1. European Integration, 1945-2002
Young & Kent:
International Relations since 1945
European Integration,

2. The European Experience
A divided continent:
Languages and nationalities
Great Power rivalries
Economic competition
Old ideal of unity: Christendom
Common culture/historical experience
Twentieth Century:
Loss of world position: end of Empire
Between superpowers in Cold War

3. Proposals for Unity, 1929-45 Inter-war schemes: Impact of World War II
Franco-German steel cartel
Briand Plan, 1929: control rising German power in European context
Impact of World War II
Nazi ‘new order’
Resistance movements: hopes of unity
Franco-British union proposal, 1940
Failure of nation-state?

4. Impact of the Cold War, 1945-49 1945-47: ‘Big Three’ co-operation
Benelux customs union 1946
Churchill’s Zurich speech
1947-9: US-Soviet division
Marshall Plan, 1947: US backs integration
Economics: Organisation of European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), 1948
Military: Brussels Pact, North Atlantic Treaty
Political: Council of Europe, 1949
Intergovernmental not supranational co-operation

5. The Schuman Plan, May 1950
Factors at work: idealism or national interest?
Control German power: Ruhr valley
Preserve French economic recovery
Yet offer West Germany equality
Role of Monnet, Schuman, Adenauer
US support, British doubts
European Coal-Steel Community 1952
Supranational ‘High Authority’ under Jean Monnet
France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg (‘the Six’)

6. The EDC, 1950-54 The Pleven Plan, October 1950
US pressure for German rearmament after Korean War starts
Based on Schuman Plan: control German power in supranational body
European Defence Community, 1952
Does not offer Germany proper equality
French fear loss of national army
Collapses 1954 in French parliament

7. The Treaties of Rome, March 1957
Messina Conference June 1955
Revive integration after EDC
ECSC ministers agree to study further economic integration
Spaak (Brussels) Committee
Two alternatives: ‘sectoral’ co-operation (like coal-steel); or full customs union
Two Treaties
European Economic Community (EEC)
European Atomic Energy Agency (Euratom)

8. British Policy,
: British absent from Schuman Plan and Treaties of Rome
Failure of vision?
Favour intergovernmental co-operation
Ambitions of great power/world role
Separate from continent/wartime experience
Or national interest?
Part in Marshall Plan and Brussels Pact
UK is global trading power
Lacks French obsession with German threat

9. The EEC, 1957-84: signs of success
Internal free trade achieved by the Six
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Common Fisheries Policy
1973 ‘Northern enlargement’ to Britain, Ireland and Denmark; Greece joins 1979
1979 direct elections to European Parliament
1979 ‘Exchange Rate Mechanism’ (ERM) creates greater currency stability

10. EEC, 1957-84: hopes unfulfilled
1960s: the Gaullist challenge
De Gaulle opposes majority voting: empty chair crisis (1965-6) and Luxembourg compromise
Vetoes enlargement in 1963 and 1967
1970s: ‘stagflation’
Monetary instability prevents Economic and Monetary Union (planned in 1970 Werner Report)
‘Northern enlargement’ fails to bring full European Union (planned in 1972 Paris Summit)
: Economic depression
British Budgetary Dispute

11. The Mid-80s European Revival
Factors in favour of growth, 1985
World emerging from depression
Monetary stability: strong Deutschmark
EEC expanding: Spain and Portugal 1986
Mitterrand’s socialist policies seen to have failed in France by 1983
Chancellor Kohl’s European commitment
British Budgetary Question resolved

12. The European Advance, 1984-92 1985 Single European Act
Expanded Qualified Majority Voting
‘Single market’ in 1992
Jacques Delors, Commission President
Delors Plan on Monetary Union
Social Charter
1991 Maastricht Treaty
Single currency by 1999
‘European Union’ created
Common Foreign and Security Policy ‘pillar’
Justice and Home Affairs ‘pillar’

13. Uncertain Decade 1992-2002 Post-Maastricht problems Continued advance
Initial defeat for Maastricht in Denmark
Virtual collapse of ERM,
UK/Denmark opt-out of monetary union
1997 Amsterdam Treaty modest in aims
Continued advance
November 1993: ‘European Union’
1995 enlargement: Austria, Sweden, Finland
1998 talks on ‘eastern enlargement’
1999/2002 single currency achieved