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Yet despite the rhetoric surrounding it, this integration plan was viewed by Nordic governments mostly as a way of satisfying the criteria of the Marshall Plan without committing too much: there was a refusal to proceed beyond limited cooperation on the technical (creation of the Scandinavian Airlines System in 1946, common position at the GATT negotiations in Annecy in 1949) and strictly intergovernmental levels. Differences between the economies of these states (little-developed Norway, industrialized Sweden, Denmark concentrated on the export of its agricultural products, etc.) also complicated the establishment of a common Nordic market. The Committee’s final report, in September 1958, was thus abandoned. The attraction of the British market and refusal to integrate into the European Community (EC), deemed to be too federalist, finally drove Nordic governments into the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). This alignment with Great Britain spelled the end of regional plans supported especially by social-democratic figures, who sought to protect national industrial activities by playing the game of limited integration. The EFTA convention was thus signed in January 1960 in Stockholm by four Nordic countries, with Finland joining in 1961 as an associate member.
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