WI/AHC - EFTA Wank EEC Screw

What would be the impact if the European Free Trade Association became the leading trade bloc at the expense of the European Economic Community, also what would the best way of bringing about such a scenario where some members of the EEC's Inner Six are persuaded to join EFTA?

While the UK was the leading member of the OTL EFTA (prior to joining the EEC in 1973), how would the presence of ATL states for example such as a unified Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and Western Bloc Czech state (plus others) in EFTA affect things in relation to the EEC?
 
The Inner Six were deeply committed to European integration for their own reasons. France and West Germany desperately wanted to institutionalize Franco-German cooperation, for instance, while Benelux wanted to take part in a deep binding scheme of regional integration, and Italy desperately wanted to find some way to modernize.

I suppose that EFTA might emerge as the dominant organization if the EEC never takes off, failing in a way not unlike the European Defense Community.

A unified Scandinavia--presumably Finland ends up swallowed into the Soviet bloc, if not the Soviet Union, and the Swedes decide against neutrality?--is probably not likely to join the EEC during the Cold War.

As for a non-Communist Czechoslovakia or Czechia, it's not at all clear to me that it would be especially interested in any particularly close Western alignment, never mind in European integration during the Cold War. Communism was deeply popular among the Czechs for a variety of deep-seated reasons, not least of which was a sense of betrayal by the Western powers in Munich and profound hostility towards the Germans. A neutralist Czechoslovakia or Czechia, frankly, strikes me as much more likely than a NATO-aligned Czechoslovakia or Czechia.
 
Would Charles de Gaulle being killed sometime in the early-60s (around 1961-1962 with Gaston Monnerville being temporary president) for example be enough to diminish the EEC or are there other potential PODs that together can lead to the EEC failing to take off with the EFTA emerging as the dominant organization?
 

Devvy

Donor
Would Charles de Gaulle being killed sometime in the early-60s (around 1961-1962 with Gaston Monnerville being temporary president) for example be enough to diminish the EEC or are there other potential PODs that together can lead to the EEC failing to take off with the EFTA emerging as the dominant organization?

From a rough recall, I think no CDG would actually help the EEC. His insistence several times on making it intergovernmental rather then supranational, vetoes for France, and all around attempts to make France the dominant power of the EEC caused multiple headaches. I think you want a Germany less insistent on attaching itself to western Europe; maybe Schumacher wins the 1949 election, and attempts to work with the Stalin Note for a neutral unified Germany (even if it's a bluff, it'll kill German->EEC notions most likely). You then have a ECSC/EEC that's not particularly going places with the Benelux/France/Italy as members.

Problem is the the nascent ECSC/EEC might end up as a watered down version - basically a glorified trade pact, which was exactly want the EFTA members wanted. So instead, you get a wide-ranging (both in terms of product portfolio and geography) free-trade pact across Europe. Where Europe goes after that is anyone's guess.
 
Not sure about killing de Gaulle though. A successful military coup in France in the early sixties and continuing dirty war in Algeria would pretty well kill the EU stone dead if the Generals were able to hang on until (say) 1975 when Franco and Salazar died. A Latin Spring?
 
Not after completely stopping the EEC or preventing Germany from joining, though some instability and other PODs (including though not limited to the partition of Belgium and potential rattachism, etc) would not hurt in order to create a situation where EFTA is viewed as a better alternative by the likes of Italy and the Netherlands.
 
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