WimVanMeursRobi 2018 1ManyRoadsToEurope TheUnfinishedHistoryO

1.
Many Roads to Europe
Almost seven decades have passed since the European Coal and Steel Com-
munity (ECSC) was established as the earliest forerunner of the European
Union. Today’s awareness of the problems, successes and failures in the
integration process over the ensuing decades hinders an evaluation of the
EU’s predecessors such as the ECSC. National interests, as well as the pressure
of the Cold War present at its founding, cannot allow either the daring or
the European idealism of these initial European institutions to be forgotten.
Caution is quite advisable, then, when evaluating the ‘visionary thinkers’ of
the nineteenth century and the interwar years. The supranational European
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integration after the Second World War, in which national governments put
themselves under a higher European authority in specific policy areas, would
to a significant extent come about as the consequence of the experience of
that war, under the pressure of international developments. Yet there are
substantial similarities between the foresight of these ‘visionary think-
ers’ and subsequent European integration. The combination of economic
integration and the promotion of prosperity, on the one hand, and peace in
Europe, on the other, is but one example. Other recurring elements include
the conviction that European institutions might create a sense of a shared
European destiny as well as the perceived need for European unity in order
to give Europe weight in world politics.
European Cooperation Before the Second World War
If there was ever any talk of cooperation and unity in (part of) Europe in
past centuries, then it was seldom based on any grand design. Sometimes
the circumstances obliged political leaders to cooperate economically or
militarily. At other times unity was the consequence of wars motivated by
economic gain or power politics. Occasionally, plans were made for peaceful,
unforced political or economic integration – literally the fusion of parts
into a greater whole. Some of these plans and initiatives were intended as
mere means to promote economic prosperity; for others, European political
Copyright 2018. Amsterdam University Press.
unity was the ultimate goal. Between these ‘functional’ and ‘idealist’ plans,
however, no hard and fast dividing line can be drawn.
Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, count of Saint-Simon, was one of the important
early thinkers of European political unification. In October 1814, at the end
of the Napoleonic Wars and on the eve of the Congress of Vienna, he drew
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22 The Unfinished History of European Integr ation
up a sketch for a united Europe. It was intended for the parliaments of the
United Kingdom and France. As a start, those countries were supposed to
set up a joint parliament. Other European countries could join this Europe
yet in the making, provided they abolished their absolutist monarchies.
Eventually, this future Europe should include the German nation. According
to Saint-Simon, this nation – in view of the size of their population and
the area it inhabited in the heart of Europe – would irreversibly acquire a
leading role in Europe in the long term.
Striking similarities exist between Saint-Simon’s ideas and the character
of European integration after the Second World War. He advocated an
ordered, planned collaborative society with ‘men of outstanding merit’
leading the way. Other similarities between his plan and the European
Union included a social peace between the haves and the have-nots as well
as an emphasis on economic rationalization.
The integration of Europe that led to the European Union is often associ-
ated with perpetual peace among the countries in Europe. This idea was not
foreign to Saint-Simon either. Whereas some thinkers from the beginning
of the nineteenth century saw rivalry among the states of Europe either
as the reason why European countries set out to explore and colonize the
world, or as a source of vitality and strength, Saint-Simon saw disunity in
Europe as a weakness instead.
Just as in the EU later on, in Saint-Simon’s plans nation states were to keep
their own parliaments. At the European level, however, accommodation
was made for a representative body made up of the educated professional
classes in Europe. People were shaped by their institutions, according to
Saint-Simon, and this kind of a European ‘parliament’ would lead to a
European harmonization of interests and even to European patriotism.
Following Saint-Simon, many thinkers in the nineteenth century devel-
oped ideas on future European cooperation. This situation is remarkable,
because the nineteenth century is generally seen as the century of national-
ism and national unification. However, some nationalists like Giuseppe
Mazzini – a champion of the pursuit of Italian unity in the nineteenth
century – saw the ideal of cooperating European nations as an extension
of their pursuit of national unification, equality and fraternity.
Unlike the optimistic plans for Europe in the nineteenth century, the
plans for Europe in the interwar years were driven by intensely felt political
and economic crisis. At the beginning of the twentieth century, large parts
of the world were ruled by European colonial powers. The First World
War brought a relative decline in their position of power and marked
the economic ascent of the United States. This first modern war with its
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Many Roads to Europe 23
millions of dead and inhuman trench warfare was also perceived as a deep
crisis for European civilization and damaged the self-esteem of Europe’s
political elites. Such feelings of doom and crisis were intensified by the
communist seizure of power in Russia in 1917, and by the fear that this
ideology and Soviet influence would spread to Central and Western Europe.
After the First World War, more and more trade restrictions were in-
troduced by nation states to protect their own economies. After the war,
the global market in the agriculture sector witnessed a sharp fall in the
price of food crops, specifically grain. During the war grain production had
increased markedly in the United States, Canada and Argentina – as had
exports to the European market – Central Europe’s own production shrank
as a result of the warfare. When European production again reached its
pre-war capacity after the end of the war, an oversupply arose. Beginning
in the summer of 1921, a crisis ensued.
After the First World War, new hope for preserving peace was placed
in the League of Nations – a global organization that was supposed to
effect peace among the nations of the world – established at the initiative
of the United States. The division of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (as a
loser of the war) into smaller states was in accordance with the League of
Nations’ initial ideal of national self-determination. The initial concept of
the League of Nations for peace and cooperation was thwarted, however,
by the draconian conditions for peace that the United Kingdom and France
placed upon Germany. As the main culprit of the war, Germany had to make
enormous reparations by way of the Treaty of Versailles.
After the First World War, the Austro-Japanese count Richard Nicolaus
Coudenhove-Kalergi, a fervent anti-communist, had initially been an
enthusiastic propagandist for the League of Nations. Yet, he gradually
became disappointed in this organization. In response to the sense of crisis
in Europe, he published his famous book Pan-Europa in 1923. The book
put forward a plan for the political and economic unification of Europe.
‘Europeans’ like Coudenhove-Kalergi actually considered the unity of
Europe as a second-best option, because the League of Nations was not
functioning well. Just as in Saint-Simon’s plan and the later European
Communities, Coudenhove-Kalergi’s plan was based on ideas about peace
among the nations of Europe as well as socioeconomic peace between
capital and labour.
In Pan-Europa Coudenhove-Kalergi elaborated a vision for the future.
From his point of view, the European tendency toward ‘Kleinstaaterei’
(territorial fragmentation) was at odds with the increase in size of the four
global power blocs of the future (Pan-America, the British Empire, the
Soviet Union and the Far East). Compared to the size of these empires, a
fragmented Europe could not hold its own, in spite of its colonies in Africa,
South-America, Indochina and Indonesia. In Coudenhove-Kalergi’s eyes, the
European continent, together with these colonies, would have to form one
large economic entity without internal tariff barriers. It was relatively easy
to fit French ‘Eurafrica’ into this project. However, a Dutch economic free
trade policy in Indonesia had resulted in extensive trade between the Dutch
East Indies and the extra-European world, especially the United States. The
interests of Dutch colonial enterprises could not easily be reconciled with
the building up of tariff walls around the borders of Pan-Europe.
Pan-Europe would have to develop a strongly regulated economy. Pan-
European agriculture and industry had to be protected from cheap imported
products. In the area of agriculture, Pan-Europe would even have to become
self-sufficient. The assumption that larger economic entities would lead to
better coordination of economic production and more mass production
constituted the core of his thinking. European economic unity would lead to
rationalization, an increase in production and lower prices. As a consequence,
prosperity would increase and become more widespread. The ‘class strug-
gle’ between the propertied class and the workers would be prevented by
European unity. And communism would lose its appeal. Poverty, after all,
was the breeding ground for communism.
In the 1920s, the problems caused by the peace treaties after World War I,
seemed to be solved. This situation induced the French statesman Aristide
Briand to bring forth the 1930 Briand Memorandum, which contained a plan
for European cooperation within the framework of the League of Nations.
Much like in the League of Nations, his plan envisioned complete sovereignty
for the affiliated countries. Although the plan did mention a common market,
for Briand peace among the great European powers came first. Institutions of
the envisioned cooperation were a European conference with representatives
from the national governments, a permanent political committee as an
executive body for the conference, and a secretariat. The plan did not arouse
much enthusiasm in Germany or the United Kingdom. Germany read it as
a French attempt to consolidate its own position of power in Europe. The
British felt the same way and were more focussed on their empire outside
Europe than on the European continent anyway. Economically speaking, the
times were unfavourable for the plan too. After the October 1929 Stock Market
Crash, a worldwide economic crisis had broken out, which led to nation states
embracing economic protectionism. When the National Socialists came to
power in Germany in 1933, all hope for cooperation in Europe evaporated.
The League of Nations also constituted the point of departure for another
European initiative for economic cooperation. In order to fight the economic
crisis, the League of Nations was pursuing the reduction of barriers to
international trade. In December 1930, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the
Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg signed the so-called ‘Oslo Conven-
tion’ to that end. In this rather modest trade agreement, no increase in
existing import tariffs without prior consultation and no promulgation of
new duties unilaterally and without prior consultation, were stipulated. The
Oslo countries wanted to set a good example in trade policy for the major
European powers. As the United Kingdom and other countries refused to
join, their objective shifted to the expansion of trade among members of
the agreement instead.
In July 1932, three Oslo countries (the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxem-
bourg) concluded the more ambitious Ouchy Convention. The goal was the
phased reduction of tariffs among the signatories. Existing import duties
would not be raised, nor would new ones be introduced. The agreement,
which was intended as the first step towards a customs union in Europe,
was open to accession by the Oslo states and other countries on an equal
footing. Yet, after the United Kingdom rejected this convention, too, and
allowed its imperial trade interests to prevail over continental trade, hope
for liberalising European trade disappeared.
A 1933 attempt by the League of Nations to put an end to increasing
national protectionism in international trade by organising an economic
world conference failed as well. Nor was this economic nationalism limited
to the protection of one’s own market against products from aboard. One
by one, countries proceeded to devalue their own currencies vis-à-vis those
of their trading partners, which made their own exports cheaper. Some
countries even ‘dumped’, selling their products onto the markets of their
trading partners at rock-bottom prices in order to ruin competition from
those countries. The memory of this economic warfare during the 1930s
was the most significant economic motivation for a common market in
Western Europe after the Second World War.
In the second half of the 1930s, the Oslo states put themselves to the
political task of international detente among the major European powers.
Nobody suspected these smaller countries of pursuing territorial expansion
or dominance in Europe. Attempts at detente proved to be fruitless, however,
and the economic advantages of the agreement, became increasingly meagre
for the Member States. At the end of the 1930s, there was barely any talk of
cooperation among the Oslo states.
Hitler’s New Order and the Federalist Europe of the Resistance
In the end, plans and initiatives for cooperation and unity in Europe all
broke down as a result of the unwillingness of the national states before the
Second World War. European cooperation in and of itself had often been
a second option, after worldwide cooperation for the sake of peace or free
trade failed in the League of Nations.
Hitler’s Nazi Germany would have nothing of either the League of Nations,
or Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa. According to the Nazis, it was not
peoples but governments that created these artificial institutions. To them,
moreover, Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa was the overture to global
capitalism, while they pursued a Europe under German leadership that
would be independent of imports from the rest of the world. In spite of their
objections to Pan-Europa, the Nazi leaders championed a European vision
of their own. Albert Speer – a key economic figure in Hitler’s Third Reich
during the Second World War – had wanted to create an organization similar
to the ECSC in terms of economic goals (albeit an undemocratic version).
As the dominant power on the European continent, Nazi Germany
propagated European economic cooperation in a ‘Großraumwirtschaft’
(‘bloc economy’). On 25 July 1940, for example, the German minister for
Economic Affairs presented a financial plan for a multilateral ‘clearing’
of assets and debts in territories under German rule: when the balance of
trade between two countries was out of balance, the assets and shortages
would thenceforth no longer be calculated ‘bilaterally’ but rather ‘multilater-
ally’ among all the countries participating. Thus, currency restrictions for
mutual trade between these countries could be downsized, which would
intensely simplify trade with one another. The plan resembled the European
Payment Union subsequently created in August 1950. In Nazi Germany,
many farther-reaching plans were considered, such as a customs union
with free movement of capital, but these plans were not a priority for the
political leadership.
National Socialism was primarily geared towards the military conquest
of territory for the German ‘Herrenvolk’ (‘master race’) in Poland and (from
June 1941 onwards) in the Soviet Union. The National Socialist plans for
an economic ‘Großraum’ in Western and Central Europe were a façade for
economic exploitation by Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, some institutions in
Nazi Germany as well as a few authorities in the occupied territories believed
in a new economic Europe under German leadership. Among these ‘believers’
were many non-Nazis as well. To them these plans constituted the first step
toward economic unification on the European continent. Many hoped that
the Hitler regime would be pushed aside by more moderate forces from the
German army after the passage of time, so that the fall of the Nazis would
not be followed by the collapse of Germany. Such a collapse, in their mind,
would open the door to a Soviet invasion of Europe.
Because of the German hegemony that existed on the continent in 1941
and 1942, the organized German resistance against Hitler was compelled
to develop a vision for Europe. There had to be a plan for the occupied
territories, once Hitler was pushed aside. Carl Goerdeler, the new chancellor
the German resistance had in mind, hoped for a unification of the European
people against Soviet communism. In 1941 he foresaw a future European
league of states under German leadership. Even though he was still thinking
of a separate German Wehrmacht at that moment, a year later he was a
proponent for creating a European army. The leaders of the Kreisau Circle, a
Christian-social resistance group, wanted to turn the economic exploitation
of the National Socialists into economic cooperation in Europe. Europe was
supposed to become a federation of historical entities of similar size that
would break the spell of nationalism. Later on, the Kreisau Circle developed
a so-called ‘Europe Plan’ as blueprint for a European community (with
European legislative institutions and a constitution). Much like in the EU
many years later, the principle of subsidiarity was emphasized – decisions
should be taken at the lowest possible level of governance. Furthermore,
the Kreisau Circle spoke out in favour of a world organization stronger than
the League of Nations.
Outside of Germany, in the ranks of the resistance against National
Socialism and fascism, a federalist European ideal also developed during
the war. It sought an alternative to the National Socialists’ pursuit of a
European ‘Großraum’, and a form of collective security against the Soviet
Union. According to these federalists, the German conquest of the European
continent proved that European countries could not defend themselves
individually, and that national sovereignty in Europe had become a chimera.
The era of Kleinstaaterei, according to them, was at an end, both militarily
and economically. Despite fundamental differences, like respect for human
values, their federalist ideal had a few similarities with the National Social-
ists’ Europe. Both for the Nazis and the resistance, ‘Europa’ had undertones
of a socioeconomic ‘third way’ between the capitalist free-market economy
of the United States and the communist centrally-planned economy of the
Soviet Union. Increasing the scale of the market to all of Europe was bound
to lead to rising prosperity.
After the downfall of Nazi Germany in May 1945, champions of a stronger
European continent, were more or less opposed by proponents of Europe
as a building block for broader political cooperation and unification in an

Atlantic context or in the context of the United Nations, the successor to
the League of Nations. Some thought along the lines of Aristide Briand,
whose European plans of 1930 proposed initiating a caucus for European
cooperation within the League of Nations. In the early post-war years, ideas
about federalist cooperation and strengthening the community of European
states existed alongside even more ambitious prospects, such as so-called
‘world federalism’. In the second half of the 1940s, however, these visions
for worldwide cooperation dwindled under the impact of the Cold War.
The European federalists constituted a colourful elitist club, united as the
Union of European Federalists under the presidency of Hendrik Brugmans
on 17 December 1946. At that time, many members envisioned a Europe
consisting of smaller regions united into one European federation. To their
mind, the power of the nation states had to be broken. That process would
politically integrate post-war Germany (the anticipated economic engine of
Western Europe) without it having to be curtailed economically for fear of
renewed German military aggression. Though these federalists did have their
long-term objectives, they lacked a concrete strategy to achieve these ends.
The Cold War and the German Question
After the end of the Second World War, the Cold War and the division of
Germany constituted important catalysts for economic cooperation in
Western Europe. Western European democracies were under pressure to
provide higher levels of prosperity for their citizens. Poverty as a consequence
of the crisis in the 1930s, was one of the root causes of the Second World
War, still fresh in the collective memory. States wanted to prevent their own
citizens from becoming receptive to communism due to material poverty.
Economic integration of the western half of Germany into Western Europe
was a significant pursuit for Western European countries. They sought to
profit economically from rebuilding western Germany without risking
a renewed threat from Germany as a dominant economic and political
power at the heart of Europe. Integration, moreover, prevented the creation
of a reunited and neutral Germany, which over time might have ended up
siding with the Soviet Union.
The Allies disagreed on the question of what was supposed to happen
with Germany after the Nazi regime had been defeated. Toward the end
of the Second World War, there were initially plans in the United States
to re-agriculturalize Germany as a punishment. Germany, which from
the nineteenth century onwards had been the industrial core of Europe,
was supposedly to be divided up to become primarily agricultural. The
objective was to prevent it from ever being able to produce tanks, airplanes
and explosives, whereby it could once again become a threat. That plan
quickly proved to be impracticable. Keeping Germany economically low,
would lead to an economic downturn for Germany’s trading partners too.
Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met at the Yalta conference at the begin-
ning of 1945. On that occasion and at the Potsdam conference, after the
capitulation of Nazi Germany on 8 May 1945, post-war European order
and the German question were high on the agenda. As a result of these
conferences, Europe was divided into Eastern and Western spheres of
influence. Germany was divided up into four occupation zones.
As Germany ceased to be a common enemy, the mutual fear of the com-
munist East and the democratic and capitalist West increased ever more,
resulting in the Cold War. On 12 March 1947, American president Harry S.
Truman gave an historic address to the American Congress, in which he
promised aid to all countries that felt threatened by communist expansion.
The so-called ‘Truman Doctrine’ was translated into the policy of ‘contain-
ment’, with the objective of blocking further expansion of communism in
the entire world, including Western European colonies, where the pursuit
of independence was rising markedly.
The Cold War had a strong economic, in addition to a geopolitical dimen-
sion. The fact that the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to acquire
as much worldwide economic influence as possible constituted a significant
cause of the Cold War. Moreover, the West and the East were determined to
maximize their economic power as a precondition for military power as well
as to demonstrate the superiority of their respective ideological systems.
The post-war economic order of the Western world had already been
set up during the Second World War. The 1944 Bretton Woods system for
regulating reciprocal international payment transactions, in which Western
European states also participated after liberation, was of major importance.
Thenceforth, the currencies of the various participating countries had
fixed exchange rates vis-à-vis the American dollar. The dollar was further
convertible to gold and thus inflation-proof. This system, which held on until
1973, envisioned liberalization of trade, yet providing for the possibility of
limiting imports from countries with scarce currencies.
After the war, the economies of European countries had to be rebuild
once again. Just as in the 1930s, economies in Western European countries
were heavily closed off to one another as a result of tariff barriers and
other national protectionist measures. An even more urgent foreign trade
problem for Western European countries was a shortage of dollars, caused

by an increased demand for imports from America after the elimination of
Germany as a capital goods supplier. This hindered exports for the United
States. The government of the United States was willing to help, but insisted
on European economic integration, a precondition for efficiency in produc-
tion and, therefore, rising prosperity. Last, but not least, integration would
facilitate American exports to Europe.
In June 1947, the U.S. secretary of State George Marshall made a speech
declaring American intentions in the matter of aid through dollars to Europe,
whereupon, on the Americans’ orders, a conference for European economic
cooperation was organized in the summer of 1947. On that occasion, par-
ticipating European countries were expected to organize the distribution
of Marshall aid – officially called the European Recovery Program (ERP).
According to the Marshall Plan, European importers would deposit money
for imports from the United States in national currencies into a so-called
‘counterpart account’ for their own country. The exporter from the United
States had the owed amount paid for by his own government in dollars.
The European country repaid the national debt and paid for reconstruction
projects with money in the counterpart account. The money (thirteen
billion dollars) pledged by George Marshall, the American minister for
Foreign Affairs, was initially intended for all European countries, but the
countries under the influence of the Soviet Union were forced by Stalin to
turn down the aid.
Occupied territories in western Germany were not represented at the
conference, nor were they represented by the occupying Allied authorities.
At the meeting in Paris in July 1947, the Benelux countries (Belgium, the
Netherlands and Luxembourg) acted in unison for the economic benefit of
western Germany. Between the Benelux countries and France intense con-
troversy arose over the inclusion of these German territories into the recovery
programme. The French took the position that a recovery of German industry
constituted a threat to the security of Europe and preferred to maintain the
Allies’ production restrictions for Germany. The Benelux delegation success-
fully insisted on including the German economy in the European economy
because of their substantial dependence on exports to Germany.
The Americans were the driving force behind the formation of the most
important institution for economic cooperation in Europe in the 1940s. In
April 1948, in the context of Marshall aid, the Organization for European
Economic Co-operation (OEEC) was established. OEEC increasingly ac-
quired its own competences. For instance, beginning in the autumn of
1948, proposals for the use of Marshall dollars from the various European
countries were evaluated internally. Subsequently, these proposals were

presented to the American Congress for approval. The total aid between 1948
and 1952 amounted to more than 12.4 billion dollars and was distributed
across sixteen European countries, including Turkey. The aid helped restore
confidence in the economy of Western European countries, while the East
European states kept their distance on Stalin’s order – an initial indication of
the division of Europe. At the same time, financial support from the United
States forced the Western European countries to cooperate.
OEEC’s role was not only limited to Marshall aid. The initiative of the
OEEC to cancel claims and debts in a multilateral West European framework
constituted the first step towards the European Payments Union (EPU),
created in August 1950. Currencies became convertible: no restrictions on
currencies applied for reciprocal trade, whereby that trade was not hampered
by deficits or surpluses in the balance of trade between two countries.
In addition to the above forms of cooperation, joint action also emerged
on a smaller scale. The spirit of cooperation between the Ouchy countries
was revitalized in September 1944, for example, when the Belgian, Dutch
and Luxembourg governments-in-exile signed the Benelux Treaty. They
committed themselves to forming a customs union after the war. This
commitment is often seen as preparing the way for European economic
integration. The fact that the Benelux did not function too well economically
was not widely known. The motives for the founding of the Benelux were
economic in nature. Initially, the economies of Belgium and the Netherlands
were expected to complement each other. A customs union was deemed
beneficial to both. In reality, Belgium’s economy recovered fairly quickly
after its liberation in 1944, whereas the Dutch economy came out of the war
battered eight months later. As a result of its meagre exports, the Netherlands
had to urgently deal with problems in its payments balance. While wages
and prices were allowed to rise quickly in Belgium, the Netherlands held on
to low wages and prices. It was not until the 1950s, when Dutch exports rose
more strongly, that this situation changed. In February 1958, the Benelux
states signed a treaty for economic union, a label that this intergovernmental
alliance did not deserve, in practice. Therefore, the Benelux barely qualifies
as a meaningful forerunner of the European Economic Community.
In sum, after the Second World War Western Europe feared both a re-
newed threat from Germany and communism from the East. In the minds
of policy makers, the best remedy for communism was more prosperity for
their own citizens, but for such welfare, a vibrant West-German economy
was indispensable. The economic integration of Europe offered a solution
to this dilemma.
Intergovernmental and Federalist Routes to Europe
Functional economic cooperation among the nation states in Western Europe,

as with the Marshall aid, arose independently of political European idealism
and its two currents of intergovernmentalism (or unionism) and federalism
at the end of the 1940s. In the case of intergovernmentalism, cooperation
beween states was based on conferences and each kept its sovereignty.
Conversely, European federalism pursued a federal European state with a
supranational government and parliament. In supranational organizations
competences of national states were transferred to institutions above the
nation states. Federalists like Altiero Spinelli, former member of the Italian
Resistance, wanted to integrate the European nations through a directly-
elected constituent assembly. Thus, the retarding effects of national govern-
ments would be avoided in the formation of a European political community.
In May 1948, a large European congress was organized where representa-
tives of European movements came together in The Hague – prominent people
from dozens of European countries, as well as Canada and America. They came
from labour movements, churches, youth organizations, the business com-
munity and politics. One of these prominent figures was Winston Churchill,
who advocated an intergovernmentalist position. As Britain’s former prime
minister, he was an ambivalent advocate of a united Europe. In a famous speech
in Zurich in September 1946, he had spoken out in favour of Franco-German
reconciliation as an initial step toward the United States of Europe. Yet, in
his view the United Kingdom as a colonial power should initially stay aloof.
The foremost question in The Hague was whether the European countries
could accept the principle of a common authority for common interests.
Despite the lip service paid to federalism at the congress, this pivotal ques-
tion remained unanswered. It was agreed that a Council of Europe had
to be created as a European body for human rights, along with a court of
justice to ascertain that those rights were respected. The international study
commission for this Council of Europe, consisting of delegations from the
United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, tackled
the question of whether this future organization should hold supranational
authority. Owing to British disapproval, power was placed in the hands of
an intergovernmental Council of Ministers. Additionally, the British kept
the supranational parliamentary assembly, set up as counterpart to the
Council of Ministers, from acquiring any real competences. The Council
of Europe in Strasbourg emerged from these talks on 5 May 1949. Initially,
ten countries took part: the five countries mentioned above, as well as Italy,
Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The Council of Europe had a Council of Ministers and a Consultative

Parliamentary Assembly (Assemblée consultative). Initially, some federalists
hoped that this assembly would become the germ for political unity, but the
impotence of the advisory body became apparent rather quickly, character-
ized as it was by internal discord and poor relations with the Council of
Ministers. The Council of Europe was responsible for supervising observance
of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), which stipulated the rights of individuals
and citizens for all inhabitants of the contracting states. The Convention was
drawn up in 1950, following the example set by the United Nations’ Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The Council of Europe expanded quickly in
terms of Member States. From 1959 on, citizens who believed their rights
as set forth in the ECHR had been violated, could take legal proceedings
before the European Court for Human Rights headquartered in Strasbourg.
Functionalist Routes to Europe
During the establishment of the Council of Europe, federalism proved to

be an unachievable ideal as a result of the opposition of national states.
After the creation of the Council of Europe, attempts were made to bring
about an integrated Europe by way of the so-called ‘functionalist’ route.
Functionalism was a method to effect unity in a stealthy manner. In view
of the fact that, according to the functionalists, Europe could not be created
all at once or by following one single plan, they sought out a supranational
shared destiny in a crucial ‘sector’, like heavy industry, agriculture or the
military apparatus. In doing, they expected that the foundation could be
laid for an increasingly closer union of nations. This method was called
‘sectoral integration’. The original functionalist ideal was technocratic
administration by experts. In practice functionalists were just as attached
to supranational political institutions as federalists, because those entities
would aid in the formation of a European spirit among politicians.
The Frenchman Jean Monnet is seen as the driving force behind this
functionalist method and thus as the ‘founding father’ of post-war European
integration. Yet at the end of the Second World War he was above all still
looking after the interests of French industry. As a high-ranking official, he
developed a plan for modernising the French economy, which was adopted
by the French government under the leadership of De Gaulle. According
to France, Germany had to be kept small in order to prevent it from once
again constituting a military threat as well as to provide room for the French
economy. For that development and modernization, France needed German

coal and for that purpose it demanded assurances.
Germany’s Saarland (in the French occupation zone) was placed under
French administration. In addition, the Ruhr region (in the British oc-
cupation zone) as well as the Rhineland were to come under French or
international administration, according to the French. The Americans,
however, did not want to detach these territories from Germany, for fear
that it would drive the Germans into the hands of Stalin, just as the Treaty
of Versailles had driven them into the arms of Hitler. Instead, in 1949, the
International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR) was created as a precondition of
the Western allies for establishing the Federal Republic of Germany in the
Western occupation zones. This IAR – an international entity that in effect
controlled the West German economy by way of the Ruhr region – was a
thorn in the side of the young Federal Republic.
The French strategy had failed, but Monnet had a good eye for the
American desire for European cooperation. For the sake of French economic
interests, he elaborated a plan in which French management of German
raw materials was worked into a comprehensive peace plan. Prompted by
Monnet, Robert Schuman, the French minister for Foreign Affairs made an
appeal for Franco-German reconciliation on 9 May 1950. Schuman argued
that France had already been a champion of a united Europe for more
than twenty years (ever since the Briand Plan). Because that plan had not
been created at the crucial time, war had broken out once again. Now the
age-old opposition between France and Germany was finally to disappear.
The countries were to be brought closer to each other by the institution of a
supranational High Authority for heavy industry, that is, for the production
of coal and steel. In 1950 coal still constituted the most important industrial
fuel, and steel was essential for the arms industry. Given the installation of
a High Authority for coal and steel, a war between France and the Federal
Republic became not only unthinkable but also materially impossible,
according to Schuman. Participation was open to all European countries
that wanted to join.
The Schuman Plan was in essence a peace project. Even the day of its
declaration – one day after the fifth anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi
Germany – recalled that intention. Without growing solidarity in produc-
tion, the nations of Europe would be headed for a new war. In addition,
Schuman’s declaration was a combination of various objectives. The spirit
of European colonialism resounded in Schuman’s announcement that this
new European community would acquire more (financial) resources for its
most prominent task: the development of the African continent, which was
at that time largely under French administration. Here, the reformist nature
of Europe went hand-in-hand with imperial conservatism.
Other countries participated for their own reasons. The Netherlands,
for example, was interested in participation with an eye toward a future
without its most important overseas territory, Indonesia, which had become
independent in 1949. Decolonization obliged the Netherlands to undertake
economic reorientation through industrialization, among other things.
The Schuman Plan transferred control of coal and steel production to a
supranational body. This entity would hinder dumping and other forms of
improper competition resulting from government protectionism for trading
partners. On account of its recent past, the Federal Republic could not count
on very much international prestige. For Bonn, participating in the plan was a
strategy to gain back some foreign influence. On top of that, the United States
exerted pressure on the Federal Republic to participate in the integration
process. After the introduction of the plan the Federal Republic would be
rewarded with the elimination of the International Authority for the Ruhr.
France, the Federal Republic, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg subsequently established the ECSC, the first supranational
community with functionalist principles, based on a treaty that was valid
for 50 years. This Treaty of Paris was signed 18 April 1951, whereby the ECSC
brought it into effect on 25 July 1952. As its central mission, the Community
was to ensure the permanent supply of coal and steel, important for the
reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War. The ECSC preamble
saw an increase in production as contributing to the ‘workings of peace’. In
August 1952, the High Authority – the administration of the ECSC – met for
the first time. The Council of (national) Ministers followed in September.
The approval of this Council was required for important High Authority
decisions. Additionally, the consultative Common Assembly, the parliament
of the ECSC, came together for the first time in September. As the ECSC
went into effect, it led to high expectations in the Member States.
The ECSC was directed by the High Authority. This entity consisted of
nine members (at most two per member state) to avoid any appearance
that members of the High Authority were representatives of their Member
States rather than acting as supranational European government ministers.
Eight of these officials were appointed in talks between the Member States;
the ninth was appointed by those eight. Members had to swear an oath
that they would represent the interests of the Community as a whole and
as such give no priority to the interests of their Member State. Initially the
members of the High Authority had a mandate of six years; later on, this
term was reduced to four years.
Council of Ministers
Ministers of the Member States
Court of Justice
Nominated and appointed

by the Member States
Consultative Committee
Nominated by labour and
advis
employer organizations, appointed
l
es
va
by the Council of Ministers

ppro a
rants
and g
es
advis
sures
s mea
te
initia
High Authority Common Assembly

monitors
Nominated and appointed Delegates from the national

by the Member States and by cooptation parliaments (double mandates)
European institutions: Treaty of Paris (1951/1952)
The High Authority supervized execution of the Treaty and for that
purpose could provide non-binding advisory opinions to Member States and
individual parties; make recommendations that were only binding in regard
to the objectives but that left the way of implementing these objectives to
the Member States; and reach decisions that were binding to all parties. The
High Authority, then, came above national governments in areas strongly
demarcated in the ECSC Treaty. In its first two and a half years the High
Authority was under the presidency of Monnet.
The Netherlands and Belgium had demanded robust competences
for a Council of Ministers in the ECSC. This so-called ‘Council’ – from
whom approval was required in the case of important decisions – was a
community body that was deemed to represent the general interest in
relation to coal and steel, while individual ministers also represented the
interests of their Member States in the Council. In practice, the Council
constituted an intergovernmental counterweight to the supranational High
Authority. In this line of reasoning, political and democratic responsibility
for decision-making lay with the Council of Ministers. Initially every state
delegated one member of its cabinet to the Council. With the exception
of the very first president – Konrad Adenauer, the West German federal
chancellor and minister for Foreign Affairs – these delegates were mostly
ministers for Economic Affairs or for Industry and Trade. The presidency
was carried out in rotation for a time period lasting three months according
to the alphabetical order of the participating states.
The High Authority was controlled by the so-called Common Assembly
(Assemblée commune), usually called ‘the Assembly’. This forerunner of
the European Parliament came together at Strasbourg once a year and
furthermore in extraordinary session upon request of the Council. In an-
ticipation of future direct elections, the 78 members of the Assembly were
provisionally delegated by their national parliaments. This simultaneous
membership in the national parliament and the Assembly was called the
‘double mandate’. The delegates were not representatives of their national
states but, rather, of their political parties. The main parties represented in
the Assembly were Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals,
though representatives of smaller parties could also be found there. Sister
parties from the various Member States worked together, yet there was still
no talk of forming European parties.
In the ECSC there was a Consultative Committee, consisting of employers,
employees and business people, the members of which were appointed by
the Council. The goal of involving these interested parties, was to create
consensus for the policy that was to be executed so that social peace would
be maintained. This Consultative Committee was a forerunner of the later
Economic and Social Committee in the European Economic Community
(EEC) and the European Community for Atomic Energy (ECA or Euratom).
Finally, there was the Court of Justice, where Member States or Commu-
nity institutions were able to have disputes adjudicated concerning decisions
and recommendations of the High Authority. Businesses and organizations
could do the same thing in certain cases. The Court consisted of seven
judges and two advocates general. This court was seated in Luxembourg
and ought not be confused with the Council of Europe’s European Court
for Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Failed Attempt at a ‘Constitution’ for Europe
Under pressure from the Cold War, sector integration for Western Europe
was also pursued in the military. In spite of the Truman Doctrine, the United
States reduced their troops in Europe. When the communists seized power in
Czechoslovakia in February 1948, it led to a reaction of anti-communist alarm
in Western Europe. It was feared that Western Europe would be handed

over to communism from the East. Various Western European countries
pursued Western European cooperation in the military arena, which would
also strengthen ties with the United States. This pursuit took shape in the
Brussels Pact that was concluded by France, the United Kingdom, Belgium,
the Netherlands and Luxembourg in March 1948, and was formally a military
alliance against the threat from Germany. Subsequently the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949, which created a shared
military destiny between the United States and European countries against
the communist threat from the East: an attack on one of the countries was
conceived as an attack on all of them. The intensification of the Cold War
from 1948 forward resulted in plans for a European Defence Community
(EDC) in 1950.
The German question played a significant role in security policy. After
the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the Ger-
man Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in East Germany in that
same year. The United States insisted upon the rearmament of the Federal
Republic in 1950. That remilitarization had to do with increasing tensions
with the Soviet Union and the outbreak of the Korean War. A re-armed West
Germany would make Western Europe less vulnerable to an attack from
the East. At the head of the Federal Republic stood Adenauer, a Christian
Democrat and a Rhinelander, who with his policy of ‘Westbindung’ (‘con-
necting to the West’) wanted there to be no doubt that his Federal Republic
belonged to the West. This position was in contrast to Kurt Schumacher, his
Socialist political rival, who seemed to give priority to a ‘Wiedervereinigung’,
(‘re-unification’) of Germany that implied concessions to Moscow. In 1952
Stalin offered to allow both Germanies to re-unite, provided this re-united
Germany would be neutral in the Cold War. The Socialists in West Germany
were – in spite of their fierce anti-communism – more susceptible to this
notion than the Christian Democrats. Under Adenauer’s leadership, West
Germany withstood the tempting appeal from Moscow.
Many European countries felt no enthusiasm for an autonomous West-
German army with German commanders. Under pressure from his former
leader Monnet, French minister-president René Pleven therefore drafted a
plan for a European army. West German troops, would participate in this
army, thus expressing mutual reconciliation and the pursuit of peace in
Western Europe. The army would be under orders from a joint European
command. There was much resistance to establishing this European De-
fence Community. The Federal Republic initially had little say in the plan
and felt degraded as a result, whereas other potential participants were
afraid of too much West German power. The Americans were initially not
enthusiastic about the plan, because they saw it as a French attempt to drag
out the re-armament of the Federal Republic. Monnet hammered away at
the American allies about the need for integrating the Federal Republic
into Western Europe and convinced them of the value of the plan, which
was altered to the benefit of the Federal Republic. Under intense American
pressure, the EDC Treaty was signed in Paris on 27 May 1952. In accordance
with the usual procedures, the EDC could begin after the parliaments of
the Member States had ratified the treaty.
The political leadership of the EDC was to be in the hands of a suprana-
tional European Political Community (EPC). When the ECSC Assembly
came together for the first time on 10 September 1952, it was directly charged
with the task of drawing up a European Constitution. All at once it seemed
like a European federal state with a democratic parliament had come within
arm’s reach. For this occasion, the members of the Assembly of the ECSC
constituted a so-called Assemblée ad hoc, in which a few members from the
Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe were chosen as well. Their
selection was necessary for achieving the correct number of representatives
that had been granted each country in the EDC. A committee consisting
of 26 members was formed to draw up the constitution, with subcom-
mittees that tackled the questions of competences, political institutions
and external relations, respectively, of the envisioned EPC. The results of
the constitutional committee were discussed by the Assemblée ad hoc in
January 1953, after which the draft version of the statutes for the EPC was
tendered to the ministers.
Federalists wanted to take advantage of what they perceived as positive
public opinion. In the early 1950s, national branches of the European Move-
ment, a European lobbying group for European unity, organized several
referendums on European unity in selected West European cities. Just
how high expectations were in 1952 and 1953 among the population of, for
example, the Netherlands, and how great their enthusiasm, was apparent
in a trial referendum organized on 17 December 1952. Approximately 95
per cent of those entitled to vote who turned out in the Dutch towns of
Bolsward and Delft (considered to be representative for the Netherlands
as a whole) desired a united Europe with a European government and a
democratic representative body.
At the end of 1952, against a backdrop of talks concerning the EPC,
the Dutch minister for Foreign Affairs Wim Beyen presented the Beyen
Plan, for a customs union that was to make economic warfare as waged
in the 1930s impossible once and for all. During times of crisis, according
to leading politicians, a lax form of economic cooperation would not be

able to withstand the egoism of national states, which would want to solve
their own economic problems at the expense of their trading partners, if
necessary. Whereas France, specifically, did not in fact want any customs
union on account of the weak competitive strength of its own economy, the
Netherlands considered the Beyen Plan to be the most attractive component
of the agenda for European integration. The Dutch government did not want
any integration without also having something economically substantive
to it. For the Netherlands as a trading country, the creation of a customs
union and, subsequently, of a fully-developed common market constituted
a precondition for economic survival and modernization.
West European politicians were deeply suspicious that the EDC would
eventually come to be regarded as an opportunity for the U.S. to withdraw
its troops from Western Europe, which would imply a strong rise in defence
costs for Western European countries themselves. In 1953 the death of Stalin
led to a period of detente in the Cold War, and the Korean War ended in an
armistice. Once again the Americans had ratcheted up their military pres-
ence in Europe, and the need for a defence community seemed less urgent.
The plans for the EPC had already landed in a drawer in 1953. Ultimately,
the EDC Treaty was taken off the table by the French parliament, in 1954.
For European federalists this dismissal was a major disappointment. In all
other countries except Italy, the treaty had already been ratified. It signified
the definitive end for the EPC and the EDC.
Another solution was found for the rearmament of Germany, which was
to take place within the context of the EDC. In 1955 West Germany, along
with Italy, entered NATO by way of the Western European Union (WEU, a
1954 successor to the Brussels Pact). The countries in the Eastern bloc formed
the Warsaw Pact a few days after this accession. As a joint European voice
in NATO, the WEU never weighed very heavily, because the participants
were afraid that if they acted jointly they would distance themselves from
the United States. Tension between European cooperation in the area of
defence and the necessary support of the United States in NATO would
return as a problem in the 1990s.
‘Relance’
‘Relance’ (‘new start’) is the conventional term for the resumption of delibera-
tions concerning European integration after the rejection of the EDC. This
term gave expression to the hope and expectation of many contemporaries
that, in spite of that rejection, a kind of European unity was nevertheless in

the making, even if it still was not certain in the least in 1955. Monnet left his
post as the president of the ECSC’s High Authority prematurely, convinced
that he could better serve the mired process of integration elsewhere. In
October 1955, he set up the now famous Action Committee for the United
States of Europe, an organization that was to incite the most important
politicians into conducting a European policy. In that same year he and
Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian minister for Foreign Affairs, presented an
initiative to establish a community for atomic energy, the energy source of
the future. Much more broadly set up than this sectoral atomic community
of Monnet and Spaak was the new proposal by the Dutch minister Beyen
for a European market, which was to start off with a common customs
union. This union led to the EEC, which would become far and away the
most important Community of the European project as well as the most
important column upon which the European Union would be built two
generations later.
These plans were discussed by the assembled ministers for Foreign Affairs
from the ECSC Member States at the Conference of Messina in June 1955.
Subsequently, under Spaak’s leadership in Brussels, a report was drawn up
concerning the direction for this integration. Initially the British also took
part in these discussions, but they withdrew when it became clear that
the talks were aimed at the creation of a customs union. London did not
want to go any further than a free trade zone. Under Spaak’s leadership,
following his report, negotiations ensued over an economic community and
an atomic energy community in 1956 and 1957. During the negotiations in
Brussels talks concerning ‘supranational’ objectives were avoided by the
negotiators. After the rejection of the EDC as a result of French politics in
1954, no one wanted to endanger these new negotiations in any way at all.
The French were above all interested in the community for atomic energy
and had to take the customs union as part of the bargain. During negotia-
tions, the question for the French was whether their own economy was
competitive enough to remain standing in such a customs union. The French
demand for social ‘harmonization’ in Europe – the accomodation of generous
French policy in matters of overtime, vacation and equal pay for women
and men – ran into robust German resistance at a ministerial conference in
Paris in October 1956. During increasing international tensions however, as
a consequence of the Suez Crisis and of the defeat of the Hungarian uprising
by the Soviet Union, in November 1956, the willingness to compromise
increased on the part of both Adenauer as well as the French prime minister
Guy Mollet. American resistance to the Anglo-French military intervention
in the Suez convinced France that its interests did not run parallel to those of
the United States. The French gaze subsequently focussed on the European
continent. For the Federal Republic, too, it was international developments
that caused its willingness for European integration to increase. The Federal
Republic had no confidence in lasting protection from the United States and
saw in European integration a safeguard against communism from the East.
In the new harmonious relations between France and the Federal Re-
public, a supranational authority was no longer taboo. At the request of the
Netherlands and France earlier ideas about integration in the agricultural
sector were incorporated into the common market. A hot potato in the
concluding phase of the negotiations concerning the EEC Treaty was the
association of overseas territories, an affiliation desired by France and
Belgium, in which their colonies were to receive money from a European fund
to bring about development. Other Member States were not very enthusiastic
about paying for the colonial policy of France, in particular, which had been
wrapped up in a complicated and bloody war of decolonization in Algeria.
The laborious, conclusive negotiations were conducted by government
leaders and ministers for Foreign Affairs in February 1957. After an informal
bilateral meeting between Mollet and Adenauer, a breakthrough was reached
– an example of the Franco-German ‘engine’ in the process of integration.
During the negotiations, the United Kingdom entered into troubled
waters with the EEC as a result of coming up with its own proposal for a free
trade zone for industrial products within the framework of the OEEC – with-
out any plans for agriculture, though, on account of the cheap agricultural
imports by the United Kingdom from its own former colonies. With some
good faith, the proposed intergovernmental free trade zone could be seen
as a complement to the EEC. Yet many saw in it a divide-and-conquer tactic
by the British for torpedoing the EEC customs union – potentially a much
more powerful trading partner than the individual Member States. The
plan ran into resistance from Adenauer and Mollet, who stuck to a customs
union of ‘the Six’ (the common name for the six founding Member States
of the ECSC, the EEC and Euratom).
The Treaties of Rome were signed in a grand ceremony on 25 March 1957,
thus establishing the EEC and Euratom. More so than the establishment of
the ECSC, the establishment of the EEC and Euratom were considered by
many contemporaries to be the beginning of a common future for the Six.
The EEC and Euratom officially commenced as of 1 January 1958.
The EEC was to become a customs union in multiple steps. The existing
external tariffs differed among the countries of the Six. Those of a trading
country like the Netherlands were generally low compared to those of
France, which shielded its own economy from foreign competition with
these duties. As a trading country, the Netherlands benefited from low
common external tariffs and wanted to head toward a customs union at
high speed. This customs union subsequently needed – as agreed in the
EEC Treaty – to be developed further into a fully-fledged common market,
that is to say, with free cross-border movement of goods, as well as services,
capital and labour. Ultimately, these so-called ‘four freedoms’ have been
brought about in the European Union. In 1957, in contrast, Paris wanted high
external tariffs instead and tried to put the brakes on the speed of mutual
economic integration. The outcome of the negotiation process was high
external tariffs to start, which would be lowered subsequently in phases.
The customs union was completed in 1968.
In terms of institutions, the EEC and Euratom were each dressed up
with their own administrative bodies, which were comparable to the
High Authority of the ECSC. The Assembly was expanded from 78 to 142
members and henceforth also included the two new Communities in its
parliamentary oversight. While the ECSC Treaty still exclusively made
mention of the competency for exercising oversight by the Assembly, this
authority was expanded in the EEC Treaty and the Euratom Treaty to ‘the
powers of deliberation and control’. Later expansions of competences in the
European Parliament were based on that crucial addition.
In spite of the many similarities among Communities, the EEC and
Euratom had a different nature to that of the ECSC. In the two new Com-
munities, the Council was central to the decision-making process. From
the very beginning it was clear that the Member States would monitor their
national interests, whereby they would be supported by the Committee of
Permanent Representatives to the European Communities, the so-called
Coreper (Comité des Représentants Permanents).
Just like the ECSC, Euratom was a sectoral community, concentrating
on a demarcated economic sector. At the end of the 1950s it had become
clear that the primary interest of Member States was not in these kinds
of communities but in the much broader EEC. As a result, it also became
clear that the sectoral approach had become sidetracked. The EEC was less
‘supranational’ but at the same time more political than the ECSC. The High
Authority of the ECSC had to adhere strictly to the letter of the Treaty; the
Commission of the EEC could develop its own initiatives and thus expand
its power to bring about a political union – even though it was left in limbo
as to how the final objective exactly looked. The first president of the EEC
Commission, the German Christian Democrat Walter Hallstein, spoke of
the EEC as ‘the uncompleted federal state’ (‘der unvollendete Bundesstaat’).

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1.

Many Roads to Europe

European Cooperation Before the Second World War

Hitler’s New Order and the Federalist Europe of the Resistance

as a building block for broader political cooperation and unification in an

The Cold War and the German Question

problem for Western European countries was a shortage of dollars, caused

countries were evaluated internally. Subsequently, these proposals were

Intergovernmental and Federalist Routes to Europe

Functional economic cooperation among the nation states in Western Europe,

The Council of Europe had a Council of Ministers and a Consultative

Functionalist Routes to Europe

During the establishment of the Council of Europe, federalism proved to

economy. For that development and modernization, France needed German

Ministers of the Member States

Nominated and appointed

Nominated by labour and

by the Council of Ministers

High Authority Common Assembly

Nominated and appointed Delegates from the national

European institutions: Treaty of Paris (1951/1952)

Failed Attempt at a ‘Constitution’ for Europe

in Western Europe. It was feared that Western Europe would be handed

to leading politicians, a lax form of economic cooperation would not be

that, in spite of that rejection, a kind of European unity was nevertheless in

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