1.0 Introduction: What and Where Is Europe?
Europe is a commonly used geographical term, referring to the western part of the Eurasian land mass. In the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Arctic Ocean it has clear maritime boundaries respectively to the west, the south, and the north. This peninsula lacks an equivalently clear boundary to the east – a fact that remains a source of controversy to this day, since uncertainty over Europe's borders means uncertainty over which countries can become members of the European Union. As a result, who and what counts as European is contested, especially in the case of Russia and Turkey, countries with territory in both Asia and Europe (see Box 1.1).
Box 1.1 Key Debate: Where Are the Boundaries of Europe?
With 28 current member states, the EU clearly does not encompass all the countries that make up modern Europe. For instance, the Council of Europe (a human rights organization) consists of 47 countries, thereby including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey in its definition of Europe. Identifying a geographical boundary between Europe and Asia is inherently problematic. Physical features of the landscape have been used to this end, notably the Caucasus mountains and the Urals in Russia. Yet relying on these features means excluding Turkey, which actually has a land border with the EU, and splitting Russia into two. Moreover, for many centuries the Mediterranean was a common cultural and economic space, with North Africa and the Levant closely tied to Southern Europe – a tradition begun under the Roman Empire, which called this body of water mare nostrum, “our sea.” Morocco's unsuccessful application to join the EEC in 1987 suggests that the possibilities of EU enlargement south of the Mediterranean are slim. However, the EU is ambiguous about how it defines Europe; the founding treaties do not provide a formal definition as to which countries are considered European, and hence potential EU member states. Hence the EU's frontiers in the East remain rather uncertain, at least until one reaches Russia – which, for reasons of size, prestige, and sovereignty, can realistically only be an EU partner rather than a member state. Many of the countries in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Caucasus would like to reap the economic and political benefits of EU membership. Moreover, Turkey has been negotiating to join since 1987 – so far without success (see Section 5.6 for a discussion of enlargement).
The notion that Europe is a geographical and cultural entity separate from Asia was articulated already by the ancient Greeks, who sought to distinguish themselves from their fierce rivals and neighbors, the Persians. Indeed the very word “Europe” derives from a Greek myth recounting how Zeus, father of the gods, abducted a princess named Europa
. So, as well as being a continent, Europe is a concept used to explain and justify separateness. Hence this chapter first sets out the reasons behind the development of Europe as a political idea indicating separateness from Asia – which, by the seventeenth century, also meant a common political space with unique characteristics. In fact, as explained in Section 1.1, this political vision replaced an earlier religious definition, which based separateness on a common religious identity.
Historically, the political understanding of Europe arose in tandem with proposals for uniting the continent. Early ideas and pioneers of integrating rival European countries into a single political system were concerned with security, for states and citizens alike. A continent divided into rival states was free from the menace of absolute rule by one leader or country, but this carried a high cost. States frequently resorted to war in order to defend their territory, the dynastic claims of their princely rulers, or the freedom of religious expression. Section 1.2 outlines how schemes for integration were designed to put an end to violent competition between those countries. Through the creation of common political institutions, European unity came to be seen as a way to keep a certain degree of autonomy without suffering the depredations of inter-state warfare. These proposals continued until the 1930s, just before Europe tore itself apart again, in the Second World War.
Although the idea of European unity has always presupposed building institutions to allow cooperation beyond the state, different justifications for integration have been put forward. Hence, in addition to charting early models for uniting Europe that predate the institutional developments after 1945 discussed in Chapter 2, this chapter surveys the history of different ideas about what integration is actually for. As analyzed in Section 1.3, the oldest justification for unity is the concern to bring peace, or to civilize a continent that has struggled to protect citizens' rights. Beginning in the period between the two world wars, another justification was articulated. This was the idea that looking beyond the nation-state would bring not only peace but also economic benefits. This prosperity justification, examined in Section 1.4, also played a key role after 1945, as states sought economic reconstruction. Finally there is the justification that common institutions can actually equip national governments to tackle complex cross-border problems more effectively. This idea, discussed in Section 1.5, grew in popularity as the Second World War was coming to an end and states were looking to new instruments for governing complex societies. Indeed, to various degrees, all three justifications have been present during the institutional development of integration examined in the subsequent two chapters.
1.1 The Historical Background to Thinking about European Unity
In ancient times, Europe was a cacophony of tongues spoken by a multitude of ethnic groups with differing religious and cultural practices – a rich diversity still reflected in the heterogeneity of EU member states today. There were certain notable periods of unity, as during the Roman Empire, which at its peak (around 100 ce) ruled the greater part of Europe, and at the time of King Charlemagne's conquests (768–814 ce). These were short-lived though, and they left religion – not a common ruler – as the principal object for European self-identification (Le Goff 2005).
Christianity began to form the basis of European identity as the Germanic and other tribes that overran the Roman Empire converted to the religion of the cross. The Christian element of Europe was underscored in 1095, when Pope Urban II called for volunteers to travel to Byzantium (Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul) to wage a holy war – that is, a crusade. Muslim warriors had for several centuries taken control of Jerusalem and were now threatening the chief city of the Byzantine Empire, formerly the Eastern capital of the Roman Empire. Kings, princes, knights, and even peasants across Western Europe participated in crusades to the Holy Land until the thirteenth century. Crusaders set out with the intention not just of preventing the fall of Byzantium but also of “liberating” Jerusalem and other biblical lands from under non-Christian rule.
Religion thus served to differentiate Europe from the peoples further east. Even after the end of large-scale crusading, Catholic popes such as Pius II (1458–1454) renewed calls for a holy war to fight non-believers in the East. With the fall of Constantinople to Turkish forces in 1453, the Muslim Ottoman Empire began its incursions into Greece and the Balkans, eventually reaching what is today Hungary. The Europe the Popes wanted to defend against this invader was the respublica christiana, the “Christian republic” also known as Christendom (den Boer 1993). Indeed it was in this period that George of Podiebrad, the king of Bohemia, appealed to his fellow monarchs to unite in order to protect Christianity – a plea sometimes seen as the first project of European union (Le Goff 2005, 158–159).
If Christendom was considered separate on religious grounds, a secular political interpretation also came to be attributed to the geographical expression Europe. As the Ottoman threat receded, European Christianity was further divided by the sixteenth-century Reformation, so that it was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth century that thinkers discussed the “natural republic of Europe” (Deudney 2008, 136–160). By this they meant that the territorial units into which Europe was divided produced a sort of republican order, whereby no single state dominated. Like in a republic rather than in a monarchy, there was no single ruler, and combinations of states could check the hegemonic ambitions of a powerful monarch such as the French King Louis XIV – a process resembling institutional checks and balances found in republican constitutions. Of course, this so-called order contained a great deal of violence: states, led mostly by kings, would often resort to war in their disputes. Nevertheless, this understanding of Europe as a shared political space with unique characteristics – notably territorially bounded states led by secular leaders – replaced the older notion of Christendom (Schmidt 1966).
The seventeenth century also gave rise to the first projects for uniting the European continent under a common political system. Thinkers and statesmen grappled tentatively with the question of how to overcome the division of Europe into rival territorial units, often in bloody conflict with one another. This timing was no coincidence: the rise of a new political unit, the sovereign state, brought about constant preparation for war, ushering in more instability and violence.
The European sovereign state, organized as...
