Protectionism and European Trade in Manufactures

means ranging from straight quota restrictions through ’voluntary export restraints’ (VERs) and ,orderly marketing arrangements’ to subsidisation of certain firms and industries. This creeping protectionism is ostensibly directed at non-Community suppliers, but in practice it is also raising new barriers to the free flow of intra-Community trade. In some quarters it is being argued that, to avoid the ’Balkanisation’ of the Community, protection, which in these same quarters is seen as necessary for the preservation of Europe’s manufacturing industries, must be generalised and applied to Europe as a whole, that is the EC and its EFTA associates. (2) Another school of thought sees in protection, again at the European level, a remedy for high and persistent unemployment, arguing that it would permit reflation that would otherwise entail an insupportable increase in the volume of imports of manufactures. Chatham House and the National Institute have