The special position of Romania in the CMEA in the 1960s. Based on materials from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs archive

The article examines the French perspective on Romania's position in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). Both countries became something of "dissidents" within their blocks in the first half of the 1960s. France closely monitored the formation of Romanian foreign policy. The author notes that for a long time, Romania, whose industrial production grew fivefold during the first decade of Comecon's existence, had no significant disagreements with the Soviet Union. The first contradictions emerged in the late 1950s and were related to initiatives from the USSR and some other countries regarding the further development of economic integration within Comecon. By 1963, Bucharest's "special position" had already become public. The article is based on materials from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives, most of which had not previously been introduced into scholarly circulation. It primarily concerns reports and analytical notes prepared by French embassies in countries of people's democracy. Romania opposed the specialization of production within Comecon, fearing it would hinder the country's industrial development and revert it to an agrarian path. Bucharest supported the development of East European cooperation along existing lines but categorically denied the possibility of deepening it. Ultimately, Bucharest's position became one of the main reasons for the failure of attempts at large-scale reform of Comecon in 1962-1963. The tone of French assessments of the Romanian position changed in accordance with the evolution of the French view on the development of integration in Western Europe. During the period of skepticism in Paris toward the EEC in the first half of the 1960s and the rejection of supranational trends, Romania's refusal to specialize production within Comecon and its blocking of organizational reform in 1962-1963 were interpreted in Paris as Bucharest's desire to pursue an independent policy and develop its own industry. Subsequently, as France became one of the driving forces behind European integration, the prevailing opinion in French diplomatic circles would be that Bucharest was, in fact, blocking the development of integration in Eastern Europe without offering any concrete solutions.