In this interview, Helmut von Verschuer, former member of the Private Office of European Commissioner Sicco Mansholt, discusses the Commission’s preparations for the Stresa Conference of July 1958 and explains the importance of the outcome of this conference for the establishment of the common agricultural policy.
In this interview, Helmut von Verschuer, former member of the Private Office of European Commissioner Sicco Mansholt, recalls the difficult negotiations on the common agricultural policy during the first agricultural marathon from December 1961 to January 1962.
Transcription of the interview with Georges Rencki, deputy Director in the Private Office of Sicco Mansholt, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the common agricultural policy from 1958 to 1959, Head of Division responsible for relations with agricultural, industrial and food trade organisations as well as with the trade union sector in the Directorate-General for Agriculture of the European Commission from 1959 to 1968, Head of Division responsible for the policy to modernise agricultural structures as well as for direct aid for agriculture in less-favoured and mountain areas in the Directorate-General for Agriculture of the European Commission from 1968 to 1977, Director responsible for coordinating national policies, studies and analyses in the Directorate-General for Regional Policy from 1977 to 1988, Director responsible for the formulation and implementation of regional policies and the negotiations on reform of the Structural Funds in the Directorate-General for Regional Policy from 1989 to 1991, Special adviser to the European Commission on Regional Policy reform and adviser to four Polish Prime Ministers on European Affairs (1993‒2001), carried out by the Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE) on 23 November 2009 at his home in Tervuren. The interview was conducted by Christian Lekl, a Scientific Collaborator at the CVCE, and particularly focuses on the following subjects: preparations for the common agricultural policy, the introduction and early days of the common agricultural policy, the interaction between common agricultural policy and regional policy, the reforms of the common agricultural policy and the enlargement of the EU to 27.
In this interview, Helmut von Verschuer, former member of the Private Office of European Commissioner Sicco Mansholt, explains the attitude of the United States towards the establishment of a common agricultural policy, and describes his visit to the United States in 1962 with the President of the Commission, Walter Hallstein.