The customs convention between the Netherlands and the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union was signed in London on 5 September 1944, in three originals, the French and Dutch texts being equally authentic. Plenipotentiaries: Paul-Henri Spaak and Camille Gutt (Belgium), Joseph Bech and Pierre Dupong (Luxembourg), Eelco van Kleffens and Johannes van den Broek (the Netherlands). The governments were still in exile. It is not the 1958 Hague Benelux Economic Union, which replaced it in 1960, nor the clarifying protocol of 14 March 1947.

The preamble seeks, on the liberation of the territories, a customs community as a step toward a lasting union. Article 1: identical import duties according to the annexed tariff — a framework, without lists. Excise and other internal taxes remain, with the right to change the rates. Article 2: no customs duties between the Netherlands and the Belgium–Luxembourg union.

Articles 3–6 set up an Administrative Customs Council, a disputes commission, a council for the regulation of external trade (licences and quotas, at the level of coordination) and a council for commercial agreements with third states. Article 7: common measures are taken by the competent ministers and submitted to domestic authorities.

Article 8, in the 1944 text: ratification and entry into force eight days after the exchange of instruments; denunciation on one year’s notice; the convention falls when the contemplated long-term economic union enters into force. Article 9: provisional application from the reinstallation of the Belgian and Dutch governments, with six months’ notice. The Dutch treaty database records provisional application from 1 May 1945 and force from 1 January 1948, after the Hague protocol recast Article 8.

Spaak announced the signature in a circular of 9 September 1944. The text consulted is the 1944 original published by CVCE, not the 1947 Luxembourg Mémorial consolidation. The later acronym “Benelux” is not the instrument’s name; it is a customs convention.

Cover: the Foreign Office on Whitehall, London, the exile capital at the date of signature; we do not claim the hall. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: London Customs Convention; Convention douanière néerlando-belgo-luxembourgeoise (Londres).