Trade policy final exam
The EU reader & B&W Ch 5,6,7,9,12
Sovereign = possessing supreme or ultimate power.
Legislation = wetgeving. The process of making or enacting laws.
READER: (WEEK4)
Ch1: introduction
The European Union (EU) is an intergovernmental organization (IGO), which means that it is
an international organization that is made up of sovereign states.
Contrary to most other IGOs, the EU has a number of federal characteristics.
o EU law is supreme over the national laws of the EU’s member states.
o Eu has its own parliament and central bank.
The predecessor (Voorganger) of the EU is the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).
o Founded in 1952.
The EU is mostly about economic integration, it should be pointed out that the founders of
the ECSC regarded European integration as a political rather than an economic project.
o They believed that economic integration between the European countries would
eventually lead to political integration.
The most important goal of the establishment of the ECSC, which occurred only 7 years after
the conclusion of WW2, was to prevent another war from breaking out between France and
Germany.
The EU has not only increased in geographic size, but also in scope. The founding of the
ECSC resulted in only modest economic integration in the coal and steel sectors of the
economy.
The increases in the scope and intensity of economic integration within Europe were mainly
accomplished through the signing and ratification by the member states of a number of key
treaties.
Ch2; The history of the EU:
War prevent by a form of political integration between these two countries.
o Full political integration between France and Germany was impossible to achieve.
That’s why they made a more modest proposal: to place the French and German coal and
steel sectors under the control of a supranational authority. Why?
1. The coal and steel sectors were crucial determinants of a country’s military strength at
that time. This would make a war between the two countries practically infeasible.
2. Schuman and Monet believed that economic cooperation in the coal and steel sector
would result in the need for cooperation in other sectors of the economy, and eventually
for political cooperation.
European Coal and Steel community (ECSC) was established in 1952.
Six member states: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
Import tariffs have been abolished between member states.
1. Huge increase in coal and steel trade between its members.
2. Lower dependence on imports from the US.
,Within a few years after the establishment of the ECSC, two things had happened:
1. The coal and steel sectors had decreased in military importance due to the development of
e.g. nuclear power.
2. The ECSC had shown the benefits of economic cooperation, such that political leaders in the
member states became increasingly sympathetic to broader economic integration on the
European level .
For this reasons, two additional European institutions were formed in 1958, when the Treaty of
Rome came into force:
1. The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
2. The European Economic Community (EEC).
a. Which had as its main objective the creation of a customs union between the
member states.
In the process of European integration, period of rapid progress alternated with episodes of
stagnation.
The early period of European integration culminated into the signing of the Merger Treaty in 1967,
which merged the tree European Communities (ECSC, EEC and Euratom) into one European
Community (EC).
The 1970s and 1980s: From Eurosclerosis to Maastricht.
After two decades of European integration, the process came virtually to a halt during the
1970s.
o The main obstacle to further economic or political integration during this period was
that any important decision about the future of the EC required unanimous approval
of the member states.
In 1973 Denmark, Ireland and the UK joined the EC.
o The problem only got worse. As a result, there was virtually no progress in the
integration process in the period between 1970 and 1986.
Significant progress was ultimately made in 1986, when the Single European Act (SEA) was
signed.
o The SEA introduced a system of majority voting, so that many decision no longer
needed unanimous agreement among the member states.
The SEA marked the beginning of period of deepening European integration,
both economically and politically.
Main objective: completing the EU’s common market in 1991, by
harmonizing technical regulation, removing capital controls, and ensuring
mutual recognition of approval by national regulatory agencies.
The 1990s to the present: Maastricht, Lisbon and beyond.
1992: The Maastricht treaty formally established the European union, (EU), and thereby
created EU citizenship, which gave the citizens of its member states the right to move and
live in any other EU member state.
o The treaty represented a major deepening of the integration process by establishing
a common market and by defining a timetable for the introduction of the Euro.
o The Maastricht treaty also introduced a coordination mechanism for the foreign
policy of its member states, the common foreign and security policy (CFSP)
, The treaty also increased the powers of the European Parliament
significantly and defined a timetable for the establishment of an Economic
and Monetary Union (EMU) and the European Central Bank (ECB)
1999: euro established
Important current issues in the EU are the democratic deficit, financial and macroeconomic
stability in the Eurozone, and immigration.
o Democratic deficit; arguing that the EU lacks democratic legitimacy because EU
legislation is typically agreed upon by national governments, rather than national
parliaments.
The treaty of Lisbon (2007) was signed, among other thing, to improve the democratic
accountability of the EU.
o The treaty strengthened the position of the European Parliament, and gave national
parliaments some influence over the European legislative process.
2008: Financial crisis.
2013: Europe’s refugee crisis.
o After the outbreak of these crises there has been a steep increase in Euroscepticism
(criticism) many EU member states in recent years.
Ch3; Institutions of the EU: