EU Integration

Chapter 1 Pre-History (starts with the Roman Empire and ends with Hitler’s Third Reich)

Three themes: territorial integration, four important ideologies that had an influence on
Europe: Christianity, Liberalism, Socialism and Conservatism and law.

 Ius gentium helped all the people, not just the people with Roman citizenship with
legal cases.
 Corpus Iuris Civilis-> It can be argued that Justinian’s codification had become a
major source of European Integration because it built the “buildings” of continental
European law.
 380 AD Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman
Empire
 1054 the Catholic Church split into an eastern part: Eastern or Orthodox Church and
a western part, Roman Catholic Church
 Christianity started to spread over Western Europe and the Roman Catholic Church
included bishoprics under ultimate leadership, meaning the “Pope”-> preserved old
monasteries which remained with old Roman culture-> this way the Christian culture
developed and it helped homogenizing to a certain extent the people of Europe.
 Peace of Westphalia-> the thirty years’ war ended and these treaties were important
to a certain extent because they established a division between Western and Central
Europe into a number of sovereign states.
 What was not a good help for European integration was the fact that the States
gained more autonomous power, each with their own official religion.
 Christianity, Islam helped with European identity: for example, Aristotle influenced
the works of Thomas Aquinas whose work was to become the core of the Roman
Catholic philosophical doctrine. Moreover, because of the substantial presence of
Muslims in South-Eastern Europe for aprox. 400 years, the European identity it can
be said that it was also shaped by Islam not only by Christianity

 Four factors that caused the rise of Liberalism: economic development, upcoming
sciences, territorial discoveries and the Reformation.
 Due to the Renaissance movement, people were not seen as only just
representatives of families, villages or social classes. They were now seen as
individual human beings.
 Free trade good for society because it benefits both of the parties
 Political ideology of liberalism emphasized on the freedom of individual persons and
it had a major influence on European integration
 Thomas Hobbes and John Locke views on function of the State (page 13-14)
 Cosmopolitism-> the only state that is worthwhile is a World-State.
 Difference between the liberalism and conservatism: liberalism assumes that society
is based on the interactions between the individual human beings, each of them
pursuing their own interest. Conservatism on the other hand, (Edmund Burke), is
leaning more towards a society that it is like an organism which must fulfill different
functions (authority and hierarchy are important to uphold a good society)
  Plato’s metaphor with the ship led to the acceptance of inequality in society and the
recognition of authority
 Napoleon Bonaparte. His reign had a major influence over Europe (page 18)
 Marxist ideology important for European integration especially: economic relations,
class struggle and international organization of labor.
 1914-1918 WW1 and 1939-1945 Hitler tried to reinstate a third version of the Holy
Roman Empire-> led to WW2-> Both of the wars brought devastations and strong
calls were made to avoid another round of war. In 1951, six countries of Europe
gathered and formed the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

Chapter 2: The History of the European Union, in four phases

Four periods will be discussed:

1. Creation of ECSC in the 1940s and 1950s
2. Empty chair crisis in 1960s
3. Period of revival in 1970s and resulted of the creation of EU and introduction to
euro as common currency
4. Period of Euroscepticism in 21st century

 EU may be seen as a fusion of three pre-existing communities: the ECSC, the EEC and
Euratom.
 In 1958, EEC and Euratom entered into existence], Parliamentary Assembly became a
common institution of the three communities-> the name was changed into
“European Parliamentary Assembly”
 1967: The Parliament changed its name again and it became the European
Parliament.
 1993: Treaty of Maastricht entered into force, the ECSC became a part of EU
