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Tuesday, 21 November 2017

UK exports to the European Union 1975 - 1984

I'm enjoying this series so much, that I'm moving even further into the past.

And before you say anything, yes I know that not all of the countries I've listed were in the EU at the time. And that the EU didn't exist until 1993.

In 1975 the vast majority of British beer exports were headed for Belgium. at the time several British brewers, Whitbread, for example, had a considerable presence in Belgium. Whitbread even had a bottling store in Brussels.

But exports to Belgium suddenly fall off a cliff at the beginning og the 1980's and have never recovered. Why was that? Did some British brewers pull out of the Belgian market? Or were the beers being brewed locally? I believe production of things like Watney's Scotch Ale was moved to Belgium.

The only two other counties to which significant amounts of British beer weere being exported were Germany and France. A note at the bottom of the table reveals the probable destination of much of the beer bound for Germany:

"The figures do not include Ship's Stores for use on the exporting vessel, but stores for NAAFI and similar organisations abroad are included."
The NAAFI runs shops and bars for British servicemen. At this time there were still large numbers of British troops stationed in West Germany.


UK exports to the European Union 1975 - 1984 (thousands of barrels)
Destination 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984
Belgium & Luxembourg 226.2 212.9 179.1 182.0 193.8 166.4 130.9 92.6 85.3 87.3
Cyprus 2.0 3.4 3.2 1.7 1.6 1.0 0.3 1.2 2.6 7.0
Denmark 0.7 0.8 0.9 0.7 0.8 3.4 0.6 0.4 0.3 0.2
France 8.0 9.8 13.9 11.4 14.2 14.6 11.9 12.9 11.9 9
W. Germany 23.9 25.3 27.5 30.9 25.1 19.2 23.5 24.5 22.3 22.3
Greece 0.3 1.6 1.1 0.8 0.5 0.1 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3
Ireland 6.5 9.8 14.8 10.9 9.8 19.6 13.2 28.7 42 68
Italy 4.2 5.2 8.1 10.0 12.8 16.3 25.0 23.6 43.1 50.5
Netherlands 30.0 24.8 29.0 30.3 26.0 24.5 15.4 12.3 9.9 8.4
Portugal 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.7 0.4
Spain 2.1 2.2 3.7 2.8 4.6 2.5 6.6 2.3 4 1.7
Sweden 1.7 1.5 1.9 1.6 2.0 2.0 0.9 4.7 3.4 2.2
Total 305.6 297.4 283.4 283.2 291.3 269.9 228.8 204.0 226.0 257.3
Sources:
Statistical Handbook 1978, page 13.
Statistical Handbook 1985, page 10.
Statistical Handbook 1988, page 9.

6 comments:

  1. Matt21 November 2017 at 01:14

    You're going to have a blank table there in a couple of years: UK exports to the EU 2019-, nil.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Phil21 November 2017 at 02:09

    West Germany and France? In percentage terms, exports to France never get into double figures.

    Ireland and Italy are the interesting ones. Here are the annual percentages, 1975-84, for the key export markets:

    Bel/Lux, 74.0%, 71.6%, 63.2%, 64.3%, 66.5%, 61.7%, 57.2%, 45.4%, 37.7%, 33.9%
    W. Germany, 7.8%, 8.5%, 9.7%, 10.9%, 8.6%, 7.1%, 10.3%, 12.0%, 9.9%, 8.7%
    Ireland, 2.1%, 3.3%, 5.2%, 3.8%, 3.4%, 7.3%, 5.8%, 14.1%, 18.6%, 26.4%
    Italy, 1.4%, 1.7%, 2.9%, 3.5%, 4.4%, 6.0%, 10.9%, 11.6%, 19.1%, 19.6%
    Netherlands, 9.8%, 8.3%, 10.2%, 10.7%, 8.9%, 9.1%, 6.7%, 6.0%, 4.4%, 3.3%

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chap21 November 2017 at 08:57

    Ron – on your figures, annual UK exports to West Germany averaged 24.4 thousand barrels with little annual variation over the period, i.e. 7,027.2 thousand pints. According to a couple of sources (Andrew Dorman in Defence Under Thatcher, and baor-locations.org), there were around 55 thousand British soldiers serving in West Germany from 1960 to the late 1980s, one soldier for every 128 pints exported annually to West Germany, or two pints a week per soldier. Given that I recall my father and his fellow-soldiers being as enthusiastic for German beer as for British, this supports your suggestion that BAOR's beer consumption is the underlying factor behind the West German stats in your table.

    What would be interesting would be to see the equivalent numbers for the USA'S exports to West Germany, i.e. before any craft beer exports and at a time when American imports would undoubtedly be overwhelmingly destined for the PXs on bases like Warner Barracks in Bamberg.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Syd Differential21 November 2017 at 09:46

    @Matt
    Why ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Syd Differential21 November 2017 at 09:51

    My old Dad was one of those squaddies stationed in West Germany and he often spoke fondly of the huge amount of cheap booze he used to consume in the Mess.
    And he said the amount of thieving that went on was a joy to behold - not just of the booze but anything and everything people could get their hands on.
    He put it down to boredom - there was only so much Dad's Army-style training they could do in case of a surprise attack from the Bosche.

    ReplyDelete
  6. dyranian22 November 2017 at 11:32

    By the early 80s, Bass, Whitbread/Campbells, Watneys, McEwans and even Youngs were brewed in Belgium. I assume this would account for the reduction in exports from UK.

    ReplyDelete