European Union (EU)

An economic organization now taking on political, social, and diplomatic functions as a united Europe. The economic and political integration of Europe after Word War II on functional and, later, federal bases has not produced a supranational organization but rather has strengthened the once-battered nation states of the region. Previous attempts at European unification happened by force—the Continental System of Napoleon Bonaparte and the New Order of Adolf [Page 245]Hitler. However, postwar Europe rebounded out of the weakness and devastation wrought by World War II and forged the most successful economic union yet seen in the modern world.

Origins of the European Union

The movement toward European cooperation after World War II centered first on matters of security and economic recovery in Western Europe. The war left Europe crippled in terms of industry and infrastructure, and it was producing only half of its prewar agricultural output. Eastern Europe was lost to Soviet occupation and the accompanying conversion of local governments to a communist system. The Western powers, including the United States, feared Soviet aggression, but Western Europe would have to depend on the United States in the immediate future for economic and military support.

The motives favoring European cooperation varied, but security concerns and economic stagnation remained common to all. The United States encouraged the spirit of cooperation by tying its Marshall Plan aid to the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (now the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), which had 17 member nations. At the same time, the Benelux nations (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) had forged a customs union based on wartime plans of the governments in exile. However, more ambitious discussions of federalism in Europe foundered when it became clear that nations would not abandon their sovereignty, and none of the statesmen involved in these discussions could agree on a likely model for future European cooperation.

As a result, early European integration focused on discrete areas of mutual concern. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) became the focus of cooperative defense, while a weak Council of Europe provided an early ministerial forum for intergovernmental cooperation. Then, economic impetus took hold. A man named Jean Monnet, who served as planning commissioner in France under President Charles de Gaulle, advocated not just cooperative schemes among nations, but a fusion of interests among all Europeans. His initiatives bore fruit with the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952.

Originally launched as a Franco-German scheme to improve economic planning, reduce German postwar revenge tendencies, and improve French competitiveness, the ECSC was embraced as well by the Benelux countries and Italy. The Treaty of Paris founded the ECSC and eliminated trade barriers on coal, steel, and iron ore. In addition, it established supervisory and regulatory administrations, such as the Council of Ministers, the European Assembly, the Court of Justice, and various consulting and coordinating committees.

Such imposing institutional names belied the fact that the nations involved in these organizations retained full sovereignty, and the intergovernmental organizations remained weak. The resulting pattern of upgrading cooperation in specific sectors of economic and political activities extended over the ensuing half century, accounting for periodic difficulties experienced by the European integration movement in promoting truly democratic and federal programs.

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