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First Chapter
A historical overview: the stages of the
European Union
The European Union Treaty… within a few years will
lead to the creation of what the founding fathers of modern
Europe dreamed of after the war, the United States of Europe.
(Helmut Kohl, German Chancellor, 1992)
When looking at the linguistic map of Europe, it is important to recall that
the diverse heritage of many languages existed long before states were
formed, and long before the concept Europe emerged. Umberto Eco said:
“Europe first appears as a Babel of new languages. Only afterwards was it
a mosaic of nations”. He also stresses how important it is to maintain a
sense of history, so that we can learn from the past. The creation of the
European Union (EU) was an attempt to overcome the nationalist conflicts
of the first half of the twentieth century, especially the rivalry between
Germany and France that had contributed to both world wars. But the
European integration process is not an isolated process, exclusively
regarded the period after World War II. This view reveals a clear
misunderstanding of the great transformations that shaped a reality known
as Europe. The Roman Empire constituted the first great effort to integrate
an important section of our continent and the lands surrounding the
Mediterranean sea. Middle Ages brought the idea of unification under the
common flag of Christendom. The ideas of eurocentrism and superiority
of the European civilisation arose in that moment. Without the Renaissance
and the Enlightenment we cannot understand the ideas of tolerance,
freedom, respect of human rights and democracy that constitute the
foundation of the European construction. There is an evident reality that we
3
have to underline: the idea of Europe cannot be fully understood without
keeping in mind the historical evolution of our continent prior to World
War II and the recent integration process that has been realized in the
European Union. Aristide Briand
1
, French Prime Minister, in his famous
speech of 1929 in front of the Assembly of the League of Nations,
formulated the idea of a federation of European nations based on solidarity
and on the pursuit of economic prosperity and political and social
cooperation: “I believe that a sort of federal bond should exist between the
nations geographically gathered as Europe countries; [...] Evidently, the
association will take place mainly in the economic domain: this is the most
pressing question [...]”. The League of Nations asked Briand to present a
memorandum with a detailed project. The French politician submitted a
Memorandum on the organisation of a system of European Federal Union
in 1930. It was too late. The economic depression had begun to eliminate
the idea of solidarity and cooperation among international relations. People
who sustained the European Union, such as the French politician E.
Herriot
2
who published The United States of Europe in 1931, were a
minority. The rise of Adolf Hitler to the post of German chancellery in
1933 involved the definitive end of the European harmony and the revival
of the monster of nationalism in its worst form. Europe and the world were
heading for a new catastrophe. The necessity of some type of European
integration in a new way to reorder the European political map became
evident. In 1946, the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
3
pronounced a celebrated speech at Zurich University (Switzerland). It was
considered as the first step towards European integration in the post-war
1
http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/index_en.htm
2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe
3
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3583801.stm
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period: “I wish to speak to you today about the tragedy of Europe. […] Yet
all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and
spontaneously adopted by the great majority of people in many lands,
would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene, and would in a few
years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and as happy as
Switzerland is today. […] The first step in the recreation of the European
Family must be a partnership between France and Germany”. The United
States
4
, unlike after First World War, did not choose for isolation and
assumed its responsibility as the first world power by adopting a policy
based on resolved intervention in European matters. The American
government was convinced that obstacles to free trade had been largely
responsible of the international tensions that led to the Second World War.
The implementation of a free trade policy
5
became a basic condition for
any country to receive the American economic aid. The USA promoted the
foundation of a centralised European organization that administered and
organised the delivery of the massive economic help of the Marshall Plan
6
.
In 1948, the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC)
was established with this aim. This was one of the first institutions that
involved a great part of Western European countries. OEEC
7
helped to
liberalise the trade among the Member States, introduced ideas in favour of
monetary agreements and improved economic cooperation. In 1949, still
following an American initiative, most of Western European democratic
states founded, together with the USA and Canada, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), the great Western military alliance
4
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3595155.stm#s23
5
http://www.eesc.europa.eu/index_en.asp
6
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/marshall/
7
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/2003/inside_europe/default.stm
5
confronted with the Soviet Union. One year before, in 1948, the Benelux
8
(Customs Union between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) had
started working by introducing a common external tariff. This Union had
been created in 1944, before the end of the Second World War. The setting
up of the Council of Europe
9
, in 1949, meant another major step forward.
The Council tried to incite political cooperation among European countries.
Their main function has been to reinforce the democratic system and the
human rights in the member States. The first step in the process of
foundation of the European Community was given by the French Foreign
Minister, Robert Schuman. In a speech inspired by Jean Monnet,
Schuman
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proposed that France and Germany, and any other European
country wishing to join them, put together their energies and steel
resources: “ [...] Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a
single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first
create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe
requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany.
Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries. With
this aim in view, the French Government proposes that action be taken
immediately on one limited but decisive point. It proposes that Franco-
German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common
High Authority, within the framework of an organisation open to the
participation of the other countries of Europe. The pooling of coal and steel
production should immediately provide for the setting up of common
foundations for economic development as a first step in the federation of
8
http://www.eesc.europa.eu/index_en.asp
9
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/showPage.ASP?lang=en
10
http://www.euromove.org.uk/publications/expert/reformtreaty
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Europe [...] (Schuman Declaration, 9th May 1950). The Treaty of Paris
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was signed in April of 1951, establishing the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC). The general High Authority common was presided by
Jean Monnet. The Six countries: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Low
Countries and Luxemburg made up this first European Community. It was
evident that economic integration was the only practical way towards a
political union that should be achieved after a long time. The foreign
ministers of the Six, presided over by the Belgian Paul Henri Spaak, met in
a Conference in Messina (Italy) in 1955, and the agreements, they reached
there, aimed a definitive step in the European construction: on 25
th
March
1957, a treaty was signed in Rome, the Treaty of Rome
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, that gave birth to
the European Economic Community (EEC). At the same time another
treaty was signed in Rome to encourage co-operation in the use of atomic
energy, under the organisation of the European Atomic Energy Community
(EURATOM), which was later absorbed into the structure of the European
Community. The signatories of the historic agreement were: Christian
Pineau on behalf of France, Joseph Luns from the Netherlands, Paul Henri
Spaak from Belgium, Joseph Bech from Luxemburg, Antonio Segni from
Italy and Konrad Adenauer from the Federal Republic of Germany. The
Treaties were ratified by National Parliaments over the following months
and came into force on 1
st
January 1958. In the preamble of the treaty of
the European Economic Community we can read that signatory States were
“determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the
peoples of Europe”. In this way, the Member States specifically affirmed
the political objective of a progressive political integration. Indeed, the
brand new institution was a customs union. As a consequence, the EEC
11
http://europa.eu/abc/treaties/index_en.htm
12
http://europa.eu/50/index_en.htm
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was colloquially known as “Common Market”. The Treaty of Rome looked
to make countries relate with each other in a different way based on
supranationalism
13
. It created a system of European government that was
based on the idea that countries should hand over sovereignty
14
on certain
issues and that this would allow them to achieve things that they could not
achieve on their own. Its authors created two new mechanisms to achieve
this. The first was a European Commission that had some of the powers of
a national government. The second was the idea of Qualified Majority
Voting (QMV), which meant that not all members had to agree on a policy
in order for it to be passed. This is so different because until 1958 the
governments of nation states had always been ultimately responsible for all
decisions about their countries’ affairs. This was their sovereign right.
Since 1958, national governments have allowed decision-making power on
many areas to pass to the EU institutions. However, Member States retain
power through the European Council. This means that it is not really a
supranational government, but a cross between this latter and an
intergovernmental organisation like the United Nations in which sovereign
states come together to agree to do things in the same way, but do not give
up any sovereignty.
The history of the European Union is the result of important events that
have radically changed in the time the original shape of this organization.
In the following table
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we have reported the most significant stages of the
European Union, from the day of the signature of the Treaty of Rome to the
current year:
13
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/euroglossary/1216833.stm
14
http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=news&ID=121
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To realize the table about the history of the European Union, we have consulted the following websites:
http://europa.eu/abc/history/index_en.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union
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