This chapter explores the role played by Gutt in the negotiations that led to the conclusion of the Benelux monetary and trade agreements between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, also known as the Benelux agreements. These agreements are important for several reasons: First, because they reflect the importance of financial and economic diplomacy in shaping the postwar order; and secondly, because they encapsulate most of the questions that would dominate the debates in the history of European integration such as the place of Britain and the future of French economic policy.

This chapter argues that the discussions that led to the first monetary and trade agreements concluded by the three Benelux nations. However, these agreements posed some political challenges for the Belgians in exile despite their potential benefits for the development of the country's external trade. These challenges would lie both in preserving the country's national sovereignty and in convincing its partners to adhere to the principles of trade openness. Conversely, the Benelux agreements also show the extent to which the ideas for such cooperation were in fact nothing new and had to be put in the context of the failed attempts of Belgium in the interwar period to build some kind of a Western European bloc. Finally, these plans have to be considered in their wider context as an alternative to the Anglo-American plans for the postwar monetary order.