Chapter 10 The European Integration Process

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Chapter 10The European Integration Process

• Desmond Dinan

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The European Integration Process

• Why European Integration?
• From ECSC to EEC
• Consolidating the Community
• Surviving the 1970s
• The Single Market and Monetary Union
• Public Unease and Political Overreach

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Introduction

• European integration began immediately after WW2
• From 6 to 25 member states
• EC/EU has been both widened and deepened
• Intergovernmental conferences play key role in
  both processes
• Growing public disenchantment with EU

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Why European Integration?

• Council of Europe as disappointment to
  supranationalists
• The German Problem
• The Schuman Plan
• Pressure for trade liberalization
• From ECSC to EEC

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From ECSC to EEC

• EDC as attempt to shackle German rearmament
• French parliament rejects EDC
• Monnet as advocate of Euratom
• Netherlands as key advocate of trade
  liberalization
• 1957 Treaty of Rome creates EEC and Euratom

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Consolidating the Community

• De Gaulle accepts Treaty of Rome and presses for
  CAP
• De Gaulle sparks empty chair crisis
• Luxembourg Compromise enshrines principle of
  unanimity
• De Gaulle blocks first two UK applications (1963
  and 1967)
• Elysée Treaty institutionalizes Franco-German
  motor of European integration

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Surviving the 1970s

• Post-de Gaulle
• national leaders commit to completion (Hague
  Summit 1969)
• UK admitted to EC
• British Budgetary Question stalls integration
  until 1984
• Some achievements from mid-1970s to mid-1980s
• ECJ case law
• Regional policy begins
• Lomé Convention
• EMS
• First direct elections to EP (1979)

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The Single Market and Monetary Union

• Single European Act (SEA) 1986 first major
  reform of Treaty of Rome
• Aimed to create single European market by end
  1992
• Introduce QMV
• c. 300 legislative measures
• Commitment to strengthen regional/cohesion policy
• Delors also wanted single market challenged by
  Thatcher
• Maastricht Treaty (agreed 1991)
• single currency
• Common Foreign and Security Policy
• cooperation on justice and home affairs

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Public Unease and Political Overreach

• Post-SEA people start to question EU legitimacy
• Public unease over EMU
• Protracted negotiations over eastern enlargement
• Treaty changes (1997 and 2001) failed to increase
  EU efficiency and accountability
• Constitutional Treaty rejected 2005

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Conclusion

• European integration has profoundly changed since
  ECSC
• Widening and deepening have both been successful,
  but now face challenges
• Eastern enlargement
• Future enlargement (esp. Turkey)
• Public indifference/alienation
• Uneven economic development
• Which direction for EU after Constitution failure?