Ireland: 67,1%

1
Ireland 67,1

• Lisbon treaty is ratified by Ireland, and by
  Poland. The Czech Republic yet needs to ratify.
  Very likely that they will (divisions between
  Vaclav Klaus and Jan Fischer).
• The potentialities of the treaty are important
  more defined roles, more defined figures, a
  European diplomatic body, a stronger Parliament
  The EU judiciary gets strengthened...
• Valéry Giscard dEstaing a toolbox for future
  statesmen
• The EU will become a stronger pole of power.
• Yet the potentialities will unravel only with
  time, and in the cracks left by the states
• A European dictator! States surrendering their
  powers and sovereignty on the altar of EU
  bureaucracy!
• At least, some debate Definitely the end of the
  permissive consensus

2
Tony Blair?

• Future president of the Council of Heads of
  states?
• Council of Heads of States (Sweden), Commission
  (José M. Barroso), Council of Ministers,
  Parliament (Jerzy Buzek)
• France supports Tony Blair
• Germany and others support someone else
  Jean-Claude Juncker, Jan Peter Balkenende or
  (surprise) Paavo Lipponen
• War in Iraq, fear of small states towards a
  representative of a great power, federalists
  against intergovernmentalists
• Why does France support Blair?
• A strong voice for the Council in front of the
  Commission especially Barrosos Commission. The
  guarantee of an intergovernmental Union
• Seems strange Isnt France the defender of
  strong European institutions? Commission as the
  center, able to level the field, to act as an
  arbiter between France and Germany?
• But there was always an ambiguity in Frances
  European policy between building European
  architecture able to help France AND keeping
  these institutions under control and not
  surrendering too much sovereignty
• One should not mix the attitude of French
  European civil servants (often federalists) and
  the official French policy.
• Frances European engagement is a conditional,
  reluctant affair (if sincere at times)
• On the other hand, the first Communities are
  built according to a French vision of economy and
  politics at the time centralized, dirigist, etc
• Take your bets!
• For me Jean-Claude Juncker or a compromise name

3
The Beyen plan

• Following the demise of the ECD (august) and the
  signature of the Paris Accords (October),
  European integration comes to a standstill
• The Common Assembly, the High Authority and the
  governments of the Benelux try to find a new
  momentum. The emphasis comes back to technical,
  economical projects.
• Johan Willem Beyens project is the first to come
  up
• Prime Minister of the Netherlands, federalist
• A large economic and customs union between the
  Six general integration, liberalization Lets
  not use the F-word
• Holland needs markets and free trade for its
  economy. Also, importance of keeping the pace of
  political cooperation.
• April 4th 1955, memorandum to Paul-Henri Spaak,
  the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and to
  Joseph Bech, the Luxembourg Minister for Foreign
  Affairs, in which Beyen advocated the
  establishment of a customs union designed to lead
  towards economic union.
• April 21st, he publically revealed the project
  before the Dutch national council of the European
  Movement.

4
The Monnet plan

• Jean Monnets project
• Head of the High Authority of the ECSC
• Sectorial integration with a long term goal the
  creation of a common market, sector after sector
• Enlarge the capacity of the ECSC to other domains
• Create a community in the Nuclear energy sector
• Monnets pet project in the summer of 1954
• A vivid discussion on nuclear energy in Europe at
  the time the creation of the European Centre for
  Nuclear Energy in Geneva in 1953, the Armand
  report in France, etc
• Technical, symbolic, gives a measure of control
  on Western Germany in this area, acceptable to
  the French as support for their own program

5
Liberate to integrate, or integrate to liberate?

• Beginning of 1955 Spaak has two projects on the
  table one sectorial integration project, and one
  general integration project with a clear
  federalist tinge.
• Two versions of federalism
• Spaak, Joseph Bech, and Beyen met in The Hague on
  April 23rd 1955.
• Everybody agrees
• On the need for a new political and symbolic
  momentum
• On the need to be cautious, to remain at first in
  technical matters
• They adopt the principle of a joint memorandum
  combining the ideas of Monnet and Beyen, and
  decided to propose to their European partners a
  sectorial approach for transport and energy,
  especially nuclear energy, and the parallel
  establishment of a general common market
• 20th May 1955 the Benelux memorandum is
  submitted to W.Germany, France and Italy.
• This is to be studied and discussed on 1, 2 and 3
  June 1955 at the Messina Conference to be
  attended by the Foreign Ministers of the six ECSC
  Member States.

6
Reactions

• The German and Italian governments quickly
  defined their positions in memoranda of their
  own.
• The German paper was a compromise between Ludwig
  Erhard, the Minister for Economic Affairs, who
  was opposed to command economy and
  supranational powers, and Chancellor Konrad
  Adenauer, who was more interested in the
  political aspects of economic union. Support for
  the Beneluxs plan
• The Italian memorandum underlined the need to
  coordinate economic policies within the future
  common market.
• In substance, the three memoranda, which stressed
  the importance of involving Britain in future
  deliberations, envisaged a general common market
  while agreeing to sectorial measures for atomic
  power and transport. All three were on the agenda
  for the conference of ECSC Foreign Ministers
  the first since the failure of the European
  Defence Community (EDC) in August 1954 which
  was to be held in Messina.

7
French reactions

• A heavy atmosphere
• A project that goes against a French policy of
  protectionism and state intervention in economics
• Edgar Faure (Prime Minister) and Antoine Pinay
  (Foreign Minister) oppose the Beyen approach of
  general integration, and give only cautious
  support for sectorial integration
• Faures press conference of May 25th 1955
• Economic integration should proceed. We should
  create something more than a club of
  ambassadors If the term of supranationality
  is absurd, it is nonetheless necessary to give to
  it (the organization) some powers of decision
• Walking a fine line between domestic situation
  and the need to pursue cooperation with Frances
  partners

8
The Messina conference, June 1st-3rd 1955

• The Italians on their ground, eager to push the
  process forward
• The succession of Jean Monnet, and the memoranda
• Monnet had resigned from his post in November
  1954, and created the Action Committee for the
  United States of Europe
• He knows he will not be nominated again. He has
  resigned in 1954, and his successor is a less
  controversial character, René Mayer, ex-Prime
  Minister
• Discussions are difficult and tensed
• Nobody wants to create a new ECSC
• Too dirigist for the W.Germans, too invasive
• Yet nobody wants to appear as the one that will
  break the momentum
• Difficult technical issues, general reluctance to
  big projects
• In the night of June 2nd-3rd, a last minute
  resolution (the Messina resolution)
• A vague document, emphasizing the need to further
  economic integration, free market, harmonization
  of legislations, and common institutions
• A committee is created to investigate further

9

• Messina, June 1955
• Beyen Gaetano Martino, Italian Minister for
  Foreign Affairs Joseph Bech, President of the
  Government of Luxembourg and Minister for Foreign
  Affairs and Foreign Trade and Wine growing
  Antoine Pinay, French Minister for Foreign
  Affairs Walter Hallstein, Secretary of State at
  the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian Minister for Foreign
  Affairs

10
The Spaak committee

• A group of experts created to work on the next
  step. Led by Paul-Henri Spaak, the committee
  starts working in July 1955, in Brussels, with a
  deadline in October 1955
• The French are extremely active, bringing to the
  fore their national interests and generally
  impeding progress in the negotiations
• Pinay and Faure emphasize collaboration in
  nuclear energy (a capacity enhancer for France, a
  technical domain out of the peoples eye) but
  oppose a liberal European free market
• But the French are pressed to give way to the new
  movement
• October 1955 nothing comes, and Spaak creates a
  new, smaller committee that works faster and
  drafts a report for April 26th 1956
• The creation of a common market for agricultural
  and industrial productions
• Corrected liberalism inside a free market, with
  an external common customs barrier, harmonization
  of policies, etc
• Institutions mirroring the ECSCs institutions

11
Reactions to the Spaak report

• The Benelux, Italy, Western Germany quickly show
  their approval, and France is under pressure
• Domestic changes in France
• January 1956 elections, Socialists emerge
  victorious. They look at the reactions of the
  German SDP, positive towards a possible Common
  Market
• The role of French Prime Minister Guy Mollet
• Socialist, Prime Minister after January 1956
• Strong advocate of European integration, he will
  actively endorse the Spaak report
• Christian Pineau, foreign minister, and Emile
  Noël, head of Mollets cabinet
• A group of key personalities
• May 1956 conference in Venice that approves the
  recommendations of the Spaak committee
• Potential problems liberalism, question of
  institutions, and the French government
• Mollet emphasizes nuclear cooperation and
  agriculture, and tries to control economic
  cooperation and the supranationality of the
  institutions

12
The negotiations of the Val Duchesse

• Negotiations start in the castle of Val Duchesse,
  near Brussels, on June 26th 1956
• In the autumn 1956, things are blocked on the
  institutions, the technical modalities of a
  common market, and especially social
  harmonization (nobody wants it, except the
  French)
• The experience of the ECSC had provided a
  counter-example it was considered as too
  powerful
• November 1956s breakthrough
• Suez crisis shakes Frances position the real
  extent of French impotence
• The treaty on the Saarland, October 27th 1956,
  improves Franco-German relations
• The result an economic package deal
• Western Germans and Benelux get a common market,
  economic opening of borders, free trade
• France gets the Euratom, a corrected market,
  specific relations between this common market and
  ex-French African colonies (Lomé convention), and
  markets for its agricultural products
• Trade-off Germans will eat French cassoulet, the
  French will drive BMWs

13
The treaties of Rome, March 25th 1957

• Create two new communities the Euratom and the
  European Economic Community
• An institutional architecture mirroring the
  ECSCs, but with less powers to the two new
  commissions
• 3 Council of Ministers, 2 commissions and the
  High Authority, 1 Common Assembly, 1 Court of
  Justice
• Ratification in France under the shadow of
  August 1954
• Mollets crafty parliamentary politics
• Issue linkage between Algeria and European
  integration
• To the right if you want Algeria, give me the
  treaties of Rome
• At the same time, a strong negotiating position,
  emphasizing French interest, and lots to bring
  back home
• July 9th 1957, the Parliament accepts to ratify

14

• A highly debated compromise, mostly dictated by
  French terms
• Transitional period of 12 years after January 1st
  1959, inclusion of French colonies into the
  common tariff, harmonization of social regimes,
  special regime allowing France to re-establish
  tariffs in case of balance of payments problems,
  etc
• A package deal between openness and regulation,
  the EEC and Euratom, a protective bubble
• Less supranationality, less power for the
  commissions, but the possibility to develop
  common policies managed at the European level
  (For example, the potential for a Common
  Agricultural Policy)
• A customs union with a common external tariff
  that, governed by the competition principle and
  developing common policies, would at some future
  date ideally be also free of non-tariff barriers
  to trade.
• French European policy
• Some, but not too much
• Domestic changes dictate the attitudes from
  Mendès-France to Mollet, from Mollet to Charles
  de Gaulle

15
European integration in the 1950s

• Community Europe (organization of economic
  cooperation under supranational institutions) won
  the day. The inner six create a standard, from
  the intergovernmental track (OEEC) to a regulated
  supranational system
• Why?
• Structural imperatives (economic, political
  incentives to organize in a novel way Milward)?
  Path-dependency (once the ECSC was created,
  replication of the process)?
• A fiercely fought political battle, as we see
  with the French example
• The advocates of a novel approach managed to
  impose it against other ways to organize European
  cooperation and solve current problems
• No European destiny, no inevitable rational
  solution, but the result of a political fight
  over how to solve problems, constant compromises,
  and the mix of domestic and international forces
• Gradual, sectorial integration Technocracy and
  defiance towards the instability of diplomacy and
  parliamentarism a regulated market as the basis
  for common policies