SUMMARY EUROPEAN
INTEGRATION SINCE 1945
donderdag 15 februari 2024
Introduction: Why European Integration?
1.1 Treaty History
- Schuman declaration 1950 - rst plan by the French foreign Minister Robert Schuman
for European unity - reconciliation of France and Germany
- Plans for an European Defence community in 1951-52 failed and got replaced by NATO
- Treaty of Paris 1950-51-52 - the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community -
with a High Authority
- Treaties of Rome - 1956-57-58 - the creation of the European Economic Community
and Euratom
- 1979 rst European Parliament elections, agreed upon by the Council of the EU
- Single European Act 1985-86-87 - established European political cooperation, European
Parliament o cially named like so
- Maastricht Treaty - 1990-92-93 (Summit December 1991) the creation of the actual EU
- Treaty of Amsterdam 1996-97-99 - more powers given to the European Parliament
- Treaty of Nice - 2000-01-03 - attempts at an European Constitution, failed - Convention
2002-03 -> Constitutional Treaty 2003-04-(2005)
- Treaty of Lisbon - 2007-07-09 - establishing of the current form of the EU - compromise,
role of the Commision, basic rules for the EU established
- Extras: Fusion treaty, Schengen, Fiscal Compact…
1.2 How powerful is the EU as a political system?
- How question = decision-making
power - how in uential is your decision Local council UN Security Council
going to be?
- What question = competences - what
Decision-making power
can you talk about?
- Treaties gave more competences and
more decision-making power to the EU
- E.g. unanimity now required for
nances, enlargement.. etc whereas
earlier it was much more omnipresent
- Focus: Treaties, Geographical
enlargement, Crises - monetary,
migration crisis, COVID…
- Limits: Gender - exceptions: Thatcher
competence
or Merkel; West-European focus - this
although there has been a shift of the
center of the EU to the East, more and more in the 3 paradigms listed down
- Paradigms:
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, - 1950-90 - Cold War paradigm - Pax Americana, Germany: Westbindung - rather on the
side of the EU and NATO and losing a part of its territory than staying united and being
neutral - Konrad Adenauer
- 1990-2016: Post-Cold War paradigm - globalization - trade with China and Russia - e.g.
Schröder, German Wiedervereinigung, EMU expansion and EU enlargement
- 2016-present: New Cold War paradigm - breaking point: Brexit and Trump getting
elected - strategic autonomy, German Zeitwende, Geopolitics - less reliable on the US,
CN, RU - Russian invasion of Ukraine as a second breaking point - more European army
cooperation in the future?
Why do the British want to set their own course?
3.1 Current issues
- Not For EU-labels - made to be, in theory, sold in Northern Ireland and not slip into the
EU’s internal market, of which NIE is a part of due to the Good Friday agreement (with no
border control)
- British wanting to preserve their own internal market without any checks across the Irish
Strait
3.2 The long 1970s
- Arguments of Charles de Gaulle why the UK should not join:
- Island, maritime, orientated on 3rd countries - British Empire, di erent political culture
- Context: French-German reconciliation:
- Visits: Reims cathedral (destroyed in WWI) and Compiegne
- Verdun - another link to WWI
- A very good partnership between the French and the Germans, ususally, not like today
- Mitterand and Kohl’s handshake - spontaneous?
- The long 1970s:
- period 1969-1984 from the resignation of Charles De Gaulle (April 1969) until
- Commission President Jacques Delors (januari 1985)
- Margaret Thatcher in the UK (1979-1990)
- Preparation for the Single European Act (1986) and the Treaty of Maastricht (1991)
- Ups and downs:
- 1. Enlargement
- 2. Institutional reform
- 3. Policy areas
- Kick-o : Summit of The Hague (1-2 December 1969) - following De Gaulle’s resignation
and death
- Dutch Council Presidency
- relaunch of further integration
- new French-German tandem: Georges Pompidou – Willy Brandt
- Brandt - Ostpolitik - reuniting Germany by the means of European integration
- ‘completion, deepening and enlargement’ of the internal market
- Enlargement UK/DK/Ireland/ - not Norway, voted out in a referendum
- Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) - rst plans, 20 years before the actual
implementation of the euro - call for monetary coordination
- European Political Coordination (EPC) = foreign a airs
- Davignon Report - European political cooperation - foreign policy coordination
- Still very intergovernmental (member states intended to do it)
- Enlargement 1973:
- 1952-1973: ECSC/EEC/Euratom 6 founding member states
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, - 1970-1973: negotiations accession UK, Ireland, Denmark and Norway mainly because of
economic (internal market) reasons
- Divisive issue within Conservatives and Labour - some for, some against - used in
Thatcher’s campaign
- Pompidou French referendum 1972 (1992; 2005) — if the UK should join the European
structures
- 1974 change of power Heath (Con) -Wilson (Lab) - Wilson fails to form a government,
afterwards he calls new elections, which he wins due to the referendum promise
- Renegotiation (1974-1975) + referendum
- referenda Norway 1972 (1994); Denmark 1972; Ireland 1972
- Economic (oil) crisis in the meantime (due to the Yom Kippur War
- Beginning rise of Euroscepticism
- Michel Barnier: campaigned for UK accession inside France to let the UK join
- June 5, 1975 - UK referendum, Thatcher campaigned heavily for Europe and went strictly
on the divided Labor party
- Common market referendum 1975:
- initiative Labour government
- legal basis: Referendum Act 1975
- consultative but politically binding question: “Do you think that the United Kingdom
should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?”
- Labour government divided and oppostion (Conservaties) in favourTurn-out 64%,Yes
67,2% versus No 32,8%
- No major regional di erences - in contrast to Brexit
- 1st UK referendum and only one in 20th century
- Other referenda: 2011: reform electoral system; 2016: Brexit
3.3 The long 1970s - EU focus
- Summit of Paris (October 1972)
- “to transform the whole complex of … relations [betweenmember states] into a European
Union” - already an Union long before its establishment at Maastricht
- Summit of Paris (December 1974):
- Valery Giscard- Helmut Schmidt (Gaulist president and the German chancellor
- European Council (cf. Treaty of Lisbon: EU institution)
- A Chefsache - importance of the heads of government
- Direct election European Parliament (foreseen 1978, due to delays nished in 1979)
- Began with the Treaty of Luxembourg 1970 - gave the EP a more in uential role in
budgetary issues, given increased powers in the Treaty of Brussels 1975
- European Court of Auditors - checking if the Community meets budgettary expectations
- Tindemans Report (December 1975) - report on European integration
- Politically rst mention of the European Union, never materialized to nish any further
preparations for it AT THE TIME
- Plans: Bringing institutions closer to each other, single decision making center, single
foreign policy
- Policy areas:
- Monetary policy: - the blueprint for the Euro laid in the 1970s
- December 1969 Summit The Hague
- October 1970 Plan Werner (7 steps in 10 years)
- August 1971 end of Bretton Woods - failure, leads to the devaluations of the currencies -
DM, Franc
- Raymond Barre - plan for short term loans when facing insolvency to block the need for
devaluations
- April 1972 currency snake - bands of 2,25 percent for currencies to move relative to their
central rate against the US dollar
- December 1978 start European Monetary System (EMS) - basket of national currencies;
8 member states join Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) = European Currency Unit (ECU)
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