Committee of European Economic Co-operation

[4]In addition, Marshall made it clear that the United States insisted that this program for Europe must be drafted and put into action by joint European agreement.

[4]On 14 June 1947, the French Foreign Minister, George Bidault, invited his British counterpart, Ernest Bevin, to Paris to discuss the proposal by the United States.

[7] On 17 June 1947, the two foreign ministers, along with subject matter experts, commenced a meeting to discuss tariffs and trade barriers, monetary reforms, and aid priorities.

[9] This meeting soon revealed basic disagreements between France and Great Britain on one side, and the Soviet Union on the other, leading to the breakdown of discussions on 2 July.

[14] The first reaction by the Soviet Union was delivered on 15 June 1947 in an editorial in Pravda, the official Communist Party organ, denouncing the proposal as an attempt by the United States to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

[14] After the breakdown of the Big Three Conference and the departure of Molotov from Paris, the Soviet Union persuaded its satellite countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia) and neighboring Finland to refuse the invitation to join the European co-operation committee.

[3][15] The discussions on the details of the Marshall Plan (officially called the European Recovery Program, or ERP) counted 16 European participating nations: Austria, Belgium, Denmark (with the Faroe Isles and Greenland), France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy (with San Marino), Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal (with Madeira and the Azores), Sweden, Switzerland (with Liechtenstein), Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

[3] On 12 July 1947,[6] 48 diplomats representing those 16 nations started meetings at Quai d'Orsay in Paris, France, with an invitation to the Soviet Union and her satellite states to join the conference in progress.

[13] The Committee of European Economic Co-operation was also known as the Conference of Sixteen, referencing its 16 participant nations,[16] and was chaired by the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevins.