Complex Neighbor Relations: Spain and Europe from the Cold War to General Franco’s Death

Abstract

Between Spain and Europe there were complex and changing neighbor relations between 1947 and 1975, with alternating periods of dialogue and tension. The lack of balance and the dissymmetry of those relations as well as the authoritarianism of Franco’s regime prevented good neighborhood relationships from taking shape. This article nuances the question of Spain’s maginalization, taking into account the fact that Spain was associated with Western defense as early as 1953; was integrated into the capitalist system beginning in 1957 and was tied to the EEC by a commercial agreement signed in 1970. The neighbor relations between Franco’s Spain and Europe was not lacking in ambiguity. But since that period, pro-European sentiment in Spain, a product of the political culture of the antiFranco opposition and of Spanish administrative, intellectual and economic elites - progressively took shape in the 1950s-60s and it explains in part the strong wishes of the Spanish people to become a full member of the EEC after 1975.