History of the European Union
This is the history of the European Union. See also the history of Europe and history of present-day nations and states.
Pre 1945 influences
Attempts to unify the disparate states of Europe have occurred repeatedly throught the history of the continent. From the Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire and the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, to the more recent 1800s customs union under Napoleon and the 1940s German conquests, several proposals for a single political entity have all had transitory success.
Given Europe's heterogeneous collections of languages and cultures, these attempts usually proposed military subjugation of unwilling nations, leading to instability and ultimate failure. The first real proposals for unification peacefully, through cooperation and equality of membership, were proposed by the pacifist Victor Hugo in 1851.
Following the catastrophe of the First World War some thinkers and visionaries began to float the idea of a politically unified Europe. In 1923, the Austrian Count Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Movement Pan-Europa and hosted the first First Paneuropean Congress, held in Vienna in 1926.
In 1929, Aristide Briand, French prime minister, gave a speech in the presence of the League of Nations Assembly in which he proposed the idea of a federation of European nations based on solidarity and in the pursuit of economic prosperity and political and social co-operation. Many eminent economists, among them John Maynard Keynes, supported this view. At the League's request Briand presented a Memorandum on the organisation of a system of European Federal Union in 1930.
French politician Edouard Herriot published his book The United States of Europe in 1931.
The Great depression, the rise of fascism and subsequently World War II prevented this early movement gaining further support.
In 1940 following Germany's military successes in World War II and Nazi planning for the creation of a thousand year Reich, a European confederation was proposed by German economists. They argued for a centralised European union, with a single European economic area and fixed internal exchange rates. In 1943, the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop eventually proposed the creation of such an institution with a structure rather similar to the modern EU. It would have a single currency, a central bank in Berlin, a regional principle, a labour policy and economic and trading agreements. The proposed countries to be included were Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Greece and Spain. The later Foreign Minister Arthur Seyss-Inquart said: "The new Europe of solidarity and co-operation among all its people will find rapidly increasing prosperity once national economic boundaries are removed", while the Vichy French Minister Jacques Benoist-Mechin said that France had to "abandon nationalism and take place in the European Community with honour." Such a German-led Europe, it was hoped, would serve as a strong alternative to the Communist Soviet Union and also be a counterweight to British dominance of world trade.
Many would see this German initiative is as an institution of dominance based on Nazi conquest and not a true predecessor of the future European Union.
In 1943, Jean Monnet a member of the National Liberation Committee of the Free French government in exile in Algiers, and regarded by many as the future architect of European unity, is recorded as declaring to the committee:- "There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty... The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation..."
Post 1945 impetus
By the end of the war, a new impetus for the founding of (what was later to become) the European Union was the desire to rebuild Europe after the disastrous events of World War II, and to prevent Europe from ever again falling victim to the scourge of war. In order to do this, many supported the idea of forming some form of European federation or government. Winston Churchill gave a speech at the University of Zürich on the September 19, 1946 calling for a "United States of Europe", similar to the United States of America. The immediate result of this speech was the forming of the Council of Europe in 1949. The Council of Europe however was (and still remains) a rather restricted organisation, like a regional equivalent of the United Nations (though it has developed some powers in the area of human rights, through the European Court of Human Rights.)
The European Union grew out of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which was founded in 1951, by the six founding members: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (the Benelux countries) and (West) Germany, France and Italy. Its purpose was to pool the steel and coal resources of the member-states, thus preventing another European war. It was in fulfillment of a plan developed by a French civil servant Jean Monnet, publicised by the French foreign minister Robert Schuman. On May 9, 1950 Schuman presented his proposal on the creation of an organised Europe stating that it was indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the "Schuman declaration", is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union. The British were invited to participate in it, but refused on grounds of national sovereignty; thus the six went ahead alone. (See Text of the Schuman declaration).
The ECSC was followed by attempts, by the same member-states, to found a European Defense Community (EDC) and a European Political Community (EPC). The purpose of this was to establish a common European army, under joint control, so that West-Germany could be safely permitted to rearm and help counter the Soviet threat. The EPC was to establish a federation of European states. However, the French National Assembly refused to ratify the EDC treaty, which led to its abandonment. After the failure of the EDC treaty, the EPC was quietly shelved. The idea of both institutions can be seen to live on, in a watered down form, in later developments, such as European Political Co-operation (also called EPC), the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar established by the Maastricht treaty, and the European Rapid Reaction Force currently in formation.
Following the failure of the EDC and EPC, the six founding members tried again at furthering their integration, and founded the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC). The purpose of the EEC was to establish a customs union among the six founding members, based on the "four freedoms": freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and people. The EAEC was to pool the non-military nuclear resources of the states. The EEC was by far the most important of the three communities, so much so that it was later renamed simply the European Community. It was established by the Treaty of Rome of 1957 and implemented January 1 1958.
The three communities have always had identical memberships and similar institutional structures. Originally they shared the Court of Justice and Parliament in common, having separate Councils and Commissions (called the High Authority in the case of the ECSC); but the Merger Treaty of 1965 merged their Councils and Commissions into a single Council and Commission.
Britain, not wishing to join the Communities for fear of it damaging its trade with the Commonwealth, established an alternative organisation, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). EFTA was merely a free trade area, not a customs union. It also included Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Finland, Switzerland, Portugal, Liechtenstein and Iceland.
As Commonwealth trade declined in importance and European trade grew, Britain decided that joining the Community would be in its economic interest. Ireland and Denmark, both of whom being heavily reliant on British trade, decided they would go wherever Britain went, and hence also applied to join the Community. The initial application under the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1961 was vetoed by the French President Charles de Gaulle. The Labour government that followed, under Harold Wilson, also had a second application vetoed by de Gaulle in 1967; once he had left office, however, the UK joined successfully on January 1, 1973 under Edward Heath. At the same time, Ireland and Denmark joined.
The Norwegian government also applied to join, but the Norwegian electorate rejected admission through the 1972 referendum, an event that was to be repeated again twenty years later, when the government proposed joining along with Austria, Sweden and Finland.
In 1986, Spain and Portugal joined and the Single European Act was signed, the first step towards the single European market.
In the 1992, the Maastricht treaty was signed, which modified the Treaty of Rome. The European Community became the European Union when it came into force, in 1993.
The European Economic Area was founded on 1994 in order to allow EFTA countries to participate to the Single Market without having to join the EU.
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Austria, Sweden and Finland were admitted in 1995. The Norwegian government proposed (for the second time) joining, but admission was rejected again by the Norwegian electorate.
With the departure of Austria, Sweden and Finland to the EU, only Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein remain members of the EFTA.
In 1997, the Treaty of Amsterdam was signed, which updated the Maastricht treaty and aimed to make the EU more democratic.
In January 1999, eleven countries agreed to join the Euro and abandon their existing currencies.
On January 1 2002, Euro notes and coins entered circulation.
, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus join.]]
The European Commission's Strategic Report of October 9, 2002 recommended 10 candidate members for inclusion in the EU in 2004: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. Their combined population is roughly 75 million; their combined Gross Domestic Product is about 840 billion US dollars (purchasing power parity; CIA World Factbook 2003), similar in size to that of Spain.
After negotiations between the candidates and the member states, the final decision to invite these nations to join was announced on December 13, 2002 in Copenhagen, with the European Parliament voting in favour of this on April 9, 2003.
On April 16, 2003 the Treaty of Accession was signed by the 10 new members and the 15 old ones in Athens [1].
(The Treaty's full name is: Treaty between the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Hellenic Republic, the Kingdom of Spain, the French Republic, Ireland, the Italian Republic, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Austria, the Portuguese Republic, the Republic of Finland, the Kingdom of Sweden, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Member States of the European Union) and the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, concerning the accession of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic to the European Union.)
The final remaining step was the ratification of the treaty by the current member states and by each of the candidate nations. Ratification in the former was done by the parliaments of the member states alone, whereas in the latter the ratification was first subject to a referendum, except for Cyprus where the parliament was solely responsible. The 2003 referenda dates (in four of the countries, a two-day ballot is held), and the outcomes in each of the candidate countries, are as follows:
The three communities
Enlargement of the European Community
joins.
Greece joined on January 1, 1981, under the presidency of Constantine Caramanlis.
1986: 12 member states. Spain and Portugal join. ]]Founding of the European Union
1995: 15 member states. Austria, Finland and Sweden join.]]Single currency
The 2004 enlargement
In the event that one of the referenda did not return an affirmative result, provision had been made for the enlargement to carry on without that country. However, the referenda results were all in favour of joining, ratification proceeded without problems and the candidate countries became full members of the EU on May 1, 2004.
| Country | Pop | Area | GDP | GDP per capita |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estonia | 1.4 | 45226 | 15.5 | 11000 |
| Latvia | 2.3 | 64589 | 21.0 | 8900 |
| Lithuania | 3.5 | 65200 | 30.0 | 8400 |
| Poland | 38.6 | 312685 | 373.2 | 9700 |
| Czech Republic | 10.2 | 78866 | 157.1 | 15300 |
| Hungary | 10.0 | 93030 | 134.0 | 13300 |
| Slovakia | 5.4 | 48845 | 67.3 | 12400 |
| Slovenia | 1.9 | 20253 | 37.1 | 19200 |
| Malta | 0.4 | 316 | 6.8 | 17200 |
| Cyprus | 0.8 | 9250 | 9.4 | 15000 |
| Subtotal | 74.6 | 738260 | 851.4 | 11413 |
| EU-15 | 380.3 | 3238692 | 9570.8 | 25166 |
| EU-25 | 454.9 | 3976952 | 10422.2 | 22911 |
Impetus: End of Cold War. Desire to reunite Europe. To tie Eastern Europe firmly to the West, to prevent it falling again into communism or dictatorship. Cyprus made candidate for admission because Greece threatened to veto all other countries unless Cyprus allowed to join. Turkey had originally been promised admission in the 1960s. There is some concern about suitability of Turkey as a member, especially due to its disputes with Greece, but the prospect of membership has encouraged Turkey to reform its economy and improve its domestic human rights situation.
Some also believe there is inconsistent application of EU laws in favour of larger member states: while smaller countries like Portugal have been 'called to the carpet' for failing to control deficits, both France and Germany appeared to have been given a free hand by the EU finance ministers (and against the wishes of the EU Commission) to ignore the Stability and Growth Pact. [1] Recently the EU Court of Justice ruled in this issue in favour of the EU Commission, deciding that the finance ministers' decision to annul the sanctions was unlawful.
Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe
Current problems
Currently, the EU is undergoing organisational difficulties, especially those dealing with the proposed European constitution. The new constitution will have to be ratified by all 25 member states, and in several of them will be voted on through referenda. It is expected that ratification in some countries like the UK will be difficult.Associate Memberships
See also
External link