Percival, Mark Landon; (1997) British-Romanian relations, 1944-65. Doctoral thesis , University of London.

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Abstract

Throughout the period 1944-65, Britain confined itself to protecting its direct interests in Romania and these were fairly narrowly defined. Moreover, relations with Romania were always dominated by wider considerations of foreign policy and the state of the domestic economy. Thus from 1944 to 1948, they were determined by London's desire firstly to maintain the Anglo- Soviet alliance against Hitler and afterwards to achieve a post-war modus-vivendi with Moscow which would preserve British influence in the Mediterranean. British policy makers were therefore keen to avoid any East-West tension over political developments in Romania. While there was some British interest in resuming trade, possibilities were severely constrained by Soviet economic domination of the country. Romanian expropriation without compensation of British commercial assets in 1948, together with the regime's failure to honour pre-war debts and wartime damages obligations provided an irritant to British-Romanian trading relations, which was only partly resolved by the 1960 trade arrangement and payments agreement. This accord was the result of increased interest by both Britain and Romania in bilateral trade from the late 1950s, when Bucharest's industrialisation programme created opportunities for British companies and the climate of East-West relations improved. The period 1956-60 was the most promising one in British-Romanian relations. However, the related problems of Romania's bilateralist approach to trade and Britain's strict quotas on Romanian agricultural exports prevented the 1960 accord from having any major effect in expanding commercial exchanges between the two countries in the long term. Britain was unwilling to grant trade concessions to Romania for political reasons when Bucharest began to demonstrate some independence of Moscow in the 1960s. Thus, in spite of Romania's dispute with Moscow, by 1965 it was clear that there were limits to the possibilities for the development of British-Romanian relations.

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