Later Benelux Problems

Abstract

At the same time as its political activities in connection with the negotiations for the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community and with the implementation of that Treaty, Dutch organised agriculture has been politically active over the various issues involved in the further progress of the Benelux Customs Union. These issues have centred around the implementation of the Agricultural Protocols of 1947 and 1950 and the decision of the Committee of Ministers on 3 May, 1955, to harmonise the agricultural policies of the Benelux countries over a period of seven years in order to make possible the free exchange of agricultural products on a common market. The core of the political activities of Dutch organised agriculture over the later Benelux problems, as over the problems of the implementation of the European Economic Community Treaty, has been its close relationship with the Ministry of Agriculture. There has been constant consultation and co-operation between the Landbouwschap and the Ministry, continuing under three Ministers and one acting-Minister. Together organised agriculture and the Ministry of Agriculture have attempted to raise agricultural considerations higher in the priorities of the Dutch Government. The political activities of organised agriculture have been partly directed at the Ministry of Agriculture; partly at other Ministries through such channels as the Central Organ for Foreign Economic Relations, the Benelux Committee of the Social and Economic Council, and the Second Chamber; and partly at the governments of the other Benelux countries represented in the Committee of Ministers and its substructure of intergovernmental committees, through such channels as the two consultative bodies, the Benelux Interparliamentary Consultative Council and the Special Benelux Committee.