Today we celebrate the 56th birthday of the European Union. On 9 May 1950
Robert
Schuman, then the French Secretary of State, delivered a declaration
advocating co-operation between France and Germany.
The
importance of this so called Schuman
Declaration for the European integration declaration cannot be sufficiently
emphasized. Nevertheless, on this day, I would like to give attention to the
essential Anglo-American contribution to the realization of the European Union.
Schuman and his ghost-writer Monnet’s Europe
The
Schuman Declaration may indeed be regarded as the Europan Union’s birth
certificate. This Declaration, written by the prominent French bureaucrat Jean Monnet, was based
on a simple idea: European co-operation on politically relevant, but mainly
technical issues.
The
tactical advantage of this method was, and still is, having technocrats solve
politically sensitive issues. Furthermore, Schuman and Monnet assumed correctly
that co-operation in one policy area would lead to co-operation in related
areas.
Especially the European
Economic Community established in 1957 turned out to
be a brilliant move. In order to achieve a common market it proved necessary to
tackle related issues like the environment, migration and worker rights.
Churchill’s blueprint for the United States of Europe
No matter the importance of the
Schuman Declaration for European integration, let us not forget that Winston Churchill, then
prime-minister of the United Kingdom,
had already put forward proposals with a view to peaceful European
co-operation. Projects he was involved in, describe in detail the European
Union as we know it.
One
year before the Schuman Declaration was delivered; the Westminster Conference
adopted a Resolution outlining the present-day European Union. This conference
was organized by the European
Movement established in 1949. In 1948 its establishment was preceded by The
Hague Congress chaired by Winston Churchill. This Congress called on a
political, economic and monetary Union of Europe.
The
same appeal may be found in the Resolution
of the Westminster Conference: establishment of an economic union founded
on a common market and free movement of persons, goods and capital, leading to
a monetary union with one currency and a central monetary authority, by
political co-operation open to all democratic European nations and their
dependent overseas territories. Nearly sixty years later we may recognize the
European Union in this description.
Churchill’s foresight, or perhaps his realism,
we may also hear in his famous Zurich Speech
held in 1946. In this speech, advocating a United States of Europe, Churchill
stated that the first step in the re-creation of the European family had to be
a partnership between France and Germany.
American carrot money
after WWII
Churchill’s call for co-operation between
European states did not appear out of the blue. Such proposals were inspired by
American aid for Europe;
a continent devastated by WWII.
In 1947, George C. Marshall, then
Secretary of State of the United States of America,
offered American financial aid for Europe’s
reconstruction. Between 1948 and 1952 a donation of a total of about 13 billion
dollars was distributed among the European countries under the Marshall Plan.
This aid was conditional: the European States
had to draft collectively a reconstruction plan for Europe.
To that end the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) was
established.
The OEEC’s
aims were, among others, to promote European co-operation, to reduce tariffs
and other barriers to the expansion of trade, and to promote the free movement
of goods, payments and workers. The European Union’s characteristics are
clearly recognizable.
The
countries co-operating within the OEEC broke up in two blocs: the European
Economic Community (EEC) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
Subsequently the EEC developed into the European Community and became part of
the European Union, while the EFTA eroded. One by one the EFTA members joined
first the EEC, then the EC and the EU.
The political club European Union defeated the
purely economic club EFTA in what may be considered the political-economic
version of Darwin’s survival of the fittest.
American Ostpolitik after the Berlin Wall
Initially the integration of European states
was limited to Western Europe,
since Easterm Europe was behind the Iron Curtain.
The arms
race initiated by former president of the United States Ronald Reagan,
led to the Soviet-Union’s
dissolution. In 1989 the Berlin
Wall fell. The Iron
Curtain followed suit. A united Europe
was within reach.
Amerika, led by former
president George
H.W. Bush, seized the opportunity and pursued a swift accession of the
countries just liberated to the NATO first and then to the EU. Or as George
H.W. Bush put it: “let
Europe be whole and free”. The contours of the new world order were marked.
Consequently,
the USA succeeded in uniting whole of Europe in two steps: First the
integration of Western Europe after the military defeat of Hitler’s Nazi
regime, then the accession to the EU of Eastern Europe after the political and
economic defeat of communism.
Concluding remarks
Schuman and Monnet’s proposals have to be considered in relation with
Churchill’s vision of Europe
and the USA’s
commitment to liberation. Each of them contributed after their own fashion to the
integration of the Old Continent.
Churchill provided a blueprint; the USA political
pressure and economic rewards; Schuman and Monnet, for their part, designed a
co-operation mechanism.
The Schuman Declaration is nevertheless unique
since it shows that France proved to
be a good winner, opening up the road to a fundamental co-operation with its
arch-enemy Germany. Rightfully, the 9th of May is celebrated as Europe Day.
Copyright © 2006 Atilla Arda
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