European Union

An Historical and Political Survey

Richard McAllister

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415407625
• eBook ISBN: 9781134133598
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica

The new edition of this best-selling text provides the most up-to-date single volume history of the European Union from its origins through to the present day. Fully updated and revised throughout, this is the ideal starting point for students and others wishing to read an accessible, readable and comprehensive account of the development of the EU.

Topics new to this edition:

• The impact of the Euro and economic and monetary union.
• Analysis of post-9/11 splits in the EU over Afghanistan and Iraq, and debates on the New European security order and the threat posed by terrorism.
• The enlargement of the EU to 27 members and discussions over further expansion.
• The initial failure of the EU Constitutional Treaty.
• The growth in Euroscepticism across the continent.

An engaging contribution to the understanding of the past, present and uncertain future of European integration, European Union is essential reading for all students of European history, European Union politics, and International Relations.

1 Birth, childhood and adolescence

On the afternoon of 9 May 1950 Robert Schuman, born in Luxembourg and an auxiliary with the German army during World War I, stepped as Foreign Minister of France into the Salon de 1’Horloge at the Quai d’Orsay and asserted: ‘It is no longer the moment for vain words, but for a bold act—a constructive act.’ With these words he launched, with the offer to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) specifically and to any other European state that so wished, the idea of pooling its resources of coal and steel in a European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) (McAllister 1975:177; Monnet 1978:304). Unbeknown to anyone at the time, this was to become the first of three ‘European communities’—together with the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).

Schuman’s natural style was anything but dramatic. One who knew him well said that he had the manner of a provincial priest, slightly hunched, with a hesitant voice. But he was certainly right about the ‘vain words’: this was, if anything, an understatement for some of the misunderstanding and mistrust that had marked relations between France and the government of the fledgling Federal Germany—then only a few months old (Willis 1965: Chs 3, 4).

The initiative that bore his name was largely the work of a man from the opposite end of France, Jean Monnet, head of the French national Planning Commission, native of Cognac, who had spent a good deal of his wars coordinating Allied efforts against Germany. The ‘Schuman Declaration’ followed at least three serious perceived failures, arguably more. There had been the perceived failures of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), particularly associated with the UK’s devaluation of September 1949. There had been the disappointments and minimalism associated with the first months of the Council of Europe which, its proponents had originally hoped, could be the political germ of a European federation, with limited but real powers. And there had been the rejection by France of Konrad Adenauer’s suggestion on 9 March 1950 of a complete Franco-German union, beginning with a customs union.

However, there had also been some key ‘successes’ and these were also to have considerable influence over what did and did not happen. They were mainly in two areas: first, defence and security; second, economic reconstruction and trade.

On 17 March 1948 the Brussels Treaty had been signed by the ‘Benelux’ three, France and the UK. Its most important aspect was probably the last item of its title: ‘collective self-defence’. The signatories resolved, among other things, to ‘afford assistance to each other … in resisting any policy of aggression’ (preamble). It was no accident that it was concluded some 3 weeks after the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia gained control of that country in what was referred to as the ‘Prague coup’: some 3 months later the Soviet blockade of Berlin began.

The importance of this for our story is that the ‘defence’ angle was thus already covered; it included the UK from the start; it was greatly extended the following year with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Treaty in April 1949; and in the early years, to no one’s initial surprise, the FRG was excluded. With the defence flank covered, minds could turn to other things; and, by the same token, when ‘other things’ were set up, they would not cover defence, although the possibility was occasionally raised. Defence matters were also specifically excluded when the Statute of the Council of Europe was signed in May 1949.

The second, crucial, area—economic reconstruction and the revival of trade—had been the subject of an array of initiatives and proposals beginning right at the start of the ‘cold war’. Pride of place here should go to the June 1947 proposal by US Secretary of State George Marshall to revitalise the European economy: the ‘Marshall Plan’ or European Recovery Programme (speech at Harvard, 5 June: text: FRUS (1947), III: 237–9; DAFR (1947), IX: 9–11). Marshall thought it essential that Europeans should work together in this, not in national boxes; and that thus what would become Germany’s economic preponderance would be diffused. He also expected the UK to give an initial lead: and in this was disappointed. But in July, European officials, meeting in Paris, agreed to form the Committee on (later Organisation for) European Economic Cooperation—OEEC. Its early work however was, in American eyes, marked by timidity and lack of ambition: it did not propose a customs union or powerful institutions to give it direction (FRUS (1948), III: esp. 352–501; Lundestad 1998:30–1; Messenger in Dinan (ed.) 2006:37–9).

Slowly, however, a learning process set in: several states came to see that it was essential to tie Germany in; and the USA, increasingly disillusioned with British attitudes, found more receptive and proactive minds in France. Among these, Monnet was prominent. A great ‘networker’, he had long cultivated powerful friends in the United States and was more feted there than in his home country.

Another body, set up in June 1950, the month after the Schuman Declaration, was to provide crucial underpinning for west European cooperation and the achievement of prosperity. This was the ‘child’ of OEEC, the European Payments Union (EPU), promoted by the Economic Cooperation Administration and the State Department in Washington, to facilitate multilateral payments (thus enabling trade to grow) and ultimately (1958) full currency convertibility among OEEC members. In this it was successful and this growth of trade was the other key background factor of the 1950s. (West) German growth was heavily export biased, but this growth also made access to the German market of crucial importance for that country’s neighbours (Milward 1992: esp. 134–8; Gillingham 2003:40–3; Brusse in Dinan (ed.) 2006:92–9; Gillingham in Dinan (ed.) 2006:56–9). These developments were more immediately important for western Europe than the ECSC, to which we must now return.

Elsewhere I have argued that ‘to some extent the strategy pursued by the “founding fathers” had a positive logic of its own; to some extent it was also a reactive one, a response to the perceived failures or shortcomings of any alternative approach’ (McAllister 1975:174). This is clear in a number of respects regarding Monnet’s intellectual debts, and the ‘lessons’ that he believed a rich life experience had taught him. Having been part of a quasi-global body, the League of Nations, in the interwar period, he believed that the functions of such bodies as the United Nations (UN) would be largely restricted to those of a switchboard; there was insufficient common interest to go much further. He had, however, worked on inter-Allied coordination and equally knew the shortcomings of that kind of setup. But his wartime experience in Washington marked him deeply: ‘In the United States Monnet learned how to organize Europe’ (Gillingham 1991:52). He believed passionately, as his autobiography makes clear, in the virtues of institutions, appropriately structured (‘Nothing is possible without men [sic]: nothing is lasting without institutions’—Monnet 1978:304–5). This aspect will be of great importance later in our discussion. He believed that much could be gained by pooling perspectives, if necessary banging heads together, by ‘upgrading the common interest’, by iconoclastic negotiating styles: that there was much to be said, in other words, for the sort of exercise in which the French Planning Commission, which he headed, was engaged. The US example told him that large markets were desirable. He borrowed from David Mitrany’s functionalist thinking, but changed the scale in a way that Mitrany would not have approved: downwards from the global level, but upwards from the level of the single state, to the ‘in-between’ level of a (regional) group of states.

His natural bent, and lifelong orientation, was toward the Atlantic, Anglo-Saxon worlds including the UK, although he doubted its readiness to participate in his schemes. ‘The British will not find their future role by themselves. Only outside pressure will induce them to accept change’, he reports himself as saying to Schuman and Massigli in London in June 1950 (Monnet 1978:307). And so it proved. The British, to whom Schuman fatally offered some form of ‘association’ falling short of total commitment, left it at that. Schuman made it clear that, if necessary, he would proceed with only two countries involved: in the event, France and Germany were joined by Italy and Benelux and ‘Europe of the Six’ was born.

The negotiations were fraught with difficulty; so were the operations of the Coal and Steel Community. At one point the Germans threatened to pull out entirely: the US civil commissioner for Germany, John McCloy, had to ‘read the riot act’ to Adenauer. Neither, in the event, did Monnet’s schemes emerge unscathed; and there was a protracted battle over economic ideology between his (muddled) liberal–plus–dirigiste notions and a resurgent—and mostly triumphant—German corporatism (Gillingham 1991: esp. 137–77, 228–347; Milward 1992: esp. 333–7; Gillingham in Dinan (ed.) 2006:66–76).

But for now, a few key points should be noted. First, the starting point was to be a common market: this starting point was to prove—and was intended—to have important political consequences. Second, it was limited to two key sectors (psychologically as well as materially—although the history and actual characteristics of these sectors made them highly unlikely candidates for anything resembling ‘market integration’). Third, there were significant institutional innovation and clear departure from ‘intergovernmental’ approaches. Fourth, although Monnet was no ‘technocrat’, the keystone of his institutional arch and most original feature was the small college of independent experts, the High Authority, of which Monnet himself became the first head. Institutions, indeed, claimed a prominent place in the Coal and Steel (Paris) Treaty. There were to be four, designated by Article 7: the High Authority; a ‘Common Assembly’; a Council of Ministers; and a Court of Justice. To a marked degree these, both in their respective roles and powers, and in the doctrines that were to guide them, reflected notions and practices then current in France (see McAllister 1975:179; McAllister 1988:212–15). But although Monnet got his High Authority, the concept was not widely welcomed. The Germans to a degree eviscerated it, and were successfully to re-cartelise (Gillingham 1991:319–30).

The general direction also found favour in Washington, but expectations were not over-sanguine. A CIA assessment dated 24 September 1951 stated: ‘Supranational institutions of European unity—specifically the European Defense Force and the Schuman plan administration—should develop during the next 2 years, but there is no indication that any European state is yet prepared to form a true federation with its neighbors’ (FRUS (1951), I: 202 [then classified top secret]). In November Riddleberger, Acting Deputy Special Representative for Europe to the ECA, cabled: ‘We start from the conviction that … we must continue to promote European economic unification (and political federation)’ (FRUS (1951), I: 1500).

So, from early on, ECSC was not intended to be the only organisation. Already later in 1950, soon after war broke out in Korea, the Pleven Plan for a united West European army with German contingents was unveiled. It was seen as a French alternative to the inclusion of German units within NATO, for which the USA continued to press vigorously. The Pleven Plan became the basis of the proposal for a European Defence Community (EDC), mentioned earlier.

Again, the UK, whose support was particularly important to reassure France, refused to become involved. Nonetheless, the proposal, although weakened, was not yet abandoned. Indeed the opportunity was taken to try to add a ‘third leg’ to the organisational setup: a European Political Community (EPC) to be established under Article 38 of the EDC draft. Had these plans gone ahead, there would have been three bodies: ECSC, EDC and EPC. It was not to be: after increasingly bitter debates, the French National Assembly at the end of August 1954 voted not to proceed with consideration of the EDC proposal, and with it fell the EPC.

Other proposals for ‘sectoral’ organisations paralleling the ECSC, for transport, agriculture and health, proposals usually made under a Council of Europe umbrella, also had little success. In consequence, by the end of 1954 the organisational and institutional landscape was beginning to resemble a breaker’s yard: there were far more wrecks than going concerns. In particular, it was far from clear at the time whether the ‘sectoral approach’ could really be proclaimed a great success, as cartels and price fixing rapidly entrenched themselves and as Monnet’s stratagems seemed marginalised (Gillingham 1991: esp. Chs 5, 6; Gillingham 2003: Chs 2, 3; Gillingham in Dinan (ed.) 2006:72–6): and he himself resigned from the presidency of the High Authority.

At this point, some advocated moving to a much wider approach to economic integration. In the year and a half following the EDC failure, ‘over a dozen new proposals appeared’ for some measure of trade liberalisation (Moravcsik 1999:139). What eventually proved the most persuasive—despite Monnet’s initial attempts to sabotage it—lay conveniently to hand in the form of the progress being made with the Benelux Economic Union. (For a detailed account, see Meade, Liesner and Wells 1962:61–194.) Willem Beyen of the Netherlands took the lead in promoting the notion of a customs union of the Six, with some elements of a common market. Again timing was to be of the essence. The replacement of Mendès by Edgar Faure as French prime minister helped greatly.

But Monnet did not give up on his sectoralist preferences: the one then thought most promising appeared to be the great technological hope—it was much favoured by France in particular and there were few established interests to offend (except military ones): the nuclear energy industry.

Thus it was that the foreign ministers of the six members of ECSC came together at the Messina Conference in Sicily, at the beginning of June 1955, with both the Benelux and atomic energy proposals before them. The UK, invited at the insistence of the Benelux states, did not participate. Again the air had been cleared on some other questions: after the EDC failure had come the agreement to bring the FRG and Italy into NATO on 5 May 1955. Military difficulties were off the agenda, resolved elsewhere. The conference was chaired by Luxembourg’s Joseph Bech, and, on this occasion, it was the ‘Benelux three’ who played the leading part. The conference concentrated on the two proposals—for a general common market, championed especially by Benelux; and for an atomic energy community, proposed by France. The resolution at the end of the conference incorporated both (Weigall and Stirk 1992:94–7). It was thought best to keep the two separate, however, as they evoked differing reservations: France was doubtful of the benefits for itself of the common market idea; the FRG was doubtful about the atomic energy scheme (Urwin 1991:74–5).

It was further agreed to set up an intergovernmental committee to work out the detail of the proposals and to report back. It was known to posterity as the Spaak Committee, after Belgium’s Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak, who chaired it. Its report was finally issued in Brussels on 21 April 1956 and accepted as the basis for negotiations by the six foreign ministers on 30 May. Since its influence on the subsequent Rome Treaties is so clear—sometimes the very same concepts and terms are used—a brief glance at its approach is warranted.

The Spaak Report asserted that a large market would facilitate mass production without monopoly. But the advantages of a common market could only come about if the requisite time were given to enable enterprises to adapt. This ‘phasing’, the transitional period, was of course spelled out in the EEC Treaty. It spoke also of the need for geographical limitation and added (this was crucial) that a common market was inconceivable without ‘common rules, joint action, and finally an institutional system to watch over it’: this last was music to the ears of a Monnet. It discussed such matters as the difficulty of distinguishing between (state) aids that were ‘useful in the general interest’ from those that had ‘as their object or effect the distortion of competition’—the exact wording of the subsequent Article 85 EEC. It insisted that ‘agriculture would have to be included’ (Spaak Report: 44)—but did not say how, although the notion of ‘agriculture as special’—subscribed to by all involved—was promptly and probably inevitably to appear in Article 39.2 of the EEC Treaty. It spoke about the ‘need to override the unanimity rule, in defined cases, or after a certain period’ (Spaak Report: 23–4): this was one of four ‘principles’, giving effect to which would require setting up four institutions—exactly those that are found in the Rome Treaties. It talked about the inclusion of services (Spaak Report: 40). It is, in brief, the ‘open sesame’ to the thinking behind the Rome Treaties, because the committee was then given the drafting task.

That certainly did not mark the end of the difficulties. Indeed, in France especially, initial responses to the Spaak Report were far from universal enthusiasm. The members of the committee had been operating à titre personnel, even though they had kept in fairly close touch with governments. There followed the difficult business of thrashing out national responses to it. And over this, there were serious disagreements at the time about several key questions: the separation of the two areas, atomic energy and general common market, and to which of them priority should be given; the institutional scheme; the underlying economic ‘philosophies’—the balance of dirigisme and protectionism versus ‘liberal’ principles; and the whole question of how feasible a ‘federal’-style ambition might be. All of these received an early, and vigorous, airing at the time: all were to come back time and again onto the agenda of the EC/EU.

Because France’s role was so central—France was the sine qua non of the whole enterprise—differences between leading French figures assumed great significance. They were not lacking in the Fourth Republic. The most highly dramatised differences—to become more important once de Gaulle re-emerged from the political wilderness to lead the Fifth Republic in 1958—were between de Gaulle and Monnet. But many even of Monnet’s closest collaborators, notably Robert Marjolin who first met him in 1940 and worked closely with him from 1943, were far from sharing Monnet’s apparently ‘simplistic’ federal vision. Marjolin, indeed, believed that it was not necessary to be so lofty: a common market could function perfectly well and achieve a critical enough transformation of the political relations of the states concerned, without ‘going all the way’ to political union. However, as he later wrote, ‘[I]t did not take me long to understand that Monnet was right in that to succeed one absolutely had to simplify’ (Marjolin 1989:173).

By the time of the Messina meetings and the setting up of the Spaak Committee, there was general acceptance that there would be no war between the states of western Europe again: nuclear weapons had rendered former great powers powerless. The greater security in other re...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Preface to the second edition
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Chronology
• Introduction: a disputed community
• 1 Birth, childhood and adolescence
• 2 The Community at the end of the 1960s
• 3 From the Hague to Paris: 1969–1972
• 4 A turbulent year: 1973
• 5 The mid-1970s: locust years
• 6 ‘Euro-sclerosis’: the late 1970s and early 1980s
• 7 The mid-1980s: ‘single market’ and ‘single act’
• 8 The late 1980s and the road to ‘1992’
• 9 Europe transformed again: 1989–1993
• 10 Paradoxes of the New Europe: 1994–2000
• 11 The new millennium: 2000–2005
• 12 New turbulence: 2005–2008
• Bibliography