Single European Act (SEA)

History of the European Union

For centuries, Europe had been the site of horrendous war and strife between its nation-states. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, France and Germany went into major combat with each other no less than three times. War had become commonplace, and its toll on the area's resources and the attendant loss of life was monumental. So leaders in Europe began to see the overwhelming need to forge some long-lasting harmony and peace in the region.

After World War II, the movement toward European integration began, but it did so in rather halting steps. In the early 1950s, six countries—Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, West Germany, France, and Italy—created the ECSC, which became the first modern, wide-scale economic coalition in Europe. The ECSC served as a supranational body composed of a high authority that had regulatory powers over member states, a council that exercised legislative power, and a court that was called the “European Court of Justice.” The thinking at the time was that if a consortium could be successful in managing European economic rivalry, especially the one that existed between France and Germany, then future wars might be avoided. This move toward economic cooperation was also urged by the conditions made by the United States in its “Marshall Plan,” which provided $25 billion to assist Europe to rebuild itself from the ashes of World War II.

In 1951, the Treaty of Paris brought forth the birth of the ECSC. Then, 6 years later, when it was clear that economic cooperation in Europe would be possible, the member states of the ECSC deepened their arrangement and through the signing of the Treaties of Rome set up the EEC and the EURATOM. The EEC's goal was economic harmonization in Europe by the establishment of a common market and the removal of barriers to free trade. Trade restrictions, it was agreed, would be lifted in the course of 12 years, but during this transitional period the economic health of member states was so enhanced that all tariffs between them were dropped in 1968. Also on the economic front, the EEC Treaty called for a common policy on agriculture and transportation, uniform customs arrangements, agreements about the deployment of labor, and a common policy on trading with non-EEC parties. Thanks to these initiatives, the EEC became widely known as the “European Common Market,” but this is not to say that Europe was a completely free market as of yet.

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