different agendas when it came to the European Union. Germany wanted wider markets for industrial products; France wanted support for a painful process of the reduction of agricultural activity. So at several levels there were divergent agendas with convergent results.

France was concerned about American economic power, while Germany was not. France was worried stiff about having lost any share in world domination. And Germany for a period was quite genuinely pro-free trade. Ludwig Erhard, who did for economics what Adenauer did for politics, thought that with America on his side one could fight for free trade.

Initially Erhard was skeptical because he feared that Europe might introduce obstacles in the way of free trade. The speech he made in the German parliament in 1957 during the ratification debate on the Treaty of Rome is quite extraordinary. Nine-tenths of it is a very powerful free-trade argument against the EEC, and then he suddenly ends by saying, "I suppose these days young people need ideals, and here is the new ideal, and who am I to stand in the way of new ideals for young people? And so I too support the Treaty of Rome."